Organized Labor

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Related to union: European Union, Soviet Union

Organized Labor

A group of employees in a certain company or with a certain skill who unite in a single body for purposes of negotiating wages, benefits, working conditions, and other issues with management. Members of an organized labor group must ratify decisions made by their representatives with management. Proponents of organized labor argue that it creates better working environments and played a significant role in creating the middle class in many countries. Critics contend that it creates economic inefficiency and can drive companies out of business with employees' high demands. In the United States, organized labor is regulated by the National Labor Relations Board. An organized labor group is called a union. See also: Strike.
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References in classic literature ?
"Two others oped their iron jaws, And waved their children-stealing paws; There sat their children in gewgaws; By stinting negroes' backs and maws, They kept up heavenly union.
"They'll church you if you sip a dram, And damn you if you steal a lamb; Yet rob old Tony, Doll, and Sam, Of human rights, and bread and ham; Kidnapper's heavenly union.
The Insufficiency of the Present Confederation to Preserve the Union For the Independent Journal.
IN THE course of the preceding papers, I have endeavored, my fellow citizens, to place before you, in a clear and convincing light, the importance of Union to your political safety and happiness.
The Western Union bought out several of the Bell exchanges and opened up a lively war on the others.
The lawyer-in-chief of the Western Union was George Gifford, who was perhaps the ablest patent attorney of his day.
But whether he sold his pen or no we are bound to confess that Defoe's desire was towards the good, towards peace, union, and justice.
It will not be said by those who recollect that the Atlantic coast is the longest side of the Union, that during the term of thirteen years, the representatives of the States have been almost continually assembled, and that the members from the most distant States are not chargeable with greater intermissions of attendance than those from the States in the neighborhood of Congress.
It is worthy of remark that not only the first, but every succeeding Congress, as well as the late convention, have invariably joined with the people in thinking that the prosperity of America depended on its Union. To preserve and perpetuate it was the great object of the people in forming that convention, and it is also the great object of the plan which the convention has advised them to adopt.
Some of the foremen were union members, and many who were not had gone out with the men.
Descending from these general principles, we find the proposition that in legal contemplation the Union is perpetual confirmed by the history of the Union itself.
"What is to become of the other unions? There are far more unions outside of this combination than in it."