The Economics Book

135

Public sector workers demonstrate

in Madrid, Spain, in 2010 to protest

against job cuts. Today, trade unions

are stronger in the public sector than

the private sector in most countries.

See also: Marxist economics 100–05 ■ The labor theory of value 106–07 ■ Depressions and unemployment 154–61 ■
The social market economy 222–23 ■ Sticky wages 303

INDUSTRIAL AND ECONOMIC REVOLUTIONS

often close to the breadline. The
Combination Acts of 1799 and 1800
outlawed trade unions, and any
worker who combined with another
to gain a wage increase or a
decrease in hours was sentenced to
three months in jail. After the acts
were repealed in 1824, trade unions
formed rapidly, especially in the
textile industry. A series of strikes

led to a new law, limiting union

rights to meetings for collective

bargaining purposes.

As union membership in Europe

increased throughout the 19th

century, a struggle developed

between those who saw unions as

following in the tradition of crafts

guilds, negotiating for better

working conditions for their

members, and those who saw

unions as the vanguard of a

revolution, fighting for a better

world for all working people.

A continuing struggle

Collective bargaining was widely

adopted because it works for

employers as well as workers.

It dramatically simplifies the

process of agreeing to conditions

because one agreement can

often be applied industrywide.

However, since the 1980s trade

unions and the power of collective

bargaining have shrunk

dramatically. US economist Milton

Friedman (p.199) has argued that

unionization gives higher wages

for union members at the expense

of jobs and depresses wages in

industries that are not unionized.

Perhaps for this reason or more

political ones, governments have

often sought to curtail union power

by outlawing sympathetic strikes.

The globalization of production

has also isolated groups of workers

within countries. The terms under

which people work on a global

product are often locally determined

between workers and the company,

rather than set industrywide across

the whole country. ■

Beatrice Webb Born in Gloucestershire, UK, in

1858, Beatrice Webb was the child

of a radical member of parliament.

She grew up with a keen interest

in social questions and became

fascinated in the structural

problems underlying poverty. In

1891, she met her lifelong partner,

Sidney Webb, and the pair became

central to the British Labour

movement. They formulated the

idea of “the national minimum”—

a minimum level of wages and

quality of life below which a

worker could not be allowed to

fall. They also founded the London

School of Economics and the

newspaper The New Statesman.

The Webbs helped to shape the

trade union movement. They

created a blueprint for the UK’s

National Health Service and

welfare systems around the

world. Beatrice Webb died

in 1943.

Key works

1894 History of Trade Unionism

(with Sidney Webb)

1919 The Wages of Men and

Women

1923 The Decay of Capitalist

Civilization

If a group of workmen

concert together, and send

representatives to conduct the

bargaining on behalf of the

whole body, the position is

at once changed.

Beatrice Webb

Sidney Webb