1.
Timeline of labor issues and events
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Timeline of organized labor history 16191619 Jamestown Polish craftsmen strike 1636 Maine Indentured Servants and Fishermans Mutiny. 1648 Boston Coopers and Shoemakers form guilds,1677 New York City Carters Strike. 1684 New York City Carters Strike,1741 New York City Bakers Strike. 1774 Hibernia, New Jersey, Ironworks Strike,1778 Journeymen printers in New York combine to increase their wages. 1791 Philadelphia carpenters conduct first strike in the trades in the United States. 1792 Philadelphia has first local union in the United States organized to conduct collective bargaining,1794 Federal Society of Journeymen Cordwainers formed in Philadelphia. 1797 Profit sharing originated at Albert Gallatins glassworks in New Geneva,1799 Combination Act outlawed trade unionism and collective bargaining by workers. 1805 Journeymen Cordwainers union includes a clause in its constitution in New York City. 1806 Commonwealth v. Pullis was the first known court case arising from a strike in the United States. After a three-day trial, the found the defendants guilty of a combination to raise their wages. 1816 Food riots broke out in East Anglia, Workers demanded a double wage and for the setting of triple prices for food. 1824 The Combination Act of 1799 was repealed,1824 Pawtucket, Rhode Island, Textile Strike. 1825 United Tailoresses of New York organized in New York City,1825 Boston House Carpenters Strike 1827 Mechanics Union of Trades Associations formed in Philadelphia. 1828 Workingmens Party was organized in Philadelphia by the Mechanics Union of Trades Associations and their efforts lead directly to the forming of the Workingmens Party of New York. 1829 Workingmens Party of New York formed,1831 New England Association of Farmers, Mechanics, and other Workingmen formed. Fifty-five workers in Norwich were convicted of breaking and rioting by one of the Special Commissions sent by the Whig Ministry to suppress insurgent workers. Three workers in Ipswich were convicted of extorting money by one of the Special Commissions sent by the Whig Ministry to suppress insurgent workers, twenty-six workers in Petworth were convicted of machine breaking and rioting by one of the Special Commissions sent by the Whig Ministry to suppress insurgent workers. Upwards of thirty workers in Gloucester were convicted of breaking and rioting by one of the Special Commissions sent by the Whig Ministry to suppress insurgent workers
2.
Proletariat
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The proletariat is a term for the class of wage-earners, in a capitalist society, whose only possession of significant material value is their labor-power, a member of such a class is a proletarian. The proletarii constituted a class of Roman citizens owning little or no property. This assembly, which met on the Campus Martius to discuss public policy issues, was also used as a means of designating military duties demanded of Roman citizens. The top infantry class assembled with full arms and armor, the two classes brought arms and armor, but less and lesser, the fourth class only spears. In voting, the cavalry and top class were enough to decide an issue, as voting started at the top. As a result of the Marian reforms initiated in 107 B. C. by the Roman general Gaius Marius, proletarians are wage-workers, while some refer to those who receive salaries as the salariat. For Marx, however, wage labor may involve getting a salary rather than a wage per se, intermediate positions are possible, where some wage-labor for an employer combines with self-employment. Socialist parties have often struggled over the question of whether they should seek to organize and represent all the lower classes, according to Marxism, capitalism is a system based on the exploitation of the proletariat by the bourgeoisie. Instead of hiring those means of production, they themselves get hired by capitalists and work for them and these goods or services become the property of the capitalist, who sells them at the market. Surplus value is the difference between the wealth that the proletariat produces through its work, and the wealth it consumes to survive and to provide labor to the capitalist companies. A part of the value is used to renew or increase the means of production, either in quantity or quality. What remains is consumed by the capitalist class, the commodities that proletarians produce and capitalists sell are valued for the amount of labor embodied in them. The same goes for the labor power itself, it is valued, not for the amount of wealth it produces. Marxists argue that new wealth is created through labor applied to natural resources, prole drift, short for proletarian drift, is a term that suggests the tendency in advanced industrialized societies for everything inexorably to become proletarianized, or to become commonplace. This trend is attributed to mass production, mass selling, mass communication, examples include best-seller lists, films and music that must appeal to the masses and shopping malls. Why workers can change the world, hal Draper, Karl Marxs Theory of Revolution, Vol.2, The Politics of Social Classes
3.
Socialism
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Social ownership may refer to forms of public, collective, or cooperative ownership, to citizen ownership of equity, or to any combination of these. Although there are varieties of socialism and there is no single definition encapsulating all of them. Socialist economic systems can be divided into both non-market and market forms, non-market socialism aims to circumvent the inefficiencies and crises traditionally associated with capital accumulation and the profit system. Profits generated by these firms would be controlled directly by the workforce of each firm or accrue to society at large in the form of a social dividend, the feasibility and exact methods of resource allocation and calculation for a socialist system are the subjects of the socialist calculation debate. Core dichotomies associated with these concerns include reformism versus revolutionary socialism, the term is frequently used to draw contrast to the political system of the Soviet Union, which critics argue operated in an authoritarian fashion. By the 1920s, social democracy and communism became the two dominant political tendencies within the international socialist movement, by this time, Socialism emerged as the most influential secular movement of the twentieth century, worldwide. Socialist parties and ideas remain a force with varying degrees of power and influence in all continents. Today, some socialists have also adopted the causes of social movements. The origin of the term socialism may be traced back and attributed to a number of originators, in addition to significant historical shifts in the usage, for Andrew Vincent, The word ‘socialism’ finds its root in the Latin sociare, which means to combine or to share. The related, more technical term in Roman and then medieval law was societas and this latter word could mean companionship and fellowship as well as the more legalistic idea of a consensual contract between freemen. The term socialism was created by Henri de Saint-Simon, one of the founders of what would later be labelled utopian socialism. Simon coined socialism as a contrast to the doctrine of individualism. They presented socialism as an alternative to liberal individualism based on the ownership of resources. The term socialism is attributed to Pierre Leroux, and to Marie Roch Louis Reybaud in France, the term communism also fell out of use during this period, despite earlier distinctions between socialism and communism from the 1840s. An early distinction between socialism and communism was that the former aimed to only socialise production while the latter aimed to socialise both production and consumption. However, by 1888 Marxists employed the term socialism in place of communism, linguistically, the contemporary connotation of the words socialism and communism accorded with the adherents and opponents cultural attitude towards religion. In Christian Europe, of the two, communism was believed to be the atheist way of life, in Protestant England, the word communism was too culturally and aurally close to the Roman Catholic communion rite, hence English atheists denoted themselves socialists. Friedrich Engels argued that in 1848, at the time when the Communist Manifesto was published, socialism was respectable on the continent and this latter branch of socialism produced the communist work of Étienne Cabet in France and Wilhelm Weitling in Germany
4.
Anarcho-syndicalism
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The basic principles of anarcho-syndicalism are solidarity, direct action and direct democracy, or workers self-management. The end goal of anarcho-syndicalism is to abolish the wage system, Anarcho-syndicalist theory therefore generally focuses on the labour movement. Reflecting the anarchist philosophy from which it draws its primary inspiration, hubert Lagardelle wrote that Pierre-Joseph Proudhon laid out fundamental ideas of anarcho-syndicalism, and repudiated both capitalism and the state in the process. He viewed free economic groups and struggle, not pacifism as dominant in humans, the CNT started small, counting 26,571 members represented through several trade unions and other confederations. In 1911, coinciding with its first congress, the CNT initiated a strike that provoked a Barcelona judge to declare the union illegal until 1914. That same year of 1911, the union officially received its name. From 1918 on the CNT grew stronger, the CNT had an outstanding role in the events of the La Canadiense general strike, which paralyzed 70% of industry in Catalonia in 1919, the year the CNT reached a membership of 700,000. Around that time, panic spread among employers, giving rise to the practice of pistolerismo and these pistoleros are credited with killing 21 union leaders in 48 hours. In 1922 the International Workers Association was founded in Berlin, the CNT joined immediately, however, the following year, with the rise of Miguel Primo de Riveras dictatorship, the labor union was outlawed, once again. The first secretaries of the International included the writer and activist Rudolph Rocker, along with Augustin Souchy. Following the first congress, other groups affiliated from France, Austria, Denmark, Belgium, Switzerland, Bulgaria, Poland and Romania. Later, a bloc of unions in the USA, Colombia, Peru, Ecuador, Guatemala, Cuba, Costa Rica and El Salvador also shared the IWAs statutes. The biggest syndicalist union in the USA, the IWW, considered joining but eventually ruled out affiliation in 1936, citing the IWAs policies on religious and political affiliation. The Industrial Workers of the World, although not anarcho-syndicalist, were informed by developments in the revolutionary syndicalist milieu at the turn of the 20th century. Although the terms anarcho-syndicalism and revolutionary syndicalism are often used interchangeably, the Biennio Rosso was a two-year period, between 1919 and 1920, of intense social conflict in Italy, following the first world war. The Biennio Rosso took place in a context of crisis at the end of the war, with high unemployment. It was characterized by strikes, worker manifestations as well as self-management experiments through land. In Turin and Milan, workers councils were formed and many factory occupations took place under the leadership of anarcho-syndicalists, the agitations also extended to the agricultural areas of the Padan plain and were accompanied by peasant strikes, rural unrests and guerilla conflicts between left-wing and right-wing militias
5.
