Trade unions in Saint Lucia first emerged in the 1930s.
The St Lucia Teachers' Association was established in 1934 as a professional organisation.
[2] Following the formalisation of collective bargaining on the island in 1938, the Saint Lucia Workers' Co-operative Union was founded in 1939.
[2] The following unions currently[update] operate in Saint Lucia: ^These three form the SSS islands that with the ABC islands comprise the Dutch Caribbean, of which *the BES islands are not direct Kingdom constituents but subsumed with the country of the Netherlands.
†Physiographically, these continental islands are not part of the volcanic Windward Islands arc, although sometimes grouped with them culturally and politically.