MANAGEMENT

Management



Management

For much of the twentieth century the outstanding feature of trade union movements in most European countries was their fragmented character. There were religious, ideological, and nationality divisions. Trade unionism flourished in boom conditions, whether in wartime or during upswings in the international economy. They lost members and influence during economic recessions and wherever state power was directed against them (Hyman, 2001).

Before The Outbreak Of War

In 1914 trade unionism was strongest in the countries that had industrialized early and had large urban labor forces. It was weakest in the more agrarian societies, including those of northern and southeastern Europe such as Ireland, Iceland, Greece, Romania, and the small states later to form Yugoslavia.

In Britain, where a significant level of trade unionism had existed before the onset of industrialization in the late eighteenth century, there were 4,117,000 trade unionists in 1914, a trade union density of 24.7 percent (trade union density is the proportion of trade union members within the workforce who can legally join a union). Of these, only 436,000 were female, a density of 8.6 percent. Membership was relatively strong in coal mining, textiles, metals and engineering, printing, transport, glass, gas, and postal services but weak in agriculture, clerical work, food and drink, distribution, and clothing.

For skilled workers in Britain a major part of the appeal of trade unions had long been the medical, unemployment, and other benefits. Paying for such benefits through unions or friendly societies was an important element of what distinguished "respectable" working people from others. When the 1911 National Insurance Act allowed trade unions to administer benefits, it gave a boost to membership for a few unions, notably the Shop Assistants and the Railway Servants.

Trade unionism was also relatively strong in Germany, where it had grown quickly from a density of only 5 percent at the start of the twentieth century. In 1914 there were 2,436,000 members, a union density of 13 percent (excluding the 759,200 members in the no independent salaried employee associations). Members were divided between the free trade unions (81 percent), the Christian trade unions (12 percent), and the Hirsch-Duncker unionsformed to provide education and mutual aid (3 percent). At the local level there were also divisions by ethnicity: for instance, Polish miners had a separate organization. Such divisions also existed in many other countries of continental Europe.

France also had a large trade union movement. Centered on the General Confederation of Labor (CGT), founded in 1895, membership before World War I peaked at an estimated 1,064,000 in 1912. Catholic unions, which also existed in Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Switzerland, dated back to 1887 in France, whose first national Catholic union formed in 1913. Catholic trade unions had developed relatively late in Italy, most from the start of the century; by 1910 the country had 374 local trade union organizations and a membership of 104,600 (54 percent adult men, 36 percent adult women, and 10 percent minors) (Waddington, 1992, pp. 287-305). These, along with the Revolutionary Syndicalists (who claimed a prewar peak membership of 200,000, an inflated figure) and white-collar workers, were outside the Italian General Confederation of Labor (CGL), which in 1913 represented 327,312 ...