trade union

trade union Any organization of employees established in order to substitute, or attempt to substitute, collective bargaining for individual bargaining in the labour-market. Unions seek generally to ensure that earnings and conditions are governed by rules applied consistently across their membership—although many unions also have broader social and political aims. Some are also professional associations.

It is customary to classify unions into types, according to the constituency from which they recruit, in the following way: craft (exclusive to skilled workers); occupational (all workers in an occupation regardless of industry); industrial (all workers in an industry regardless of occupation); general (amalgamations of occupational and industrial organization); and enterprise (all workers in a single company or plant). However, in practice, the typology breaks down in the face of the complexities of actual trade unionism. Numerous controversies surround unions. Can they, in the long run, raise labour's income-share in the face of market forces? How far are they an expression of a limited trade-union consciousness as against a common class consciousness oriented towards the pursuit of the interests of the labour movement as a whole? How are they affected by the particular goals, traditions, and political culture of their leaders, and of the rank-and-file? Do they embody an inherent contradiction between their democratic or populist origin and the oligarchy necessary to effective leadership? There are extensive sociological literatures addressing all of these questions. See also CORPORATE SOCIETY; LENIN; MICHELS, ROBERT; PROFESSIONS; UNIONATENESS.