Trade Unions

A union is a collective organization aimed at defending the interests of its members. Trade unions defend mainly employment interests, but often economic and social interests as well. In Germany, France, and the United Kingdom, trade union activity was first tolerated, then legalized in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In the United States, the right to form trade unions was recognized in 1842, but it could not be truly exercised until the 1935 National Labor Relations Act (Wagner Act), 29 U.S.C. §§ 151–169 (2000). Trade unions developed later in Africa, Asia, and South America.

The relationship between trade unionism and political forces is complex. In France, trade union involvement in politics is prohibited by the Law of March 21, 1884, even though part of the labor movement favors politicized unions. The situation differs in Great Britain, where trade unions are closely intertwined with politics (the Labour Party is an outgrowth of the Trade Union Congress). In Germany, trade union forces organized independently of political parties starting in 1945.

The relationship between individual freedom and group coercion varies from country to country. In France, legislation in 1884 favored individuals over organizations: workers did not have to belong to a union. Hence, contemporary French trade unions are fragile, as they have no way of pressuring workers to join. In Great Britain, trade unions use the closed-shop system, which requires trade union members to get a job in a workplace that has a union; the Margaret Thatcher government limited the practice in the 1980s. In the United States, the Taft-Hartley Act, also known as the Labor-Management Relations Act, amended the Wagner Act in 1947 and prohibited closed shops. Instead, American unions adopted the union-shop method, requiring newcomers in unionized workshops to join the union within thirty days.

The status of trade unions versus industrial unions (a union of all workers in a given industry) is in flux. Industrial unions dominate in France. Although trade unions have long prevailed in Great Britain, they have now been supplanted by industrial unions. In the United States, the American Federation of Labor (AFL) was mainly composed of trade unions, and the Congress of Industrial Organization (CIO) of industrial unions. The two groups merged in 1955.

The sociology of law studies the history of the legal norms underlying the trade union as a legal form. It also studies how trade unions produce rules in labor law. Trade unions mainly transform labor law through collective bargaining, which is associated with lawmaking when management and labor draw up laws or are responsible for implementing them. Collective bargaining is widespread in the United States and in Europe.