Challenge to labor

WHAT are Trade Unions? In Great Britain the legal definition of them, in the Trade Union Acts, includes employers' as well as workers' associations; and a few unimportant employers' bodies are actually registered as Trade Unions under the law. But in common parlance a Trade Union means an association of workers in one or more occupations-an association carried on mainly for the purpose of protecting and advancing the members' economic interests in connection with their daily work. This need not be its sole purpose; and in fact many Trade Unions do many things which either fall outside this range of objects, or are only con nected with them indirectly. Trade Unions enter into educational activities over a wide field; they take part in politics; and they act as friendly societies for the provision of benefits in sickness or old age, as well as in cases of unemployment or trade dispute. In creasingly, where they are strong and have won a large measure of recognition from Governments as well as from employers, they appoint representatives to all manner of Councils and committees dealing with questions of social and economic policy; and in some cases they participate in the control or management of industrial enterprises or are given a special status in schemes for joint consultation concerning such matters as productivity or the prevention of accidents. (Trade Union functions have developed rapidly in recent years in the countries where they are strongly organised (and these developments have raised a number of problems about Trade Union policy and method problems to be considered later in this book.

But, whatever else a Trade Union may do, no body is com monly thought of as a Trade Union (or regarded as one by the law) unless one of its main purposes is the defence of its members' economic interests. A Trade Union is essentially a body of workers designed to do, for its members by combination things which these persons, acting in isolation, could not do for themselves. It is meant especially to help them to get collectively better terms of employment or service than they could expect to get if each individual had to make a private bargain.