Labor Standards and Union Strategies in Industrial Action

Methods for Establishing Labor Standards

To establish labor standards, there are three primary methods:

• Unilateral Union Regulation: The unions make their own rules, specifying the terms under which their members can access and take up employment.
• Collective Bargaining: Unions negotiate agreements with employers regarding the implementation of joint standards.
• Legal Regulation: The influence of trade unions in parliament to enact statutory rules.

Evolution of Union Strength and Industrial Action

During the era of the Webbs, legal regulation was virtually nonexistent. Unions had to develop their strength through affiliates in the labor market and business sectors. Direct negotiation and mobilization, as well as the defense of craft traditions, were the primary forms of industrial action in the absence of regulatory mechanisms. Depending on the degree of use of unilateral regulation and collective bargaining, there are three types of unions:

Three Types of Trade Unions

• Craft Trade Unions: Labor unions that control skilled craftsmen training in the workplace and set unilateral rules. They control learning, the number of trainees, certification, codes of trade, and the placement of qualified employees. They offer multiple services to their members, including pensioners, and charge high fees.
• Trade Promotion Unions: Trade unions of skilled craftsmen who moved from lower to higher positions within a company or a sector without receiving formal workplace training.
• General Unions: Trade unions of semi-skilled and unskilled workers that began to emerge in the late nineteenth century. These workers, who were excluded from craft and promotion unions, in several cases acquired a degree of experience that made them difficult to replace, allowing them to develop some pressure capacity, though without the strength to impose rules. Contributions and benefits were low, and the leaders—usually low-skilled and charismatic—would exert significant authority over affiliates.

The Three Dogmas of Industrial Action

In the process of adaptation to modern industrial dynamics, unions tend toward greater centralization and professionalization of their structures. The Webbs' analysis of union strategies distilled three "dogmas"—models of industrial action guidance. Every dogma is incumbent upon a number of strategies and objectives, as well as an attitude towards the State. The three dogmas are:

• Dogma of Acquired Rights: Focuses on wages according to custom, the rejection of new work processes, separation between occupations, punishment and expulsion of workers who do not meet standards, high fees for members, state protection, and inherited rights.
• Dogma of Supply and Demand: Supports free access to employment, flexible union wage scales, innovation, and partnerships with employers to improve competitive standing. This model favors volunteerism in agreements without government intervention.
• Dogma of the Fair Wage: Advocates for a fair wage for days worked, workplace security and hygiene, reduction of working time, a minimum wage, general education, and the state acting as an arbiter and moderator.