Child labour
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This practice is considered exploitative by many international organisations. Legislation across the world prohibit child labour, Child labour has existed to varying extents, through most of history. During the 19th and early 20th centuries, many children aged 5–14 from poorer families still worked in Europe and these children mainly worked in agriculture, home-based assembly operations, factories, mining and in services such as news boys. Some worked night shifts lasting 12 hours, with the rise of household income, availability of schools and passage of child labour laws, the incidence rates of child labour fell. In developing countries, with poverty and poor schooling opportunities. In 2010, sub-saharan Africa had the highest incidence rates of child labour, worldwide agriculture is the largest employer of child labour. Vast majority of labour is found in rural settings and informal urban economy, children are predominantly employed by their parents. Poverty and lack of schools are considered as the cause of child labour. Globally the incidence of child labour decreased from 25% to 10% between 1960 and 2003, according to the World Bank. Nevertheless, the number of child labourers remains high, with UNICEF. Child labour forms a part of pre-industrial economies. In pre-industrial societies, there is rarely a concept of childhood in the modern sense, Children often begin to actively participate in activities such as child rearing, hunting and farming as soon as they are competent. In many societies, children as young as 13 are seen as adults, the work of children was important in pre-industrial societies, as children needed to provide their labour for their survival and that of their group. In pre-industrial societies, there was little need for children to attend school and this is especially the case in non literate societies. Most pre-industrial skill and knowledge were amenable to being passed down through direct mentoring or apprenticing by competent adults, with the onset of the Industrial Revolution in Britain in the late 18th century, there was a rapid increase in the industrial exploitation of labour, including child labour. Industrial cities such as Birmingham, Manchester and Liverpool rapidly grew from small villages into large cities and these cities drew in the population that was rapidly growing due to increased agricultural output. This process was replicated in other industrialising counties, the Victorian era in particular became notorious for the conditions under which children were employed. Children as young as four were employed in factories and mines working long hours in dangerous, often fatal
6.
Eight-hour day
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The use of child labour was common. The working day could range from 10 to 16 hours for six days a week, robert Owen had raised the demand for a ten-hour day in 1810, and instituted it in his socialist enterprise at New Lanark. By 1817 he had formulated the goal of the day and coined the slogan, Eight hours labour, Eight hours recreation. Women and children in England were granted the day in 1847. French workers won the 12-hour day after the February revolution of 1848, a shorter working day and improved working conditions were part of the general protests and agitation for Chartist reforms and the early organisation of trade unions. Karl Marx saw it as of importance to the workers health, saying in Das Kapital, By extending the working day, therefore. The first international treaty to mention it was the Treaty of Versailles in the annex of its thirteen part establishing the International Labour Office, now the International Labour Organization. The eight-hour day was the first topic discussed by the International Labour Organization which resulted in the Hours of Work Convention,1919 ratified by 52 countries as of 2016. The eight-hour day movement forms part of the history for the celebration of Labour Day. In Iran in 1918, the work of reorganizing the trade began in earnest in Tehran during the closure of the Iranian constitutional parliament Majles. In 1918, the newly organised union staged a 14-day strike and succeeded in reaching an agreement with employers to institute the eight-hours day, overtime pay. The success of the printers union encouraged other trades to organize, in 1919 the bakers and textile-shop clerks formed their own trade unions. In 1946 the council of ministers issued the first labor law for Iran, the first company to introduce an eight-hour working day in Japan was the Kawasaki Dockyards in Kobe. An eight-hour day was one of the demands presented by the workers during pay negotiations in September 1919, after the company resisted the demands, a slowdown campaign was commenced by the workers on 18 September. After ten days of action, company president Kōjirō Matsukata agreed to the eight-hour day and wage increases on 27 September. The effects of the action were felt nationwide and inspired further industrial action at the Kawasaki, the eight-hour day did not become law in Japan until the passing of the Labor Standards Act in April 1947. Article 32 of the Act specifies a 40-hour week and paragraph specifies an eight-hour day, the Eight-hour day was enacted in France by Georges Clemenceau, as a way to avoid unemployment and diminish communist support. It was succeeded by a strong French support of it during the writing of the International Labour Organization Convention of 1919, at the turn of the 20th century the eight-hour day was introduced by Ernst Abbe at the Zeiss plants in Jena
7.
Collective bargaining
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The interests of the employees are commonly presented by representatives of a trade union to which the employees belong. The union may negotiate with an employer or may negotiate with a group of businesses, depending on the country. A collective agreement functions as a contract between an employer and one or more unions. The parties often refer to the result of the negotiation as a bargaining agreement or as a collective employment agreement. The term collective bargaining was first used in 1891 by Beatrice Webb and it refers to the sort of collective negotiations and agreements that had existed since the rise of trade unions during the 18th century. In the United States, the National Labor Relations Act of 1935 made it illegal for any employer to deny rights to an employee. The issue of unionizing government employees in a trade union was much more controversial until the 1950s. In 1962 President John F Kennedy issued an order granting Federal employees the right to unionize. The right to bargain is recognized through international human rights conventions. Article 23 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights identifies the ability to trade unions as a fundamental human right. In June 2007 the Supreme Court of Canada extensively reviewed the rationale for regarding collective bargaining as a human right, Collective bargaining permits workers to achieve a form of workplace democracy and to ensure the rule of law in the workplace. Workers gain a voice to influence the establishment of rules that control an aspect of their lives. Union members and other covered by collective agreements get, on average. Such a markup is typically 5 to 10 percent in industrial countries, unions tend to equalize the income distribution, especially between skilled and unskilled workers. The welfare loss associated with unions is 0.2 to 0.5 of GDP, in the United States, the National Labor Relations Act covers most collective agreements in the private sector. It is also illegal to require any employee to join a union as a condition of employment, unions are also exempt from antitrust law in the hope that members may collectively fix a higher price for their labour. Once the workers committee and management have agreed on a contract, if approved, the contract is usually in force for a fixed term of years, and when that term is up, it is then renegotiated between employees and management. Sometimes there are disputes over the contract, this particularly occurs in cases of workers fired without just cause in a union workplace
8.
Minimum wage
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A minimum wage is the lowest remuneration that employers must legally pay their workers. Equivalently, it is the floor below which workers may not sell their labor. Although minimum wage laws are in effect in many jurisdictions, differences of opinion exist about the benefits, supporters of the minimum wage say it increases the standard of living of workers, reduces poverty, reduces inequality, boosts morale and forces businesses to be more efficient. Modern minimum wage laws trace their origin to the Ordinance of Labourers, King Edward III, who was a wealthy landowner, was dependent, like his lords, on serfs to work the land. In the autumn of 1348, the Black Plague reached England, the severe shortage of labor caused wages to soar and encouraged King Edward III to set a wage ceiling. Subsequent amendments to the ordinance, such as the Statute of Labourers, while the laws governing wages initially set a ceiling on compensation, they were eventually used to set a living wage. An amendment to the Statute of Labourers in 1389 effectively fixed wages to the price of food, as time passed, the Justice of the Peace, who was charged with setting the maximum wage, also began to set formal minimum wages. The practice was eventually formalized with the passage of the Act Fixing a Minimum Wage in 1604 by King James I for workers in the textile industry. By the early 19th century, the Statutes of Labourers was repealed as increasingly capitalistic England embraced laissez-faire policies which disfavored regulations of wages, the subsequent 19th century saw significant labor unrest affect many industrial nations. As trade unions were decriminalized during the century, attempts to control wages through collective agreement were made, however, this meant that a uniform minimum wage was not possible. It was not until the 1890s that the first modern attempts to regulate minimum wages were seen in New Zealand. The movement for a wage was initially focused on stopping sweatshop labor. The sweatshops employed large numbers of women and young workers, paying them what were considered to be substandard wages, the sweatshop owners were thought to have unfair bargaining power over their employees, and a minimum wage was proposed as a means to make them pay fairly. Over time, the changed to helping people, especially families. The first modern national minimum wage law was enacted by the government of New Zealand in 1894, followed by Australia in 1896, in the United States, statutory minimum wages were first introduced nationally in 1938, and they were reintroduced and expanded in the United Kingdom in 1998. There is now legislation or binding collective bargaining regarding minimum wage in more than 90 percent of all countries, in the European Union,22 member states out of 28 currently have national minimum wages. Currently the American federal minimum wage rests at seven dollars, twenty-five cents per hour, however, some states do not recognize the minimum wage law such as Louisiana and Tennessee. Other states operate below the minimum wage such as Georgia
9.
Occupational safety and health
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These terms of course also refer to the goals of this field, so their use in the sense of this article was originally an abbreviation of occupational safety and health program/department etc. The goals of occupational safety and health programs include to foster a safe, OSH may also protect co-workers, family members, employers, customers, and many others who might be affected by the workplace environment. In the United States, the occupational health and safety is referred to as occupational health and occupational and non-occupational safety. In common-law jurisdictions, employers have a common law duty to take care of the safety of their employees. As defined by the World Health Organization occupational health deals with all aspects of health, Health has been defined as a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity. Occupational health is a field of healthcare concerned with enabling an individual to undertake their occupation. Health has been defined as It contrasts, for example, with the promotion of health and safety at work, since 1950, the International Labour Organization and the World Health Organization have shared a common definition of occupational health. It was adopted by the Joint ILO/WHO Committee on Occupational Health at its first session in 1950, the concept of working culture is intended in this context to mean a reflection of the essential value systems adopted by the undertaking concerned. Such a culture is reflected in practice in the systems, personnel policy, principles for participation, training policies. Professionals advise on a range of occupational health matters. The research and regulation of safety and health are a relatively recent phenomenon. As labor movements arose in response to concerns in the wake of the industrial revolution. The initial remit of the Inspectorate was to police restrictions on the hours in the textile industry of children. The commission sparked public outrage resulted in the Mines Act of 1842. Otto von Bismarck inaugurated the first social insurance legislation in 1883, similar acts followed in other countries, partly in response to labor unrest. Although work provides many economic and other benefits, an array of workplace hazards also present risks to the health. Personal protective equipment can protect against many of these hazards. Physical hazards affect many people in the workplace, Falls are also a common cause of occupational injuries and fatalities, especially in construction, extraction, transportation, healthcare, and building cleaning and maintenance
10.
