The Four Estate and the birth of Trade Union

"THE FOURTH ESTATE"

AND THE BIRTH OF TRADE UNIONS

The "FOURTH ESTATE" is an oil painting by Giuseppe Pellizza da Volpedo, originally titled The Path of Workers and made between 1898 and 1901.

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• This paining depicts a moment during a labor strike when workers' representatives calmly and confidently stride out of a crowd to negotiate for the workers' rights.
• Its name refers to the working class as standing alongside the three traditional estates that divided power between the nobility, clergy, and commoners.

The birth of Trade Unions

Those who have always been involved in enforcing workers' rights are the trade unions.Originating in Great Britain, trade unions became popular in many countries during the Industrial Revolution. Trade unions may be composed of individual workers, professionals, past workers, students, apprentices or the unemployed. Trade union density, or the percentage of workers belonging to a trade union, is highest in the Nordic countries.

As communications improved, the influence of trade unionism grew. 1868 saw the birth of the Trades Union Congress, and the 1870s and 1880s brought organisation to a variety of key industries: gas workers, dockers, railwaymen, farm workers, builders, labourers, etc. Increasingly, trade unionists were able to apply politicial pressure - to give working people the vote, legalise trade unionism and bring in laws to improve conditions at work. In 1885, 11 trade unionists were elected to Parliament, as members of the Liberal Party.

"A trade union is a continuous association of wage earners for the purpose of maintaining or improving the conditions of their employment."

Beatrice Webb

"The value of labour -power constitutes the conscious and explicit foundation of the trade unions, whose importance for the ... working class can scarcely be overestimated. The trade unions aim at nothing less than to prevent the reduction of wages below the level that is traditionally maintained in the various branches of industry. That is to say, they wish to prevent the price of labour -power from falling below its value"

Karl Marx