Trade unions in a free society

Ten unions a free seciety are as expresion of the funda me right of men and women to organise themselves in order is proses and promene thee intereses by collective action. It cannot he emumed, however, on the basis of the mere existence of trade unions that a society is democratie, since the ruling oligarchies in totalitarian societies of both the right and the left have made use of trade unions to achieve their ends. There are. However, basie differences in the powers and functions of trade unions under con dition of democracy and dictatorship

In a free society the right to organise implies the right to exercise the power that collective action carries within the scope of a liberal legal framework. A democratic society is, by definition, one in which power is not concentrated entirely or substantially in the hands of the government; in modern terms this means that power is diffused through a multiplicity of agencies. In other words voluntary organisations, such as trade unions, have an important role to play: they should, therefore, enjoy the freedom necessary to exercise their functions in industry and to exert political pressure on the govern ment to legislate in their favour.

A totalitarian state, by contrast, does not permit a voluntary association to exercise rights that might conflict with the policy of the government; therefore such independent institutions as trade unions have to be nationalised along with every other form of pri vate enterprise. Making trade unions into an agency of the state is justified by the argument that the state always acts in the best interest of the workers, and that it therefore follows logically that the duty of the unions is to ensure that the state achieves its ends.