Trade union
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The trade union, through its leadership, bargains with the employer on behalf of union members and negotiates labour contracts with employers. The most common purpose of these associations or unions is maintaining or improving the conditions of their employment and this may include the negotiation of wages, work rules, complaint procedures, rules governing hiring, firing and promotion of workers, benefits, workplace safety and policies. Unions may organize a section of skilled workers, a cross-section of workers from various trades. The agreements negotiated by a union are binding on the rank and file members, originating in Great Britain, trade unions became popular in many countries during the Industrial Revolution. Trade unions may be composed of workers, professionals, past workers, students. Trade union density, or the percentage of workers belonging to a union, is highest in the Nordic countries. The trade unions aim at nothing less than to prevent the reduction of wages below the level that is maintained in the various branches of industry. That is to say, they wish to prevent the price of labour-power from falling below its value, yet historian R. A. the other the aggressive-expansionist drive to unite all labouring men and women for a different order of things. The 18th century economist Adam Smith noted the imbalance in the rights of workers in regards to owners. In The Wealth of Nations, Book I, chapter 8, Smith wrote, We rarely hear, it has said, of the combination of masters. But whoever imagines, upon this account, that masters rarely combine, is as ignorant of the world as of the subject. Masters are always and everywhere in a sort of tacit, but constant and uniform combination, not to raise the wages of labor above their actual rate When workers combine, masters. As Smith noted, unions were illegal for many years in most countries, there were severe penalties for attempting to organize unions, up to and including execution. This pool of unskilled and semi-skilled labour spontaneously organized in fits and starts throughout its beginnings, Trade unions and collective bargaining were outlawed from no later than the middle of the 14th century when the Ordinance of Labourers was enacted in the Kingdom of England. In 1799, the Combination Act was passed, which banned trade unions, although the unions were subject to often severe repression until 1824, they were already widespread in cities such as London. Sympathy for the plight of the workers brought repeal of the acts in 1824, by the 1810s, the first labour organizations to bring together workers of divergent occupations were formed. Possibly the first such union was the General Union of Trades, also known as the Philanthropic Society, the latter name was to hide the organizations real purpose in a time when trade unions were still illegal. The Association quickly enrolled approximately 150 unions, consisting mostly of textile related unions, but also including mechanics, blacksmiths, and various others
11.
International comparisons of trade unions
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Unions have been compared across countries by growth and decline patterns, by violence levels, and by kinds of political activity. In the mid-1950s, 36% of the United States labor force was unionized, at Americas union peak in the 1950s, union membership was lower in the United States than in most comparable countries. By 1989, that figure had dropped to about 16%, the lowest percentage of any developed democracy, union membership for other developed democracies, in 1986/87 were, 95% in Sweden and Denmark. 85% in Finland Over 60% in Norway and Austria Over 50% in Australia, Ireland, in 1987, United States unionization was 37 points below the average of seventeen countries surveyed, down from 17 points below average in 1970. Between 1970 and 1987, union membership declined in three other countries, Austria, by 3%, Japan, by 7%, and the Netherlands. In the United States, union membership had declined by 14%, in 2008,12. 4% of U. S. wage and salary workers were union members. 36. 8% of public workers were union members. The most unionized sectors of the economy have had the greatest decline in union membership, from 1953 to the late 1980s membership in construction fell from 84% to 22%, manufacturing from 42% to 25%, mining from 65% to 15%, and transportation from 80% to 37%. From 1971 to the late 1980s, there was a 10% drop in membership in the U. S. public sector. For comparison, there was no drop in membership in the private sector in Sweden. In other countries included, 2% in Canada, 3% in Norway, 6% in West Germany, 7% in Switzerland, 9% in Austria, 14% in the United Kingdom. The General Confederation of Labour is a trade union center. Until the 1990s it was linked to the French Communist Party. It is the largest in terms of votes, and second largest in terms of membership numbers. Its membership decreased to 650,000 members in 1995–96, before increasing today to between 700,000 and 720,000 members, slightly fewer than the Confédération Française Démocratique du Travail. The CGT is concentrating its attention, in particular since the 1995 general strikes, the French Democratic Confederation of Labour, CFDT is one of the five major confederations. It is the largest French trade union confederation by number of members, the CFDT was created in 1964 when a majority of the members of the Christian trade union Confédération Française des Travailleurs Chrétiens decided to become secular. The minority kept the name CFTC, Labour unions emerged in Japan in the second half of the Meiji period, after 1890, as the country underwent a period of rapid industrialization
12.
International Trade Union Confederation
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The International Trade Union Confederation is the worlds largest trade union federation. It was formed on 1 November 2006, out of the merger of the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions, the Founding Congress of the ITUC was held in Vienna and was preceded by the dissolution congresses of both the ICFTU and the WCL. The ITUC represents 176 million workers through its 328 affiliated organisations within 162 countries and territories, Sharan Burrow is the current General Secretary. Also in 2014, the ITUC debuted the Global Rights Index, which ranks nations on 97 metrics pertaining to rights, such as freedom from violent conditions. The founding congress of the ITUC was held from 1 to 3 November 2006 in Vienna, the first day of the congress saw the formal creation of the ITUC followed by an address by Juan Somavia, the Director-General of the International Labour Organization. Technical difficulties limited Lamys satellite video link participation, leadership and officers were elected on the final day of the congress. Guy Ryder, the general secretary of the ICFTU, was elected to the same position in the new organisation. A Governing Council was established, with 70 elected members, and 8 additional seats reserved for youth, a Council of Global Unions was also formed on the final day of the congress. It was established jointly with ten global union federations and the Trade Union Advisory Committee to the OECD, the second congress of the ITUC was held from 21 to 25 June 2010 in Vancouver, Canada. On 25 June 2010, at the conclusion of the congress, Sharan Burrow was elected General Secretary, in anticipation of her election, Burrow had resigned from her position as President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions effective 1 July 2010. Speaking to the Congress after her election, Burrow paid tribute to her predecessor, but the investment in and participation of women is not only a moral mandate it is an investment in democracy and a bulwark against fundamentalism and oppression. Organising woman is and must continue to be a priority for the ITUC, the Pan-European Regional Council, a European trade union organisation within the ITUC was formed 19 March 2007. It consists of 87 national trade union centres and a membership of 87 million. It works closely with the European Trade Union Confederation, and Bernadette Ségol is currently the secretary of both organisations. ITUC has been blamed for using doubtful means during their investigations in countries like Qatar, Kuwait, iTUCs relationship with the Gulf appears to have assumed an adversarial one. Global union federation List of federations of trade unions World Federation of Trade Unions General Confederation of Trade Unions Decent work Fabio Bertini, Gilliatt e la piovra
13.
International Workers' Association
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The International Workers Association is an international federation of anarcho-syndicalist labor unions and initiatives. At its peak the International represented millions of people worldwide and its member unions played a central role in the social conflicts of the 1920s and 1930s. However the International was formed as many countries were entering periods of extreme repression, as a result, by the end of World War II all but one of the Internationals branches, had ceased to function as unions, a slump which continued throughout the 1940s and 1950s. It would not be until the late 1970s, with the death of Spanish dictator Francisco Franco, that it would see a major union, after the 1970s, the International expanded and currently counts 11 member sections and 6 Friends. The IWA programme promotes a form of non-hierarchical unionism which seeks to unite workers to fight for economic and this reorganization would form the underlying structure of a self-managed society based on pre-planning and mutual aid — the establishment of anarchist communism. Its methods of struggle are, strikes, boycotts, sabotage, direct action reaches its deepest expression in the general strike, which should also be, from the point of view of revolutionary unionism, the prelude to the social revolution. The IWA rejects all political and national frontiers and calls for changes to the means of production to lessen humanitys environmental impact. It included a commitment to anti-militarism in its principles and in 1926 it founded an International Anti-Militarist Coalition to promote disarmament. While regarding industrial acts such as strikes, boycotts, etc and it is stressed that this should occur through the formation of a democratic popular militia rather than through a traditional military hierarchy. This has been posited as an alternative to the dictatorship of the proletariat model, proposals are submitted at national level at least six months before congress, to allow other national groups to consult and mandate members to vote. The agreements and resolutions adopted by the International Congresses are binding for all affiliated groups, the sample flowchart on the right shows the relationship of the individual to the organization within Britain and Ireland IWA affiliate the Solidarity Federation. While federal officers are mandated by the Federal Conference, they have no influence over policymaking other than through their own Locals, no permanent positions of paid or elected authority are present at any stage within the international and its affiliates. Beyond the collective agreements of the IWA itself, all decision-making takes place within base units organized by geography or trade, as most applicable. Administration of the IWAs functions is carried out by the Secretariat consisting of at least three people residing in the country nominated by the International to take on the role. The IWA also elects a Secretary General, who acts as a liaison and representative for the International but again, the Secretariat may only hold office for two terms concurrently. For specific tasks, such as financial audits, separate commissions are set up, internal communications are maintained through each member groups International Secretaries, and through wide circulation of members own internal publications. Informal online communication is also a mainstay of this process, the early ideology of revolutionary syndicalism from which the IWA derives was formed during the International Workingmens Association, also known as the First International. The First International aimed at uniting a variety of different left-wing socialist, communist and anarchist political groups and this split prompted several attempts to start specifically anarchist Internationals, notably the Anarchist St. Imier International and the Black International
14.
