organized labour

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Marchers in New York City supporting the striking Writers Guild of America, May 2023.

Erik McGregor—LightRocket via Getty Images

organized labour, association and activities of workers in a trade or industry for the purpose of obtaining or assuring improvements in working conditions through their collective action.

British trade unionism has a long and continuous history. Medieval guilds, which regulated craft production, clearly differed in function from trade unions, in that guilds were combinations of both masters and workers while modern unions emerged to serve workers’ interests alone. However, aspects of guild regulation—as in matters relating to apprenticeship—were incorporated into the objectives of early unionism, so that some continuity may be discerned between the decay of the one form of organization and the emergence of the other. Examples of the trade-union form of organization are hard to trace before the late 17th century; but during the following hundred years, combinations, as they were known to contemporaries, became widespread, emerging among groups of handicraft workers such as tailors, carpenters, and printers. Their emergence at this period was a result of the development of manufacturing and commerce on a capitalist basis. The number of handicraft workers within the economy was expanding, yet for such workers the prospect of making the transition from journeyman to master was diminishing. Both the rising demand for their labour and their emerging status as permanent employees were essential elements in this early development of labour organization. An additional factor, related to the rise of capitalism, was the progressive withdrawal of the state from wage regulation in particular and from labour-market intervention more generally. This was confirmed by the repeal, in 1813 and 1814, of legislation that had provided for the fixing of wages by justices and had stipulated apprenticeship requirements for entry into a trade. The state’s withdrawal from labour-market regulation raised with some urgency the issue of the legality of trade unions. Under the Combination Acts of 1799 and 1800, a general prohibition had been placed upon them, in addition to the restraints imposed by the common law of conspiracy. Such a general prohibition now appeared anomalous and unjust, and it was indeed removed by legislation in 1824 and 1825. Common law impediments remained.

In the ensuing period, unions multiplied. As in the previous century, they were typically local in scope and craft in composition. Even in the emerging mechanized and factory-based sector, the relatively unsophisticated technology and managerial organization required the employment of skilled tradesmen, and these were assimilated into combinations based on the craft pattern of organization; engineers, boilermakers, and cotton spinners are examples. Yet, at this stage, the structure of unionism was still sufficiently fluid to permit widespread experimentation. During the 1830s there developed a movement toward “general unionism,” directed both at establishing organization nationally and at drawing the various organized trades into alliance with one another. The pioneer in this movement was the cotton spinners’ leader, John Doherty, but much of its impetus derived from Robert Owen, whose ideal of cooperative as against capitalist production found widespread support. The most ambitious Owenite union project was the Grand National Consolidated Trades Union of 1833–34, designed to embrace the whole of labour though in practice focused on London tailors and shoemakers. Inherently unstable, as were the other broad labour formations of the period, this union did not expire without leaving an enduring legacy. Six Dorsetshire agricultural labourers—the Tolpuddle Martyrs—were convicted and sentenced to transportation to Australia for swearing a secret oath in connection with the union. The union mounted a major campaign on their behalf, and this episode is still cherished by the modern labour movement as symbolic of its early struggle.

British settlers brought their customs with them to Australia and New Zealand, and, accordingly, early unions there corresponded closely to the pattern of the home country. The penal character of the settlements established in Australia from the late 18th century was hardly conducive to forming workers’ combinations, but the transition from convict to free settlement brought the first signs of union activity. Local societies of craftsmen were operating in the 1830s and ’40s, ostensibly for the purpose of providing friendly benefits for their members but in practice for trade purposes as well. Groups involved in these societies included printers, tailors, building craftsmen, and engineers. With the expansion of the economy from the 1850s, such groups formed the basis for permanent trade unions. The emerging pattern was one of craft unionism, in which Australian unions, like their counterparts in Britain, sought to restrict entry into and regulate working conditions within their respective trades. In Britain, during the middle decades of the century, a number of such unions developed their organization on a national basis. The most famous were the Amalgamated Society of Engineers and the Amalgamated Society of Carpenters and Joiners, constituted in 1851 and 1860, respectively. In Australia the main impetus to the national organization of trades came later, with the federation of the separate colonies in 1901.

In both countries, as unions consolidated their organization on independent and sectional lines, collaboration became a means of securing common legislative objectives rather than concerting industrial activity. This was classically the case with the British Trades Union Congress (TUC), an annual union assembly initiated in 1868 with a view to lobbying the legislature through a standing Parliamentary Committee. The model was followed in Australia, where, beginning in 1879, a number of Intercolonial Trade Union Congresses were held, partly with a view to encouraging the formation of parliamentary committees in each of the self-governing colonies. Such political activity certainly achieved a further clarification of the unions’ legal status. Legislation removing various remaining impediments was passed in Britain in 1871 and 1875; similar measures followed in all the Australian colonies between 1876 and 1902 and in New Zealand in 1878. Though the three societies differed in many respects, their broadly liberal character had, so far, proved accommodating to trade unionism. In Britain especially, unions had themselves contributed to this effect. As highly visible, stable, and professionally administered organizations, the national craft unions of the mid-19th century contrasted with the more secretive and volatile unions of the preceding era.