Talk:List of trade unions

"Labor unions" or "Trade unions"
List of labor unions seems inappropriate for this list which lists mostly British "trade unions" and not a single American "labor union".

Quite right. In fact, 100% "trade" unions and 0% "labor" unions. I moved it. Tannin 10:45 Apr 24, 2003 (UTC)


 * Time to move it back, methinks! The convention is "List of [main article name]s" - the main article is called "Labor union" and so this list should be called "List of labor unions".  Being English I'd prefer Trade Union to be the main one though, but that's just biased. violet/riga (t) 22:11, 15 Sep 2004 (UTC)


 * Does anyone have further thoughts on this, or can I move it to List of labor unions in the interests of consistency? RadicalSubversiv E 19:27, 27 Nov 2004 (UTC)


 * Sorry, but if you want consistency then why not move Labor Union ? Eh? I don't think the convention makes much sense. Jooler 11:10, 31 Jan 2005 (UTC)


 * Actually I now see that labor union has already been moved. So this page is now inconsistent. Jooler 11:16, 31 Jan 2005 (UTC)


 * Yes, it should be moved back, assuming no one has any objections? BTW, Jooler, it's totally unnecessary to raise this issue on a half-dozen different talk pages, as you've done. The situation is fairly straightforward -- our article on unions used to be at labor union, so I renamed this article appropriately. The former was changed, by consensus, to trade union, so this article and Category:Labor unions should now be moved accordingly. RadicalSubversiv E 12:12, 31 Jan 2005 (UTC)
 * Well, there's no guarantee that my note on one page will be seen by those who have an interest in it. So I disagree with you about rasing the issue on the talk pages of articles where necessary. No-one is obliged to reply. Jooler 12:27, 31 Jan 2005 (UTC)


 * This should be moved to List of Trade Unions, seeing as that is the title of the main article... FrancisTyers 12:25, 24 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Not wishing to be too pedantic, but the plural of trade union is trades union. Like brothers-in-law. --Psheld (talk) 15:00, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

France: the heading "the 4 large confederations" is followed by a list of 5. The CGT site on fr: lists 6 nationally recognized confederations. Elucidation has been sought! -- Picapica 12:29, 1 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Keep an eye on AFL-CIO unions
They are constantly merging, affiliating/disaffiliating with the AFL-CIO and changing names. I just moved the Carpenters union from the list of affiliated unions to independent. They disaffiliated several years ago. Ut's likely there are probably many more errors on the list.


 * Actually, the Carpenters have re-joined the AFL-CIO (last year), I think. And disaffiliations are relatively rare. RadicalSubversiv E 02:47, 16 Sep 2004 (UTC)


 * The Carpenters are still out. And I have taken the National Farmers Union (www.nfu.org) off this list; as someone noted, it's not a labor union, strictly speaking. In fact, it's not a labor union in even the loosest sense of the word. If we left it in, then we might as well include Western Union, Soviet Union and Gabrielle Union too. 24.126.41.116 11:13, 27 Feb 2005 (UTC) aka User:Italo Svevo

International Federations
If I'm not entirely mistaken Public Services International and Union Network International are, unlike ICFTU, WCL and WFTU, not general federations but sectoral global union federations and should be moved accordingly. Does anyone disagree? Alarm 17:35, 30 Jan 2005 (UTC)
 * It seems not. I'm moving them now. Alarm 13:17, 24 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Requested move
'labor union' is US centric and the page deals with unions in many countries.

Add *Support or *Oppose followed by an optional one sentence explanation, then sign your vote with ~ 


 * Support - FrancisTyers 12:54, 7 October 2005 (UTC)


 * Comment - The US and Canada use "labor union". Other English-speaking countries use "trade union."  Non-English speaking countries use different words entirely.  I don't see how this can be seen as Americocentric. john k 16:18, 7 October 2005 (UTC)
 * Actually, I believe Canada uses "labour union", so "labor union" would be US centric. - FrancisTyers 17:54, 7 October 2005 (UTC)
 * It's not US-centric, because there is neutral term - whatever way we choose would be something-centric. There is no preference on wikipedia for British terms over American ones.  Anyway, the basic argument is that Trade union is the main article, and this list should follow that preference.  I don't oppose this logic, which is why I didn't vote against the move.  But the arguments being presented seem completely dubious to me. john k 18:58, 7 October 2005 (UTC)
 * Support and comment. The general rule at wikipedia is to follow English spellings. "Other English-speaking countries" in this regards include all of South Asia, large parts of Africa, etc. Thirdly, the predominant usage outside the english-speakiping countries in "trade union". French Sindicat, Spanish Sindicato, Swedish Fackförening, Dutch Vakbond, etc. --Soman 16:27, 7 October 2005 (UTC)
 * The general rule at wikipedia is most certainly not to follow English spellings, and this is not, in any case, an issue of spelling, but of usage. Even so, the rule is that British topics get British spelling, that American topics get American spelling, and that topics having to do with neither should be consistent.  I also have no idea how you can take "sindicat" or "sindicato" to literally mean "trade union".  The cognate would be "syndicate", and the word has neither "Trade" nor "union" within it.  At any rate, this is irrelevant to what English-speakers call it.  I would add that the substantial majority of first language English speakers live in the United States and Canada, if you want to play the numbers game. john k 17:05, 7 October 2005 (UTC)
 * The numbers game is relevant, since trade union is a word used by many non-english speakers in former English colonies. Trade union is used untranslated in all Indian languages. I think situation in Africa would be similar. Moreover TU is used in the English-language versions of international tu bodies, such as International Confederation of Free Trade Unions, World Federation of Trade Unions etc. --Soman 21:07, 7 October 2005 (UTC)
 * Alright, that's an argument. But the arguments "we use British spellings" or "American spellings are U.S. centric by definition" are not acceptable.  Which was all I was saying.
 * Heh, sorry, I've maybe been not making myself clear. By US-centric I mean that 'labor union' is a term generally confined to the US. The rest of the English speaking world uses 'trade union' and so this is what should be generally used (unless we're talking specifically about US labor unions or Canadian labour unions). I just did a quick google search (flawed I know, but it sometimes resolves these things) and searching for South African/New Zealand/Australian/Irish + "trade union" yields way more results than "labor union". Trade union is a more international term. - FrancisTyers 23:43, 7 October 2005 (UTC)