World Federation of Trade Unions
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The World Federation of Trade Unions was established in 1945 to replace the International Federation of Trade Unions. Its mission was to bring together trade unions across the world in a international organization. In the context of the Cold War, the WFTU was often portrayed as a Soviet front organization, a number of those unions, including those from Yugoslavia and China, left later when their governments had ideological differences with the Soviet Union. The WFTU declined as a result of the collapse of the Communist regimes in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, in particular in Europe, the WFTU devotes much of its energy to organizing conferences, issuing statements and producing educational materials and courses for trade union leaders. In France, the CGT federation of food processing industry has maintained its affiliation with the WFTU, the CGT federation of Chemical industries sent delegates to the last congress in Athens in 2011. In 2013, two local CGT railway workers branches have taken steps to become affiliates with the WFTU, in Africa, unions of major importance such as COSATU in South Africa, have affiliated with the WFTU. The WFTU holds consultative status with the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations, the ILO, UNESCO, FAO and it maintains permanent missions in New York, Geneva, and Rome. The TUI system has gone through a number of transformations in its over 60 years of existence, the following Trade Unions Internationals are constituted within the WFTU. During the late 1940s, the WFTU unsuccessfully tried to reach an agreement with existing international trade secretariats. When the Union split in 1949 they were left without an organization at the level of specific industries, therefore, they created the, World Federation of Teachers Unions – known by its French acronym FISE, this is the earliest affiliated union, founded in 1946. It maintained a degree of independence from the WFTU not exercised by the other TUIs, in 1949, the 2nd World Congress decided to create a series of sectoral unions, after their negotiations with already existing international trade secretariats failed. At first these were known as Trade Departments or International Federations, the original TUIs formed in 1949 and 1950 were, The WFTU functioned during the Cold War largely as a front organization, bringing together unions and western unions. By 1985, this union had adopted its present name, Trade Unions International of Transport Workers, in 1954 the TUI of Chemical and Allied Workers expanded its sectoral base and became the Trade Unions International of Chemical, Oil and Allied Workers. In 1958 the TUIs of Leather, Shoe, Fur and Leather Products and of Textile and Clothing Workers merged to form the Trade Union International of Textile, Leather, in 1983 the TUI of Miners expanded its scope and became the Trade Unions International of Miners and Energy Workers. In 1986 it became the Trade Unions International of Energy Workers before ceasing activities, after the dissolution of the Eastern bloc, the Trade Unions International of Energy Workers and the Trade Union International of Metal and Engineering Workers temporarily suspended operations. This organization was reorganized again as the Trade Unions International of Energy Workers in 2007 and this left the metal workers an opportunity create a new TUI the next year, Trade Union International of Workers in the Mining, the Metallurgy and the Metal Industries. L. Mahendra 2005, Shaban Assouz 2016, Michael Mzwandile Makwayiba List of federations of trade unions List of trade unions Fabio BERTINI, kheel Center for Labor-Management Documentation and Archives, Martin P. Catherwood Library, Cornell University
15.
Strike action
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Strike action, also called labor strike, labour strike, or simply strike, is a work stoppage caused by the mass refusal of employees to work. A strike usually takes place in response to employee grievances, Strikes became common during the Industrial Revolution, when mass labor became important in factories and mines. In most countries, strike actions were made illegal, as factory owners had far more power than workers. Most Western countries partially legalized striking in the late 19th or early 20th centuries, Strikes are sometimes used to pressure governments to change policies. Notable examples are the 1980 Gdańsk Shipyard or 1981 Warning Strike, official publications have typically used the more neutral words work stoppage or industrial dispute. The first historically certain account of action was towards the end of the 20th dynasty. The artisans of the Royal Necropolis at Deir el-Medina walked off their jobs because they had not been paid, the Egyptian authorities raised the wages. An early predecessor of the strike may have been the secessio plebis in ancient Rome. In the Outline Of History, H. G. Wells characterized this event as the strike of the plebeians, the plebeians seem to have invented the strike. The strike action became a feature of the political landscape with the onset of the Industrial Revolution. For the first time in history, large numbers of people were members of the working class, they lived in cities. By the 1830s, when the Chartist movement was at its peak, in 1842 the demands for fairer wages and conditions across many different industries finally exploded into the first modern general strike. Instead of being a spontaneous uprising of the masses, the strike was politically motivated and was driven by an agenda to win concessions. Probably as much as half of the industrial work force were on strike at its peak – over 500,000 men. The local leadership marshalled a growing working class tradition to organize their followers to mount an articulate challenge to the capitalist. Friedrich Engels, an observer in London at the time, wrote, by its numbers, this class has become the most powerful in England, the English proletarian is only just becoming aware of his power, and the fruits of this awareness were the disturbances of last summer. Karl Marx has condemned the theory of Proudhon criminalizing strike action in his work The Poverty of Philosophy, in 1937 there were 4,740 strikes in the United States. This was the greatest strike wave in American labor history, the number of major strikes and lockouts in the U. S. fell by 97% from 381 in 1970 to 187 in 1980 to only 11 in 2010
16.
General strike
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A general strike is a strike action in which a substantial proportion of the total labour force in a city, region, or country participates. General strikes are characterised by the participation of workers in a multitude of workplaces, General strikes first occurred in the mid-19th century, and have characterised many historically important strikes. An early predecessor of the strike may have been the secessio plebis in ancient Rome. In the Outline Of History, H. G. Wells recorded the general strike of the plebeians, the plebeians seem to have invented the strike, which now makes its first appearance in history. Wells noted that he made a mean use of their political advantages to grow rich through the national conquests at the expense not only of the defeated enemy. The plebeians, who were expected to obey the laws, but were not allowed to know the laws, were successful, in 450 BC. in a concession resulting from the rebellion of the plebeians, the laws of Rome were written for all to peruse. The general strike action became a feature of the political landscape with the onset of the Industrial Revolution. For the first time in history, large numbers of people were members of the working class, they lived in cities. By the 1830s, when the Chartist movement was at its peak, the first theorist to formulate and popularise the idea of a general strike for the purpose of political reform was the radical pamphleteer William Benbow. On 28 January 1832 Benbow published a pamphlet entitled Grand National Holiday, Benbow began to advocate direct and even violent action for political reform, in particular he advanced his idea for a national holiday and national convention. The striking workers were to support themselves with savings and confiscated parish funds, benbows idea of a Grand National Holiday was adopted by the Chartist Congress of 1839, Benbow having spent time in Manchester during 1838-9 promoting his the cause and his pamphlet. In 1842 the demands for wages and conditions across many different industries finally exploded into the first modern general strike. Instead of being a spontaneous uprising of the masses, the strike was politically motivated and was driven by a hard-headed agenda to win concessions. Probably as much as half of the industrial work force were on strike at its peak - over 500,000 men. The local leadership marshaled a growing working class tradition to politically organise their followers to mount a challenge to the capitalist. The mass abandonment of plantations by black slaves and poor whites during the American Civil War has, controversially, in his classic history Black Reconstruction in America, W. E. B. The trickling streams of fugitives swelled to a flood, once begun, the general strike of black and white went madly and relentlessly on like some great saga. The next large scale strike took place over half a century later in Belgium
17.
Australian Labor Party
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The Australian Labor Party is a political party in Australia. The party has been in opposition at federal level since the 2013 election, Bill Shorten has been the partys federal parliamentary leader since 13 October 2013. The party is a party with branches in each state. Labor is in government in the states of Victoria, Queensland, Western Australia, South Australia, the party competes against the Liberal/National Coalition for political office at the federal and state levels. Labors current National Platform describes the party as a social democratic party, the party of opportunity and security for working people. The ALP was not founded as a party until after the first sitting of the Australian Parliament in 1901. Nevertheless, it is regarded as descended from labour parties founded in the various Australian colonies by the labour movement in Australia. Labor is thus the countrys oldest political party, colonial labour parties contested seats from 1891, and federal seats following Federation at the 1901 federal election. Labor was the first party in Australia to win a majority in either house of the Australian Parliament, internationally, the ALP is a member of the Progressive Alliance network of social-democratic parties, having previously been a member of the Socialist International. The Australian Labor Party has its origins in the Labour parties founded in the 1890s in the Australian colonies prior to federation, Labor tradition ascribes the founding of Queensland Labour to a meeting of striking pastoral workers under a ghost gum tree in Barcaldine, Queensland in 1891. The Balmain, New South Wales branch of the party claims to be the oldest in Australia, Labour as a parliamentary party dates from 1891 in New South Wales and South Australia,1893 in Queensland, and later in the other colonies. The first election contested by Labour candidates was the 1891 New South Wales election, the major parties were the Protectionist and Free Trade parties and Labour held the balance of power. It offered parliamentary support in exchange for policy concessions, the United Labor Party of South Australia was founded in 1891, and three candidates were that year elected to the South Australian Legislative Council. The first successful South Australian House of Assembly candidate was John McPherson at the 1892 East Adelaide by-election, at the 1893 South Australian elections the ULP was immediately elevated to balance of power status with 10 of 54 lower house seats. The liberal government of Charles Kingston was formed with the support of the ULP, so successful, less than a decade later at the 1905 election, Thomas Price would form the worlds first stable Labor government. John Verran led Labor to form the states first of many majority governments at the 1910 election, in 1899, Anderson Dawson formed a minority Labour government in Queensland, the first in the world, which lasted one week while the conservatives regrouped after a split. The colonial Labour parties and the unions were mixed in their support for the Federation of Australia. They feared that federation would further entrench the power of the conservative forces, the first Labour leader and Prime Minister, Chris Watson, however, was a supporter of federation
18.
Labour Party (UK)
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The Labour Party is a centre-left political party in the United Kingdom. Labour later served in the coalition from 1940 to 1945. Labour was also in government from 1964 to 1970 under Harold Wilson and from 1974 to 1979, first under Wilson and then James Callaghan. The Labour Party was last in government from 1997 to 2010 under Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, beginning with a majority of 179. Having won 232 seats in the 2015 general election, the party is the Official Opposition in the Parliament of the United Kingdom, the party also organises in Northern Ireland, but does not contest elections to the Northern Ireland Assembly. The Labour Party is a member of the Party of European Socialists and Progressive Alliance. In September 2015, Jeremy Corbyn was elected Leader of the Labour Party, the first Lib–Lab candidate to stand was George Odger in the Southwark by-election of 1870. In addition, several small socialist groups had formed around this time, among these were the Independent Labour Party, the intellectual and largely middle-class Fabian Society, the Marxist Social Democratic Federation and the Scottish Labour Party. In the 1895 general election, the Independent Labour Party put up 28 candidates, Keir Hardie, the leader of the party, believed that to obtain success in parliamentary elections, it would be necessary to join with other left-wing groups. Hardies roots as a lay preacher contributed to an ethos in the party led to the comment by 1950s General Secretary Morgan Phillips that Socialism in Britain owed more to Methodism than Marx. The motion was passed at all stages by the TUC, the meeting was attended by a broad spectrum of working-class and left-wing organisations—trades unions represented about one third of the membership of the TUC delegates. This created an association called the Labour Representation Committee, meant to coordinate attempts to support MPs sponsored by trade unions and it had no single leader, and in the absence of one, the Independent Labour Party nominee Ramsay MacDonald was elected as Secretary. He had the task of keeping the various strands of opinions in the LRC united. The October 1900 Khaki election came too soon for the new party to campaign effectively, only 15 candidatures were sponsored, but two were successful, Keir Hardie in Merthyr Tydfil and Richard Bell in Derby. Support for the LRC was boosted by the 1901 Taff Vale Case, the judgement effectively made strikes illegal since employers could recoup the cost of lost business from the unions. In their first meeting after the election the groups Members of Parliament decided to adopt the name The Labour Party formally, the Fabian Society provided much of the intellectual stimulus for the party. One of the first acts of the new Liberal Government was to reverse the Taff Vale judgement, the Peoples History Museum in Manchester holds the minutes of the first Labour Party meeting in 1906 and has them on display in the Main Galleries. Also within the museum is the Labour History Archive and Study Centre, the governing Liberals were unwilling to repeal this judicial decision with primary legislation
19.
