Labour movement
[4] The guilds were expected to protect the interests of the owners, labourers, and consumers through regulation of wages, prices, and standard business practices.
[8][9] Parliament had been responding to petitions made by English weavers in 1555 who asserted that the owners were "giving much less wages and hire for weaving of clothes than they did in the past.
This doctrine of parliamentary involvement remained in place until about 1700 at which point the practice of wage regulation began to decline, and in 1757 Parliament outright rescinded the Weavers Act 1756,[which?]
[13] As the guild system became increasingly obsolete and parliament abolished the old medieval labour protections, forswearing responsibility for maintaining living standards, the workers began to form the earliest versions of trade unions.
[16] Beginning from 1700 onward there are records of complaints in the United Kingdom, which increase through the century, that show instances of labourers "combining" together to raise wages had become a phenomenon in various regions and professions.
[25] With the advent of the French Revolution, radicalism became even more prominent in English politics with the publication of Thomas Paine's The Rights of Man in 1791 and the foundation of the working-class focused London Corresponding Society in 1792.
[27] Fearful of this new English Jacobinism, the government responded with wide-scale political repression spearheaded by prime minister Pitt the Younger.
[40] After the failure of the Minimum Wage Bill displayed the government's commitment to laissez-faire policy, labourers expressed their discontent in the form of the first large scale strikes in the new factory districts.
Spence, a pamphleteer in London since 1776, believed in the socialized distribution of land and changing England into a federalized government based on democratically elected parish communes.
Other leaders such Henry Hunt, William Cobbet, and Lord Cochrane, known as Radicals, rose to the head of the labour movement demanding the lowering of taxes, the abolition of pensions and sinecures, and an end to payments of the war debt.
[48] This radicalism increased in the aftermath of the end of the Napoleonic Wars, as a general economic downturn in 1815 led to a revival in pro-labour politics.
This outbreak of lawlessness led to a government crackdown on agitation in 1817 known as the Gagging Acts, which included the suppression of the Spencean society, a suspension of habeas corpus, and an extension of power to magistrates which gave them the ability to ban public gatherings.
[53] The most infamous early case of government anti-labour espionage was that of Oliver the Spy who, in 1817, incited and encouraged the Pentrich Rising, which led to the leadership being indicted on treason charges and executed.
[53] In spite of government suppression, the labour movement in the United Kingdom continued, and 1818 marked a new round of strikes as well as the first attempt at establishing a single national union that encompassed all trades, led by John Gast and named the "Philanthropic Hercules".
[53] Although this enterprise quickly folded, pro-labour political agitation and demonstrations increased in popularity throughout industrial United Kingdom culminating in 1819 with an incident in St. Peter's field, Manchester, known as the Peterloo Massacre.
It takes its name from the People's Charter of 1838, which stipulated the six main aims of the movement as: Eventually, after Chartism died out, the United Kingdom adopted the first five reforms.
Modern labour parties originated from an increase in organising activities in Europe and European colonies during the 19th century, such as the Chartist movement in the United Kingdom during 1838–48.
[62] Often held outdoors in the summer, the music, talks, food, drink, and film have attracted hundreds of thousands of attendees each year.
Labour festival is a yearly feast of all the unionism gathering, to celebrate the fulfillment of their goals, to bring solutions to certain hindrances and to reform unjust actions of their employers or government.
A degree of strategic biracial cooperation existed among black and white dockworkers on the waterfronts of New Orleans, Louisiana during the early 20th century.
Although the groups maintained racially separate labour unions, they coordinated efforts to present a united front when making demands of their employers.
These pledges included a commitment to the "50-50" or "half-and-half" system wherein a dock crew would consist of 50% black and 50% white workers and agreement on a single wage demand to reduce the risk of ship owners pitting one race against the other.
We are confronted by powerful forces telling us to rely on the good will and understanding of those who profit by exploiting us [...] They are shocked that action organizations, sit-ins, civil disobedience and protests are becoming our everyday tools, just as strikes, demonstrations and union organization became yours to insure that bargaining power genuinely existed on both sides of the table [...] Our needs are identical to labor's needs: decent wages, fair working conditions, livable housing, old age security, health and welfare measures [...] That is why the labor-hater and labor-baiter is virtually always a twin-headed creature spewing anti-Negro epithets from one mouth and anti-labor propaganda from the other mouth.With ever-increasing levels of international trade and increasing influence of multinational corporations, there has been debate and action among labour movements to attempt international co-operation.
