The International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU) was an international trade union. It came into being on 7 December 1949 following a split within the World Federation of Trade Unions (WFTU), and was dissolved on 31 October 2006 when it merged with the World Confederation of Labour (WCL) to form the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC).
Freedom of association encompasses both an individual's right to join or leave groups voluntarily, the right of the group to take collective action to pursue the interests of its members, and the right of an association to accept or decline membership based on certain criteria. It can be described as the right of a person coming together with other individuals to collectively express, promote, pursue and/or defend common interests. Freedom of association is both an individual right and a collective right, guaranteed by all modern and democratic legal systems, including the United States Bill of Rights, article 11 of the European Convention on Human Rights, section 2 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and international law, including articles 20 and 23 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and article 22 of International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. The Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work by the International Labour Organization also ensures these rights.
Collective bargaining is a process of negotiation between employers and a group of employees aimed at agreements to regulate working salaries, working conditions, benefits, and other aspects of workers' compensation and rights for workers. The interests of the employees are commonly presented by representatives of a trade union to which the employees belong. A collective agreement reached by these negotiations functions as a labour contract between an employer and one or more unions, and typically establishes terms regarding wage scales, working hours, training, health and safety, overtime, grievance mechanisms, and rights to participate in workplace or company affairs. Such agreements can also include 'productivity bargaining' in which workers agree to changes to working practices in return for higher pay or greater job security.
The Canadian Labour Congress, or CLC is a national trade union centre, the central labour body in Canada to which most Canadian labour unions are affiliated.
The Australian labour movement began in the early 19th century and since the late 19th century has included industrial and political wings. Trade unions in Australia may be organised on the basis of craft unionism, general unionism, or industrial unionism. Almost all unions in Australia are affiliated with the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU), many of which have undergone a significant process of amalgamations, especially in the late 1980s and early 1990s. The leadership and membership of unions hold and have at other times held a wide range of political views, including socialist, democratic and right-wing views.
The Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions (IFTU) was the largest union federation in Iraq in the first half of the 2000s and, under Decree No. 16 in January 2004, the only one recognized by the Iraqi government. This, along with the organization's alliance with Ayad Allawi's transitional government, many other labor organizations distrusted and criticized the IFTU. In 2005, IFTU claimed 12 national unions and over 200,000 members, though it merged with three other union federations to form the General Federation of Iraqi Workers in 2006.
The All India Trade Union Congress (AITUC) is the oldest trade union federation in India. It is associated with the Communist Party of India. According to provisional statistics from the Ministry of Labour, AITUC had a membership of 14.2 million in 2013. It was founded on 31 October 1920 with Lala Lajpat Rai as its first president.
The National Minority Movement was a British organisation, established in 1924 by the Communist Party of Great Britain, which attempted to organise a radical presence within the existing trade unions. The organization was headed by longtime unionist Tom Mann and future General Secretary of the CPGB Harry Pollitt.
The Freedom of Association and Protection of the Right to Organise Convention (1948) No 87 is an International Labour Organization Convention, and one of eight conventions that form the core of international labour law, as interpreted by the Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work.
The Right to Organise and Collective Bargaining Convention (1949) No 98 is an International Labour Organization Convention. It is one of eight ILO fundamental conventions.
The Workers Trade Union Law was passed by Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa, King of Bahrain, on September 24, 2002.
The Kuwait Trade Union Federation is the sole national trade union center in Kuwait. It was founded in 1968 and is affiliated with the International Trade Union Confederation.
There are few trade unions in Oman, established following a 2006 Decree by the Sultan of Oman permitting their organization. Some of these, have done completed elections, they are members of the General Federation of Oman Trade Union (GFOTU). Oman has become the third Gulf Arab state, after Bahrain and Kuwait, to have a general federation of trade unions.
Qatar has been a member of the International Labour Organization since 1972, but has not ratified the Freedom of Association and Protection of the Right to Organise Convention, 1948, or the Right to Organise and Collective Bargaining Convention, 1949.
Trade unions in Benin operate in relative freedom, with approximately 75% of the formal sector being unionized. There are, however, concerns expressed by the International Labour Organization (ILO) and the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) about the discrepancies between the government's Labour Code and the labour practices outlined by ILO Conventions 87 and 98 - specifically the right of unions to form without government approval, the right of seafarers to organize or strike, and restrictions on strikes.
Trade unions in Botswana operate within a longstanding democratic system in which the government of Botswana has ratified the International Labour Organization's core conventions, including Conventions 87 and 98.
Zentralgewerkschaftskommission des Deutschen Gewerkschaftsbundes in der Tschechoslowakischen Republik was a German Social Democratic trade union centre in Czechoslovakia. From 1927 onwards, it was an autonomous structure inside the Czechoslovak labour centre OSČ. The organization was dissolved as Czechoslovakia fell under German occupation.
The International Federation of Trade Unions was an international organization of trade unions, existing between 1919 and 1945. IFTU had its roots in the pre-war IFTU.
Demir and Baykara v Turkey [2008] ECHR 1345 is a landmark European Court of Human Rights case concerning Article 11 ECHR and the right to engage in collective bargaining. It affirmed the fundamental right of workers to engage in collective bargaining and take collective action to achieve that end.
Graham Stevenson was a British communist, trade union leader, and writer who specialised in British socialist and labour activist biographies. He was one of the most influential trade union leaders in Britain, becoming the national secretary of the TGWU in 1999. As a founder and later president in 2009 of the European Transport Union Federation, he helped organise strikes across European docks in 2003, forcing the European Union to stall privatisation plans. Between 2007 and 2008, Stevenson played a key part in the negotiations that formed Unite the Union, the largest trade union in the United Kingdom. He also served on the Executive and Political Committee of the Communist Party of Britain (CPB), and served as the treasurer of the Marx Memorial Library from 2013 to 2019.