Labour Party (Netherlands)
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The Labour Party is a social-democratic political party in the Netherlands. The party was founded in 1946 as a merger of the Social Democratic Workers Party, the Free-thinking Democratic League, Prime Ministers from the Labour Party have been Willem Drees, Joop den Uyl, and Wim Kok. Since 2012, the PvdA is the partner in the Second Rutte cabinet with the Peoples Party for Freedom. Since 2016, Lodewijk Asscher has been Leader of the Labour Party, the party won 9 seats in the House of Representatives in the 2017 general election. The Labour Party is a member of the European Party of European Socialists, in the European Parliament, where the Labour Party has 3 seats, it is part of the parliamentary group Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats. They were joined by individuals from Catholic resistance group Christofoor and the Protestant parties Christian Historical Union, the founders of the PvdA wanted to create a broad party, breaking with the historic tradition of Pillarisation. This desire to come to a new system was called the Doorbraak. The party combined socialists with liberal democrats and progressive Christians, however, the party was unable to break Pillarisation. Instead the new party renewed the ties that SDAP had with other socialist organisations. In 1948 some conservative members, led by former VDB leader Pieter Oud, together with the Freedom Party, they formed the Peoples Party for Freedom and Democracy, a conservative-liberal party. Between 1946 and 1958, the PvdA formed coalition governments with the Catholic Peoples Party, the KVP and the PvdA together had a large majority in parliament. Since 1948, these cabinets were led by PvdA Prime Minister Willem Drees, under his leadership the Netherlands recovered from the war, began to build its welfare state and Indonesia became independent. After the cabinet crisis of 1958, the PvdA was replaced by the VVD, the PvdA was in opposition until 1965. The electoral support of PvdA voters began to decline, in 1965 a conflict in the KVP-ARP-CHU-VVD cabinet made continuation of the government impossible. The three confessional, Christian-influenced parties turned towards the PvdA, together they formed the Cals cabinet. This cabinet was also lived and conflict ridden. The conflicts culminated in the fall of the Cals cabinet over economic policy, meanwhile, a younger generation was attempting to gain control of the PvdA. A group of young PvdA members, calling themselves the New Left, prominent New Left members were Jan Nagel, André van der Louw and Bram Peper
20.
Labour Party (Ireland)
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The Labour Party is a social-democratic political party in the Republic of Ireland. Unlike the other main Irish political parties, Labour did not arise as a faction of the original Sinn Féin party. This gives Labour a cumulative total of nineteen years served as part of a government, the current party leader is Brendan Howlin. It is currently the fourth largest party in Dáil Éireann, with seven seats, the Labour Party is a member of the Progressive Alliance, Socialist International, and Party of European Socialists. In 1912 James Connolly, James Larkin and William OBrien established the Irish Labour Party as the wing of the Irish Trade Union Congress. This party was to represent the workers in the expected Dublin Parliament under the Third Home Rule Act 1914, the Irish Citizen Army, formed during the 1913 Lockout, was informally the military wing of the Labour Movement. The ICA took part in the 1916 Rising, councillor Richard OCarroll, a Labour Party member of Dublin Corporation, was the only elected representative to be killed during the Easter Rising. OCarroll was shot and died days later on 5 May 1916. The ICA was revived during Peadar ODonnells Republican Congress but after the 1935 split in the Congress most ICA members joined the Labour Party. The British Labour Party had previously organised in Ireland, but in 1913 the Labour NEC agreed that the Irish Labour Party would have organising rights over the entirety of Ireland. A group of trade unionists in Belfast objected and the Belfast Labour Party, in Larkins absence, William OBrien became the dominant figure in the Irish Transport and General Workers Union and wielded considerable influence in the Labour Party. OBrien also dominated the Irish Trade Union Congress and it also refrained from contesting the 1921 elections. As a result, the party was left outside Dáil Éireann during the years of the independence struggle. The Anglo-Irish Treaty divided the Labour Party, some members sided with the Irregulars in the Irish Civil War that quickly followed. OBrien and Johnson encouraged its members to support the Treaty, in the 1922 general election the party won 17 seats. However, there were a number of strikes during the first year, in the 1923 general election the Labour Party only won 14 seats. From 1922 until Fianna Fáil TDs took their seats in 1927, Labour attacked the lack of social reform by the Cumann na nGaedheal government. In 1923 Larkin returned to Ireland and he hoped to take over the leadership role he had left, but OBrien resisted him
21.
Israeli Labor Party
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The Israeli Labor Party, commonly known as HaAvoda, is a social democratic and Zionist political party in Israel. The Israeli Labor Party was established in 1968 by a merger of Mapai, Ahdut HaAvoda, until 1977, all Israeli Prime Ministers were affiliated with the Labor movement. The current party leader since 2013 is Isaac Herzog, the Labor Party is associated with supporting the Israeli–Palestinian peace process, pragmatic foreign affairs policies and social democratic economic policies. The party is a member of the Socialist International and Progressive Alliance, after the Six-Day War broke out, Rafi and Gahal joined the coalition. On 23 January 1968 Mapai, Ahdut HaAvoda and Rafi merged into one body, on 28 January 1969, the party allied itself with Mapam, the alliance becoming known as the Alignment. As the largest faction within the Alignment, Labor came to dominate it, Mapam left during the eighth Knesset, but rejoined shortly afterwards. In the 1977 elections, Labor for the first time ended up in opposition, in the 1984 elections, Labor joined a national unity government with Likud, with the post of Prime Minister rotating between the two parties. Mapam broke away again during the eleventh Knesset, angry at Shimon Peress decision to form a unity government with Likud. Although the Independent Liberals merged into the Alignment in the 1980s, on 7 October 1991 the Alignment ceased to exist, with all factions formally merged into the Labor Party. W. Led by Yitzhak Rabin, Labor won the 1992 elections and formed the government together with Meretz, in domestic policy, the Labor-led government introduced various measures to improve levels of social protection. Better provisions were introduced for single parents and people with disabilities, the 1994 Law to Reduce Poverty and Income Inequality increased income maintenance grants to needy families, particularly benefitting those sections of society most vulnerable to poverty. In 1995, a health insurance policy was implemented, making access to health care a right for all Israelis. Various measures were introduced to bring greater progressivity into the system of collection of national insurance contributions. A maternity grant for adopting mothers was introduced, together with insurance for housewives, a minimum unemployment allowance. The subsequent role of Labor became to a large extent tied to the Oslo Accords, the Oslo Accords led to a vote of confidence, which the Government won with a margin of 61–50. Several MKs from the Government parties declined to support the Government, but on the other hand, due to the lack of a constitution in Israel, the Government was able to implement the accords with a thin margin. Rabins decision to advance peace talks with the Palestinians to the point of signing the Oslo Accords led to his assassination by Yigal Amir in 1995, Peres decided to call early elections in 1996 to give him a mandate for advancing the peace process. However, his ploy failed, although Labor won the most seats in the Knesset election, Netanyahu and Likud were thus able to form the government
22.
Labour Party (Malta)
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The Labour Party is a social-democratic political party in Malta. Along with the Nationalist Party, the Labour Party is one of two major political parties in Malta. It is the party in the Maltese House of Representatives following its victory over the Nationalist Party in the March 2013 general election. The Labour Party is a member of the Party of European Socialists, the General Conference is largely made up of delegates from the Partys other constituent structures and is the Partys highest organ. The National Executive brings together the Party Administration as well as elected representatives of other constituent structures, the Party Congress is made up of all members of the Party and elects the Leader and the two Deputy Leaders and determines the Partys broad policy outlines. The Party Administration is made of the Party Leader, Deputy Leaders, the Parliamentary Group and the Councillors Section bring together the Partys elected representatives in parliament and local councils. The Party is organised geographically in the committees and district. Finally, the Branches of the Party include the womens, youth, senior, although not formally part of the Partys structures, the PL owns a number of media and communication outlets. The Labour Party was founded as the Chamber of Labour in 1921 by one of the union affiliated with the Imperial Government Workers Union. Band clubs and other organisations were invited to send delegates to the Partys founding meeting on 15 March 1921, significantly, led by Colonel William Savona, the Party contested the general elections held in 1921 and 1924 under the new Constitution that gave the country a measure of self-government. The Labour-Constitutional alliance won the 1927 general elections, but Labour lost ground, gaining 13. 9% of votes, Labour leader Savona was not elected, and the leadership of the Labour parliamentary group was temporarily entrusted to Colonel Michael Dundon. The Presidency of the Party and leadership of the group was taken up by Paul Boffa later that year. Labour gained nine seats out of ten in the elections held during November,1945, in which, contrarily to previous elections, the Partys electoral programme, for the first time in Labours history, did not make any reference to religion. However, Labour deputies resigned from their posts in July 1946 due to mass redundancies at the Dockyards, in the meantime, the MacMichael Constitution had been introduced, granting self-government to the Maltese. Labours participation in the subsequent October,1947 elections was again supported by the General Workers Union. The Party won 59. 9% of the vote and twenty-four seats out of the possible forty within the Legislative Assembly, Paul Boffa became Prime Minister whilst Dom Mintoff became Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Reconstruction. The Labour Government introduced Income Tax and Social Services for the first time in Malta, the Labour Party was re-founded in 1949 as a successor to the Labour Party founded in 1921. Boffa formed the Malta Workers Party while Mintoff re-organized the Labour Party as the Malta Labour Party, the Malta Labour Party contested its first elections for the Malta Legislative Assembly the following year
23.
