Transformations of Trade Unionism Work Around the Globe: Historical Comparisons and Connections
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Transformations of Trade Unionism Work Around the Globe: Historical Comparisons and Connections Open Access Book Series of the International Institute of Social History (IISH) Most human beings work, and growing numbers are exposed to labour markets. These markets are increasingly globally competitive and cause both capital and labour to move around the world. In search of the cheapest labour, industries and service-based enterprises move from West to East and South, but also, for example, westwards from China’s east coast. People move from areas with few employment opportunities to urban and industrial hubs, both between and within continents. However, labour relations have been shifting already for centuries, labour migrations go back far in time, and changing labour relations cannot be comprehended without history. Therefore, understanding these developments and their consequences in the world of work and labour relations requires sound historical research, based on the experiences of diffferent groups of workers in diffferent parts of the world at diffferent moments in time, throughout human history. The research and publications department of the International Institute of Social History (IISH) has taken on a leading role in research and publishing on the global history of labour relations. In the context of Global Labour History, three central research questions have been defijined: (1) What labour relations have emerged in parallel with the rise and advance of market economies? (2) How can their incidence (and consequently the transition from one labour relation to another) be explained, and are these worldwide transitions interlinked? (3) What are the social, economic, political, and cultural consequences of their changing incidence, and how do they relate to forms of individual and collective agency among workers? These three questions are interconnected in time, but also in space. Recent comparative Global Labour History research demonstrates that shifts in one part of the globe have always been linked to shifts in other parts. Series Editor: Leo Lucassen, International Institute of Social History, Amsterdam Editorial Board: Ulbe Bosma, Karin Hofmeester, Marcel van der Linden, International Institute of Social History, Amsterdam Executive Editor: Aad Blok, International Institute of Social History, Amsterdam Transformations of Trade Unionism Comparative and Transnational Perspectives on Workers Organizing in Europe and the United States, Eighteenth to Twenty-First Centuries Ad Knotter Amsterdam University Press Cover illustration: March by some 400 cleaners during a sit-in at Utrecht Central Station, 16 March 2010 © Photograph by Rob Nelisse; used with permission Cover design: Coördesign, Leiden Lay-out: Crius Group, Hulshout isbn 978 94 6372 471 5 e-isbn 978 90 4854 448 6 (pdf) doi 10.5117/9789463724715 nur 696 Creative Commons License CC BY NC ND (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0) © Ad Knotter / Amsterdam University Press B.V., Amsterdam 2018 Some rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, any part of this book may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise). Table of Contents Abbreviations 9 Introduction 11 1 An international of insolence 35 The great anger of the cloth shearers in north-western Europe in the eighteenth century 2 Transnational cigar-makers 69 Cross-border labour markets, strikes, and solidarity at the time of the First International (1864-1873) 3 From artisanal associations to collective bargaining agents 101 Two phases of early trade unionism in Amsterdam (1864-1894) 4 Trade unions and workplace organization 133 Regulating labour markets in the Belgian and American flat-glass industry and in the Amsterdam diamond industry (c. 1880-1940) 5 From placement control to control of the unemployed 167 Trade unions and labour market intermediation in western Europe in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries 6 The transnational origins of Dutch miners’ unionism 197 A case study in the nationalization of labour movements (1907-1926) 7 Justice for Janitors goes Dutch 237 Precarious labour and trade union response in the cleaning industry (1988-2012): a transnational history Conclusion: Past and future transformations 271 Bibliography 277 Index 305 List of fijigures, tables and appendices Figures Figure 1.1 Map of the territorial borders in the area between Aachen and Liège in the eighteenth century 37 Figure 1.2 Bronze statuette representing a cloth shearer adorning the top of the Weberbrunnen fountain in Monschau 39 Figure 1.3 Cloth shearers in a workshop. Engraving by J.G. van Vliet, Leiden, 1635 46 Figure 