 * Support. The main article is at trade union, so this article should follow the same format. john k 21:26, 7 October 2005 (UTC)
 * Oppose all Anglo-American fiddling on principle. Septentrionalis 04:58, 10 October 2005 (UTC)

Descision
This article has been renamed as the result of a move request. Ryan Norton T 13:05, 15 October 2005 (UTC)

Country links
I think it would be nice to link to the "Trade unions in X" articles (where they exist) instead of the countries themselves. I made some such changes piecemeal, and I just wanted to make sure nobody has any objections. -David Schaich Talk/Cont 22:53, 3 November 2006 (UTC)
 * hey, nice idea.--Bookandcoffee 22:59, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

TOC forcing section-edit buttons to bottom
I don't know why, but apparently the right-oriented TOC forces all the section-edit buttons which would appear on the right down to the bottom of the TOC (so now around Belize — at least on my monitor; your results may vary) there's a long string of [edit] buttons. Does this happen with all right-aligned TOCs? Any idea how to fix it? -- Scartol  02:42, 22 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Never mind. I fixed it via WP:BUNCH. Sorry for the noise. -- Scartol  02:51, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Why I made Canada so big
I put all the unions in Canada and their affiliations on the page between this is a list of trade unions thus the Canadian Labour Congress is not a trade union but the Canadian Auto Workers is a trade union. Thus, right now the page is just a list of trade union federations like the Canadian Labour Congress not a list of trade unions. Every country should then be expanded to have all the trade unions in a country not the trade union federations, because there are unions that are not affiliated with the trade union federations. So that's why I did what I did. Whoneedspants 10:47 Dec 26, 2007 (UTC)

Trade Unions Vs. Industrial Unions
OK, so I know it's a bit picky, but The Industrial Workers of the World are NOT a trade union. We are an INDUSTRIAL union, as we don't divide the working class based on occupation and skills. Whether or not it'd be better to remove them from this list entirely or to have a separate section for them on the list, however, is something I'm unsure about: this is, after all, my first time editing on wikipedia Wobblyone (talk) 08:52, 14 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Wobbly, the trade versus industrial distinction is an American English distinction. In most other countries, "trade union" just means "labor union" regardless of whether it is industrial, craft or general in it's organizing.RevelationDirect (talk) 02:53, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

Australian unions???
Where is Australia on this list? There's obscure countries such as Antigua and Bolivia, but no Australia! What's with that? Gorillazx1 (talk) 06:38, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

United States Cleanup
All but one of the Labor organziations are really divisions of the AFL CIO, not trued independant organizations. I would like to delete the whole section as it doesn't fit this list.

Also, I would like to only list unions directly affiliated with either federation or the top-level independent union. This would define the list and leave all the locals and absorbed unions for the cats. There would be a couple exceptions to this proposal:
 * The 4As is really a sub-federation so those are stand-alone unions and would stay.
 * The Laborers are in both federations so some distinction needed between sub-groups.

What do other people think?RevelationDirect (talk) 02:51, 6 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Was bold. Removed the divisions of larger unions from the list.  (Some divisions were included, most were not even if they had articles.)  Removed the Labor Organizations. (If someone wants to re-add Jobs With Justice somewhere, fine.)  Cleaned out the local independant unions and focused on the national ones.  Removed unlinked and un-noteworthy reform groups.  Listed the Laborers in both federations.  Moved Unite Here to the AFL-CIO list but noted SEIU's active attempts to recruite members.  Cleaned up AFL-CIO so it matches their current list.  I actually like most the local divisions I removed from but the purpose of the list is to give a listing of the labor unions in America and I think it does that now.RevelationDirect (talk) 09:04, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

Cleanup
Starting major cleanup on this page. Removing the external links and unnecessary acronyms. More to do. A lot of the page that link from here have been stubs for long time and often poorly sourced. MakeSense64 (talk) 14:39, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

Split out into separate articles?
This page is very long. It would seem sensible to split out individual country sections into pages of the form List of trade unions in Xxx, at least where there are more than ten entries in the section currently. Are there any objections to me starting to do this? --David Edgar (talk) 18:03, 7 December 2012 (UTC)