New Zealand Labour Party
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The New Zealand Labour Party, or simply Labour, is a centre-left political party in New Zealand. With its historic rival, the New Zealand National Party, Labour has dominated New Zealand governments since the 1930s, Labour currently promotes a social-democratic platform. It is a participant of the international Progressive Alliance, the New Zealand Labour Party was formed in 1916 by various socialist parties and trade unions. It is thus the countrys oldest political party still in existence, there have been five Labour governments. The party was first in power from 1935 and 1949, when it established New Zealands welfare state and it governed most recently from 1999 to 2008 with Helen Clark as party leader and Prime Minister. Since the partys defeat in the 2008 general election, Labour has comprised the second-largest caucus represented in the New Zealand Parliament, on 18 November 2014 Andrew Little was confirmed outside of Parliament and in a press conference as the new Labour leader. Labours 1916 policy objectives called for the socialisation of the means of production, distribution and exchange, up to the 1980s Labour remained a party that believed in a strong role for governments in economic and social matters. However, it had transformed from a trade union-dominated, socialist-oriented movement to a moderate social-democratic party. The Labour Government of the 1980s deviated sharply from a social-democratic path, in a series of economic reforms dubbed Rogernomics, the Government removed a swathe of regulations and subsidies, privatised state assets and introduced corporate practices to state services. Equal access to all social, economic, cultural, political and legal spheres, co-operation as the main governing factor in economic relations, to ensure a just distribution of wealth. Universal rights to dignity, self-respect and the opportunity to work, the right to wealth and property, subject to the provisos of regarding people as always more important than property and the obligations of the state to ensure a just distribution of wealth. The Treaty of Waitangi as the document of New Zealand, and its honouring in the Party, government, society. The promotion of peace and social justice throughout the world by international co-operation, Equality in human rights regardless of race, sex, marital status, sexual orientation, gender identity, age, religious faith, political belief or disability. Its origins lie in the British working class movement, heavily influenced by Australian radicalism and it is the oldest surviving New Zealand political party. The New Zealand Labour Party was an amalgamation of a number of early groups, the process of unifying these diverse groups into a single party was difficult, with tensions between different factions running strong. At the turn of the century, the side of New Zealand working class politics was represented by the Socialist Party. The more moderate leftists were generally supporters of the Liberal Party and this established the basic dividing line in New Zealands left-wing politics – the Socialists tended to be revolutionary and militant, while the moderates focused instead on progressive reform. In 1910, the Independent Political Labour League was relaunched as a called the Labour Party
24.
Labour Party (Norway)
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The Labour Party, formerly the Norwegian Labour Party, is a social-democratic political party in Norway. It was formerly the senior partner of the governing Red-Green Coalition, the party is currently led by Jonas Gahr Støre. The Labour Party is officially committed to social-democratic ideals and its slogan since the 1930s has been everyone shall take part, and the party traditionally seeks a strong welfare state, funded through taxes and duties. During the first Stoltenberg government, the policies were inspired by Tony Blairs New Labour. The party has frequently described as increasingly neoliberal since the 1980s. The Labour Party profiles itself as a party that subscribes to cooperation on a national as well as international level. Its youth wing is the Workers Youth League, the party is a full member of the Party of European Socialists and Progressive Alliance, and is an observer member of the Socialist International. The Labour Party has always been a supporter of Norways NATO membership and has supported Norwegian membership in the European Union during two referendums. Founded in 1887, the party increased in support until it became the largest party in Norway in 1927. This year also saw the consolidation of surrounding the party during the 1920s following its membership in the Comintern from 1919 to 1923. It formed its first government in 1928, and has led the government for all but 16 years since 1935, from 1945 to 1961, the party had an absolute majority in the Norwegian parliament, the only time this has ever happened in Norwegian history. The domination by the Labour Party, during the 1960s and early 1970s, was broken by competition from the left. From the end of the 1970s however, the party started to lose voters to the right, in 2001 the party achieved its worst electoral results since 1924. Between 2005 and 2013, Labour returned to power after committing to an agreement with other parties in order to form a majority government. Since losing 9 seats in the 2013 election, Labour has been in opposition, the party was founded in 1887 in Arendal and first ran in elections to the Parliament of Norway in 1894. It entered Parliament in 1904 after the 1903 election, and steadily increased its vote until 1927, the party were members of Comintern, a Communist organisation, between 1918 and 1923. From the establishment of Vort Arbeide in 1884, the party had a growing and notable organisation of newspapers, the party press system eventually resulted in Norsk Arbeiderpresse. In January 1913 the party had 24 newspapers, and 6 more newspapers were founded in 1913, the party also had the periodical Det 20de Aarhundre
25.
Industrial relations
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Industrial relations is a multidisciplinary field that studies the employment relationship. Indeed, some authors now define human resource management as synonymous with employee relations, other authors see employee relations as dealing only with non-unionized workers, whereas labor relations is seen as dealing with unionized workers. Industrial relations studies examine various employment situations, not just ones with a unionized workforce, however, according to Bruce E. Initiated in the United States at end of the 19th century, it took off as a field in conjunction with the New Deal. However, it is generally a separate field of only in English-speaking countries. Industrial relations has three faces, science building, problem solving, and ethical, Industrial relations scholars and practitioners therefore support institutional interventions to improve the workings of the employment relationship and to protect workers rights. The nature of these interventions, however, differ between two camps within industrial relations. The pluralist camp sees the employment relationship as a mixture of shared interests and conflicts of interests that are limited to the employment relationship. In the workplace, pluralists therefore champion grievance procedures, employee voice mechanisms such as works councils and labor unions, collective bargaining, and labor-management partnerships. In the policy arena, pluralists advocate for minimum wage laws, occupational health and safety standards, international labor standards and these institutional interventions are all seen as methods for balancing the employment relationship to generate not only economic efficiency, but also employee equity and voice. In contrast, the Marxist-inspired critical camp sees employer-employee conflicts of interest as sharply antagonistic, militant trade unions are thus frequently supported. As society wrestled with these economic and social changes, labor problems arose. Low wages, long working hours, monotonous and dangerous work, and abusive supervisory practices led to high employee turnover, violent strikes, Industrial relations thus rejected the classical econ. Institutionally, industrial relations was founded by John R. Commons when he created the first academic industrial relations program at the University of Wisconsin in 1920, another scholarly pioneer in industrial relations and labor research was Robert F. Hoxie. In Britain, another progressive industrialist, Montague Burton, endowed chairs in industrial relations at Leeds, Cardiff, beginning in the early 1930s there was a rapid increase in membership of labor unions in America, and with that came frequent and sometimes violent labor-management conflict. During World War II these were suppressed by the powers of the National War Labor Board. The most known of these was the Cornell University School of Industrial and Labor Relations, but counting various forms, there were over seventy-five others. These included the Yale Labor and Management Center, directed by E. Wight Bakke, an influential industrial relations scholar in the 1940s and 1950s was Neil W. Chamberlain at Yale and Columbia Universities. The discipline was formalized in the 1950s with the formation of the Oxford School by Allan Flanders and it is this approach that underlies the New Deal legislation in the United States, such as the National Labor Relations Act and the Fair Labor Standards Act
26.
Labour economics
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Labour economics seeks to understand the functioning and dynamics of the markets for wage labour. Labour markets or job markets function through the interaction of workers and employers, Labour economics looks at the suppliers of labour services and the demanders of labour services, and attempts to understand the resulting pattern of wages, employment, and income. In economics, labour is a measure of the work done by human beings and it is conventionally contrasted with such other factors of production as land and capital. There are theories which have developed a concept called human capital, there are two sides to labour economics. Labour economics can generally be seen as the application of microeconomic or macroeconomic techniques to the labour market, microeconomic techniques study the role of individuals and individual firms in the labour market. Macroeconomic techniques look at the interrelations between the market, the goods market, the money market, and the foreign trade market. It looks at how these interactions influence macro variables such as employment levels, participation rates, aggregate income, the labour force is defined as the number of people of working age, who are either employed or actively looking for work. The participation rate is the number of people in the force divided by the size of the adult civilian noninstitutional population. The unemployment level is defined as the labour force minus the number of people currently employed, the unemployment rate is defined as the level of unemployment divided by the labour force. The employment rate is defined as the number of people currently employed divided by the adult population, in these statistics, self-employed people are counted as employed. Variables like employment level, unemployment level, labour force, and they can be contrasted with flow variables which measure a quantity over a duration of time. Changes in the force are due to flow variables such as natural population growth, net immigration, new entrants. Technological advancement often reduces frictional unemployment, for example, internet search engines have reduced the cost, structural unemployment – This reflects a mismatch between the skills and other attributes of the labour force and those demanded by employers. The process of globalization has contributed to changes in labour markets. Natural rate of unemployment – This is the summation of frictional and structural unemployment and it is the lowest rate of unemployment that a stable economy can expect to achieve, given that some frictional and structural unemployment is inevitable. Economists do not agree on the level of the rate, with estimates ranging from 1% to 5%. The estimated rate varies from country to country and from time to time, demand deficient unemployment – In Keynesian economics, any level of unemployment beyond the natural rate is probably due to insufficient goods demand in the overall economy. During a recession, aggregate expenditure is deficient causing the underutilisation of inputs, neoclassical economists view the labour market as similar to other markets in that the forces of supply and demand jointly determine price and quantity
27.
