The labour movement developed as a response to capitalism and the Industrial Revolution of the late 18th and early 19th centuries, at about the same time as socialism. The early goals of the movement were the right to unionise, the right to vote, democracy and the 40-hour week. As these were achieved in many of the advanced economies of western Europe and north America in the early decades of the 20th century, the labour movement expanded to issues of welfare and social insurance, wealth distribution and income distribution, public services like health care and education, social housing and common ownership. (Full article...)
A business union is a type of trade union that is opposed to class or revolutionary unionism and has the principle that unions should be run like businesses.
Business unions are believed to be of American origin, and the term has been applied in particular to phenomena characteristic of American unions. This idea originated over the court's[which?] difficulty when regulating worker's industrial rights, specifically following the decades after the Civil War. Hyman (1973) attributed the term "business unionism" to Hoxie, but Michael Goldfield (1987) notes that the term was in common usage before Hoxie published in 1915.
According to Goldfield, Hoxie used the term to describe trade-consciousness, rather than class-consciousness; in other words, according to Hoxie, business unionists were advocates of "pure and simple" trade unionism, as opposed to class or revolutionary unionism. This sort of business unionism is what Eugene Debs often referred to as the "old unionism". (Full article...)Significant dates in labour history.
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"When a scab comes down the street, men turn their backs, angels weep in heaven, and the Devil shuts the gates of Hell to keep him out. ... Judas Iscariot was a gentleman compared to a scab. For betraying his master, he had character enough to hang himself. A scab has not."
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