1.4 Cloth shearers working with a crook or mailloche in their right hands. Engraving, France, seventeenth century 51 Figure 1.5 Map of the centres of cloth production in Northwest- ern Europe and years of strike actions between 1588 and 1830 55 Figure 2.1 Julius Bruhns (Hamburg 1860-Offfenbach 1927) 77 Figure 2.2 Interior of a cigar factory in Havana, Cuba, c. 1903 79 Figure 2.3 Friedrich Wilhelm Fritsche (Leipzig 1825-Philadel- phia 1905) 81 Figure 3.1 Carpenters at the construction of the Paleis voor Volksvlijt (Palace of People’s Industry), Amsterdam, c. 1862 121 Figure 3.2 Boys labour in the Senefelder printing works, Amsterdam, c. 1900 128 Figure 4.1 Cutting glass-cylinders in a Belgian window-glass factory 139 Figure 4.2 Interior of the window-glass factory Verreries du Centre in Jumet, Belgium, date unknown 140 Figure 4.3 Banner of L’Union Verrière Belge, 1894 149 Figure 4.4 Glass-blowers and -cutters on strike, date unknown 150 Figure 4.5 The main operations of diamond processing: splitting, cutting, polishing, c. 1880 157 Figure 6.1 Postcard issued by the German miners’ union Alte Verband, date unknown 208 Figure 6.2 Map of the sub-districts of the South-Limburg mining region and the location of the mines 212 Figure 6.3 Membership development of cmb and anmb, 1907- 1930 (31 December) 214 Figure 6.4 By-laws of the Christelijke Mijnwerkersbond, 1914 218 Figure 7.1 Film poster of Bread & Roses, the fijilm about Justice for Janitors (j4j) in Los Angeles by Ken Loach, produced by Rebecca O’Brien, and written by Paul Laverty (2000) 243 Figure 7.2 Downtown rally by Justice for Janitors in Los Ange- les, 1990 247 Figure 7.3 Meeting of the ‘Cleaners’ Parliament’ in the Amster- dam Town Hall, 12 December 2009 260 Figure 7.4 March by some 400 cleaners during a sit-in at Utrecht Central Station, 16 March 2010 263 Tables Table 1.1 Reported meetings and strikes of cloth shearers in Amsterdam and Leiden, seventeenth-eighteenth centuries 47 Table 1.2 Number of cloth shearers in industrial centres in the Meuse-Rhine region, around 1800 52 Table 1.3 Shearers´ strikes in Sedan and in the Meuse-Rhine borderlands in the eighteenth century 53 Table 3.1 Membership of the Amsterdam carpenters’ unions Concordia Inter Nos (1868-1893) and Door Eendracht Verbetering (1885-1893) 119 Table 3.2 Place of birth of board members and militants active in unions in the building trades and con- struction workers in the sd League not known as union members, 1873-1894 123 Table 3.3 Year of birth of board members and militants active in unions in the building trades and construction workers in the sd League not known as union members, 1873-1894 124 Table 3.4 Year of arrival of board members and militants born outside Amsterdam active in the socialist unions in the building trades, and of construction workers in the sd League not known as union members, 1885-1894 125 Table 3.5 Province of birth of board members and militants born outside Amsterdam active in the socialist unions in the building trades, and of construction workers in the sd League not known as union members, 1885-1894 126 Table 3.6 Membership of the Amsterdam branch of the Algemeene Nederlandsche Typografen Bond, 1866-1869 and 1889-1895 127 Table 3.7 Year of birth of board members of the Amsterdam branch of the Algemeene Nederlandse Typographen Bond and in the typographical societies De Ned- erlandsche Drukpers and Voorzorg en Genoegen (afffijiliated to the anwv), before and after 1889129 Table 3.8 Age structure of active members of the Social Democratic League and the anwv before and after 1885 (percentages) 131 Table 6.1 Membership of the cmb in 1915 (31 December) and the anmb in 1916 (31 December), and gross monthly membership growth of the anmb in 1913 in the sub- districts of the Limburg mining district, compared to the number of miners living there (density) in 1909 211 Table 6.2 Membership and net membership growth of the anmb in the sub-districts of the Limburg mining district, 1 January-1 April 1917 220 Table 6.3 Membership growth of the cmb (net) and the anmb (gross) in the towns and villages in sub-districts of the Limburg mining district, 1918 224 Table 7.1 The fijive largest cleaning companies in the Nether- lands, 2011 255 Appendices Appendix 1.1 Regulations against shearers’ collective actions 66 Appendix 6.1 Map of dwelling places of miners mentioned in Chapter 6 234 Appendix 6.2 Membership of cmb (1915) and anmb (1916), gross monthly growth of anmb (1913), miners living in the Limburg mining district (1909), and workmen’s train fares issued in 1911 235 Appendix 7.1 Meetings, pickets, and manifestations in prepara- tion and during the 2010 strike 268 Abbreviations abm American Building Maintenance (United States) abn amro Algemene Bank Nederland-Amsterdam Rotterdam Bank (Netherlands)