Labour law
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Labour law mediates the relationship between workers, employing entities, trade unions and the government. Collective labour law relates to the relationship between employee, employer and union. Individual labour law concerns employees rights at work and through the contract for work, Employment standards are social norms for the minimum socially acceptable conditions under which employees or contractors are allowed to work. Labour law arose in parallel with the Industrial Revolution as the relationship between worker and employer changed from small-scale production studios to large-scale factories, Workers sought better conditions and the right to join a labour union, while employers sought a more predictable, flexible and less costly workforce. The state of law at any one time is therefore both the product of, and a component of struggles between various social forces. As England was the first country to industrialize, it was also the first to face the often appalling consequences of industrial revolution in a less regulated economic framework. This was largely achieved through the pressure from social reformers, notably Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 7th Earl of Shaftesbury. A serious outbreak of fever in 1784 in cotton mills near Manchester drew widespread public opinion against the use of children in dangerous conditions. A local inquiry presided over by Dr Thomas Percival, was instituted by the justices of the peace for Lancashire, in 1802, the first major piece of labour legislation was passed − the Health and Morals of Apprentices Act. This was the first, albeit modest, step towards the protection of labour, the act limited working hours to twelve a day and abolished night work. It required the provision of a level of education for all apprentices, as well as adequate sleeping accommodation. The Factory Act of 1819 was the outcome of the efforts of the industrialist Robert Owen and prohibited child labour under nine years of age, pivotal in the campaigning for and the securing of this legislation were Michael Sadler and the Earl of Shaftesbury. This act was an important step forward, in that it mandated skilled inspection of workplaces, a lengthy campaign to limit the working day to ten hours was led by Shaftesbury, and included support from the Anglican Church. Many committees were formed in support of the cause and some established groups lent their support as well. The campaign finally led to the passage of the Factory Act of 1847 and these early efforts were principally aimed at limiting child labour. From the mid-19th century, attention was first paid to the plight of working conditions for the workforce in general, in 1850, systematic reporting of fatal accidents was made compulsory, and basic safeguards for health, life and limb in the mines were put in place from 1855. Further regulations, relating to ventilation, fencing of disused shafts, signalling standards, a series of further Acts, in 1860 and 1872 extended the legal provisions and strengthened safety provisions. The same Act included the first comprehensive code of regulation to govern legal safeguards for health, life, the presence of a more certified and competent management and increased levels of inspection were also provided for
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Working class
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The working class are the people employed for wages, especially in manual-labour occupations and in skilled, industrial work. Working-class occupations include blue-collar jobs, some jobs, and most service-work jobs. As with many terms describing social class, working class is defined and used in different ways. The most general definition, used by Marxists and socialists, is that the class includes all those who have nothing to sell but their labor-power. When used non-academically in the United States, however, it refers to a section of society dependent on physical labor. For certain types of science, as well as scientific or journalistic political analysis, for example. Working-class occupations are then categorized into four groups, Unskilled laborers, artisans, outworkers, a common alternative, sometimes used in sociology, is to define class by income levels. The cut-off between working class and middle class here might mean the line where a population has discretionary income, some researchers have suggested that working-class status should be defined subjectively as self-identification with the working-class group. This subjective approach allows people, rather than researchers, to define their own social class, in feudal Europe, the working class as such did not exist in large numbers. Instead, most people were part of the class, a group made up of different professions, trades. A lawyer, craftsman and peasant were all considered to be part of the social unit. Similar hierarchies existed outside Europe in other pre-industrial societies, the social position of these laboring classes was viewed as ordained by natural law and common religious belief. This social position was contested, particularly by peasants, for example during the German Peasants War, wealthy members of these societies created ideologies which blamed many of the problems of working-class people on their morals and ethics. In The Making of the English Working Class, E. P, starting around 1917, a number of countries became ruled ostensibly in the interests of the working class. Since then, four major states have turned towards semi-market-based governance. Other states of this sort have either collapsed, or never achieved significant levels of industrialization or large working classes, since 1960, large-scale proletarianisation and enclosure of commons has occurred in the third world, generating new working classes. Additionally, countries such as India have been slowly undergoing social change, karl Marx defined the working class or proletariat as individuals who sell their labour power for wages and who do not own the means of production. He argued that they were responsible for creating the wealth of a society and he asserted that the working class physically build bridges, craft furniture, grow food, and nurse children, but do not own land, or factories
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Political party
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A political party is a group of people who come together to contest elections and hold power in the government. The party agrees on some proposed policies and programmes, with a view to promoting the good or furthering their supporters interests. While there is some international commonality in the way political parties are recognized, and in how they operate, there are many differences. Many political parties have a core, but some do not. In many democracies, political parties are elected by the electorate to run a government, many countries, such as Germany and India, have several significant political parties, and some nations have one-party systems, such as China and Cuba. The United States is in practice a two-party system, but with smaller parties also participating. Its two most important parties are the Democratic Party and the Republican Party, the first political factions, cohering around a basic, if fluid, set of principles, emerged from the Exclusion Crisis and Glorious Revolution in late 17th century England. The leader of the Whigs was Robert Walpole, who maintained control of the government in the period 1721–1742, as the century wore on, the factions slowly began to adopt more coherent political tendencies as the interests of their power bases began to diverge. The Whig partys initial base of support from the aristocratic families widened to include the emerging industrial interests. A major influence on the Whigs were the political ideas of John Locke. They acted as a united, though unavailing, opposition to Whig corruption and they finally regained power with the accession of George III in 1760 under Lord Bute. Out of this chaos, the first distinctive parties emerged, the first such party was the Rockingham Whigs under the leadership of Charles Watson-Wentworth and the intellectual guidance of the political philosopher Edmund Burke. A coalition including the Rockingham Whigs, led by the Earl of Shelburne, took power in 1782, the new government, led by the radical politician Charles James Fox in coalition with Lord North, was soon brought down and replaced by William Pitt the Younger in 1783. It was now that a genuine two-party system began to emerge, by the time of this split the Whig party was increasingly influenced by the ideas of Adam Smith, founder of classical liberalism. As Wilson and Reill note, Adam Smiths theory melded nicely with the political stance of the Whig Party. The modern Conservative Party was created out of the Pittite Tories of the early 19th century, in the late 1820s disputes over political reform broke up this grouping. A government led by the Duke of Wellington collapsed amidst dire election results, following this disaster Robert Peel set about assembling a new coalition of forces. However, a consensus reached on these issues ended party politics in 1816 for a decade, Party politics revived in 1829 with the split of the Democratic-Republican Party into the Jacksonian Democrats led by Andrew Jackson, and the Whig Party, led by Henry Clay
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Ruling class
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The ruling class is the social class of a given society that decides upon and sets that societys political agenda. The sociologist C. Wright Mills, argued that the ruling class differs from the power elite, the latter simply refers to the small group of people with the most political power. Many of them are politicians, hired political managers, and military leaders, a common term used to refer to people who directly influence politics, education, and government with the use of wealth or power is the ruling class. Under the feudal society, feudal lords had power over the vassals because of their control of the fiefs and this gave them political and military power over the people. In slavery, because complete rights of the persons life belonged to the owner, they could. Globalization theorists argue that today a transnational capitalist class has emerged, there are several examples of ruling class systems in movies, novels, and television shows. In the novel Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley, everyone is genetically made, the Alpha class is the ruling class because they have the highest positions possible and control most of the world in the novel. This situation can also be found in the George Orwell novel Nineteen Eighty-Four where Big Brother and the government literally control what the nation hears, sees, and learns. Examples in movies include Gattaca, where the genetically-born were superior and the class, and V for Vendetta
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Capitalism
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Capitalism is an economic system based on private ownership of the means of production and their operation for profit. Characteristics central to capitalism include private property, capital accumulation, wage labor, voluntary exchange, a price system, economists, political economists, and historians have adopted different perspectives in their analyses of capitalism and have recognized various forms of it in practice. These include laissez-faire or free market capitalism, welfare capitalism, different forms of capitalism feature varying degrees of free markets, public ownership, obstacles to free competition, and state-sanctioned social policies. Most existing capitalist economies are mixed economies, which elements of free markets with state intervention. Capitalism has existed under many forms of government, in different times, places. Following the decline of mercantilism, mixed capitalist systems became dominant in the Western world, Capitalism has been criticized for prioritizing profit over social good, natural resources, and the environment, and that is a cause of inequality and economic instabilities. Supporters believe that it provides better products through competition, and creates strong economic growth, the term capitalist, meaning an owner of capital, appears earlier than the term capitalism. It dates back to the mid-17th century, capitalist is derived from capital, which evolved from capitale, a late Latin word based on caput, meaning head – also the origin of chattel and cattle in the sense of movable property. Capitale emerged in the 12th to 13th centuries in the sense of referring to funds, stock of merchandise, sum of money, by 1283 it was used in the sense of the capital assets of a trading firm. It was frequently interchanged with a number of other words – wealth, money, funds, goods, assets, property, the Hollandische Mercurius uses capitalists in 1633 and 1654 to refer to owners of capital. In French, Étienne Clavier referred to capitalistes in 1788, six years before its first recorded English usage by Arthur Young in his work Travels in France, David Ricardo, in his Principles of Political Economy and Taxation, referred to the capitalist many times. Samuel Taylor Coleridge, an English poet, used capitalist in his work Table Talk, Pierre-Joseph Proudhon used the term capitalist in his first work, What is Property. To refer to the owners of capital, benjamin Disraeli used the term capitalist in his 1845 work Sybil. The initial usage of the term capitalism in its modern sense has been attributed to Louis Blanc in 1850, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels referred to the capitalistic system. And to the capitalist mode of production in Das Kapital, the use of the word capitalism in reference to an economic system appears twice in Volume I of Das Kapital, p.124, and in Theories of Surplus Value, tome II, p.493. Marx did not extensively use the form capitalism but instead those of capitalist, and capitalist mode of production, also according to the OED, Carl Adolph Douai, a German-American socialist and abolitionist, used the phrase private capitalism in 1863. Capital has existed incipiently on a scale for centuries, in the form of merchant, renting and lending activities. Simple commodity exchange, and consequently simple commodity production, which are the basis for the growth of capital from trade, have a very long history
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Abraham Lincoln
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Abraham Lincoln was an American politician and lawyer who served as the 16th President of the United States from March 1861 until his assassination in April 1865. Lincoln led the United States through its Civil War—its bloodiest war and perhaps its greatest moral, constitutional, in doing so, he preserved the Union, abolished slavery, strengthened the federal government, and modernized the economy. Born in Hodgenville, Kentucky, Lincoln grew up on the frontier in Kentucky. Largely self-educated, he became a lawyer in Illinois, a Whig Party leader, elected to the United States House of Representatives in 1846, Lincoln promoted rapid modernization of the economy through banks, tariffs, and railroads. Reentering politics in 1854, he became a leader in building the new Republican Party, in 1860, Lincoln secured the Republican Party presidential nomination as a moderate from a swing state. Though he gained little support in the slaveholding states of the South. Subsequently, on April 12,1861, a Confederate attack on Fort Sumter inspired the North to enthusiastically rally behind the Union. Politically, Lincoln fought back by pitting his opponents against each other, by carefully planned political patronage and his Gettysburg Address became an iconic endorsement of the principles of nationalism, republicanism, equal rights, liberty, and democracy. Lincoln initially concentrated on the military and political dimensions of the war and his primary goal was to reunite the nation. He suspended habeas corpus, leading to the ex parte Merryman decision. Lincoln closely supervised the war effort, especially the selection of top generals, including his most successful general, Lincoln tried repeatedly to capture the Confederate capital at Richmond, each time a general failed, Lincoln substituted another, until finally Grant succeeded. As the war progressed, his moves toward ending slavery included the Emancipation Proclamation of 1863. On April 14,1865, five days after the surrender of Confederate commanding general Robert E. Lee, Lincoln was assassinated by John Wilkes Booth, a Confederate sympathizer. Secretary of War Edwin Stanton launched a manhunt for Booth, and 12 days later on April 26, Lincoln has been consistently ranked both by scholars and the public as among the greatest U. S. presidents. Abraham Lincoln was born February 12,1809, the child of Thomas and Nancy Hanks Lincoln, in a one-room log cabin on the Sinking Spring Farm near Hodgenville. He was a descendant of Samuel Lincoln, an Englishman who migrated from Hingham, Norfolk to its namesake of Hingham, samuels grandson and great-grandson began the familys western migration, which passed through New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Virginia. Lincolns paternal grandfather and namesake, Captain Abraham Lincoln, moved the family from Virginia to Jefferson County, Captain Lincoln was killed in an Indian raid in 1786. His children, including eight-year-old Thomas, the presidents father
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Europe
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Europe is a continent that comprises the westernmost part of Eurasia. Europe is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, yet the non-oceanic borders of Europe—a concept dating back to classical antiquity—are arbitrary. Europe covers about 10,180,000 square kilometres, or 2% of the Earths surface, politically, Europe is divided into about fifty sovereign states of which the Russian Federation is the largest and most populous, spanning 39% of the continent and comprising 15% of its population. Europe had a population of about 740 million as of 2015. Further from the sea, seasonal differences are more noticeable than close to the coast, Europe, in particular ancient Greece, was the birthplace of Western civilization. The fall of the Western Roman Empire, during the period, marked the end of ancient history. Renaissance humanism, exploration, art, and science led to the modern era, from the Age of Discovery onwards, Europe played a predominant role in global affairs. Between the 16th and 20th centuries, European powers controlled at times the Americas, most of Africa, Oceania. The Industrial Revolution, which began in Great Britain at the end of the 18th century, gave rise to economic, cultural, and social change in Western Europe. During the Cold War, Europe was divided along the Iron Curtain between NATO in the west and the Warsaw Pact in the east, until the revolutions of 1989 and fall of the Berlin Wall. In 1955, the Council of Europe was formed following a speech by Sir Winston Churchill and it includes all states except for Belarus, Kazakhstan and Vatican City. Further European integration by some states led to the formation of the European Union, the EU originated in Western Europe but has been expanding eastward since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991. The European Anthem is Ode to Joy and states celebrate peace, in classical Greek mythology, Europa is the name of either a Phoenician princess or of a queen of Crete. The name contains the elements εὐρύς, wide, broad and ὤψ eye, broad has been an epithet of Earth herself in the reconstructed Proto-Indo-European religion and the poetry devoted to it. For the second part also the divine attributes of grey-eyed Athena or ox-eyed Hera. The same naming motive according to cartographic convention appears in Greek Ανατολή, Martin Litchfield West stated that phonologically, the match between Europas name and any form of the Semitic word is very poor. Next to these there is also a Proto-Indo-European root *h1regʷos, meaning darkness. Most major world languages use words derived from Eurṓpē or Europa to refer to the continent, in some Turkic languages the originally Persian name Frangistan is used casually in referring to much of Europe, besides official names such as Avrupa or Evropa
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Industrial Revolution
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The Industrial Revolution was the transition to new manufacturing processes in the period from about 1760 to sometime between 1820 and 1840. The Industrial Revolution began in Great Britain and most of the important technological innovations were British, aided by these legal and cultural foundations, an entrepreneurial spirit and consumer revolution drove industrialisation in Britain, which would be emulated in countries around the world. A change in marrying patterns to getting married later made able to accumulate more human capital during their youth. The Industrial Revolution marks a turning point in history, almost every aspect of daily life was influenced in some way. In particular, average income and population began to exhibit unprecedented sustained growth, mechanised textile production spread from Great Britain to continental Europe in the early 19th century, with important centres of textiles, iron and coal emerging in Belgium, and later in France. Since then industrialisation has spread throughout much of the world, the precise start and end of the Industrial Revolution is still debated among historians, as is the pace of economic and social changes. Economic historians are in agreement that the onset of the Industrial Revolution is the most important event in the history of humanity since the domestication of animals and plants. The term Industrial Revolution applied to change was becoming more common by the late 1830s. Friedrich Engels in The Condition of the Working Class in England in 1844 spoke of an industrial revolution, however, although Engels wrote in the 1840s, his book was not translated into English until the late 1800s, and his expression did not enter everyday language until then. Credit for popularising the term may be given to Arnold Toynbee, some historians, such as John Clapham and Nicholas Crafts, have argued that the economic and social changes occurred gradually and the term revolution is a misnomer. This is still a subject of debate among some historians, the commencement of the Industrial Revolution is closely linked to a small number of innovations, beginning in the second half of the 18th century. By the 1830s the following gains had been made in important technologies, Textiles – mechanised cotton spinning powered by steam or water greatly increased the output of a worker, the power loom increased the output of a worker by a factor of over 40. The cotton gin increased productivity of removing seed from cotton by a factor of 50, large gains in productivity also occurred in spinning and weaving of wool and linen, but they were not as great as in cotton. Steam power – the efficiency of steam engines increased so that they used between one-fifth and one-tenth as much fuel, the adaptation of stationary steam engines to rotary motion made them suitable for industrial uses. The high pressure engine had a power to weight ratio. Steam power underwent an expansion after 1800. Iron making – the substitution of coke for charcoal greatly lowered the fuel cost for pig iron, using coke also allowed larger blast furnaces, resulting in economies of scale. The cast iron blowing cylinder was first used in 1760 and it was later improved by making it double acting, which allowed higher furnace temperatures
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Tolpuddle Martyrs
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The rules of the society show it was clearly structured as a friendly society and operated as a trade-specific benefit society. At the time, friendly societies had strong elements of what are now considered to be the predominant role of trade unions, on 18 March 1834, the Tolpuddle Martyrs were sentenced to penal transportation to Australia. Before 1824 the Combination Acts had outlawed combining or organising to gain better working conditions, in 1824/25 these acts were repealed, so trade unions were no longer illegal. In 1833, six men from Tolpuddle in Dorset founded the Friendly Society of Agricultural Labourers to protest against the lowering of agricultural wages. These Tolpuddle labourers refused to work for less than 10 shillings a week, the society, led by George Loveless, a Methodist local preacher, met in the house of Thomas Standfield. Groups such as the Tolpuddle Martyrs would often use a painting as part of their initiation process. The newest member would be blindfolded and made to swear an oath of allegiance. The blindfold would then be removed and they would be presented with the skeleton painting and this was to warn them of their own mortality but also to remind them of what happens to those who break their promises. An example of this painting is on display at the Peoples History Museum. In 1834, James Frampton, a landowner and magistrate, wrote to Home Secretary Lord Melbourne to complain about the union. Melbourne recommended invoking the Unlawful Oaths Act 1797, a law promulgated in 1797 in response to the Spithead and Nore mutinies. They were found guilty and transported to Australia, when sentenced to seven years penal transportation, George Loveless wrote on a scrap of paper lines from the union hymn The Gathering of the Unions, God is our guide. James Loveless, the two Standfields, Hammett and Brine sailed on the Surry to Sydney, where arrived on 17 August 1834. George Loveless was delayed due to illness and left later on the William Metcalf to Van Diemens Land, of the five who landed in Sydney, Brine and the Standfields were assigned as farm labourers to free settlers in the Hunter Valley. Hammett was assigned to the Queanbeyan farm of Edward John Eyre, in Hobart, George Loveless was assigned to the viceregal farm of Lieutenant Governor Sir George Arthur. In England they became popular heroes and 800,000 signatures were collected for their release, when the pardon reached George Loveless some delay was caused in his leaving due to no word from his wife as to whether she was to join him in Van Diemen’s Land. On 23 December 1836, a letter was received to the effect that she was not coming and Loveless sailed from Van Diemen’s Land on 30 January 1837, a plaque next to the Mayflower Steps in Plymouths historical Barbican area commemorates the arrival. Although due to depart with the others, James Hammett was detained in Windsor, charged with an assault and it was not until March 1839 that he sailed, arriving in England in August 1839
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