noun

• An organized association of workers in a trade, group of trades, or profession, formed to protect and further their rights and interests.

  North American term labour union

  ‘Workers do use it every time they organise a trade union and fight for better wages and conditions.’

  More example sentences

  • ‘It is not an easy decision to become a trade unionist without a trade union.’
  • ‘There are no political parties, no elections, no independent legislature, no trades unions, no bar association, no independent judiciary, and no independent human rights organisations.’
  • ‘Medical organisations, charities and trades unions have welcomed the move, but the country's licensed trade has threatened a legal battle saying a ban could cause 30,000 job losses.’
  • ‘In recent times the old collective institutions, from the churches and community organisations to trades unions and political parties, have lost their roots and their purchase.’
  • ‘These are the conditions under which workers begin to form trades unions and the workers direct their struggle against the employers.’
  • ‘Democratic governments, democratic parties, trades unions and student organisations were all targets at various times.’
  • ‘Therefore the trade union and labour movement now needs to get organised to fight back.’
  • ‘The pressures exerted by political parties, trades unions, and professional groups contributed a great deal to this important development.’
  • ‘And the trades unions reminded Labour, painfully, that power is not without responsibility to those who helped put you there.’
  • ‘I pay particular tribute to the trades unions and union learning representatives who are genuinely liberating the lives of so many of their members.’
  • ‘But this was not a stand-off between trades unions and Labour over pay.’
  • ‘But there was a much cooler reaction from other campaigners in the trades unions and Labour movements.’
  • ‘That organisation, like the trade union movement, can do a lot at national level.’
  • ‘In the rolling reform demands, just weeks ago state officials and public sector workers set up another group, workers for change, which wants to establish independent trades unions.’
  • ‘Three things kept Labour united: shared social democratic values; organisational inertia, and the trades unions.’
  • ‘How long are workers going to follow a trade union that has no real perspective to offer?’
  • ‘Some people are unkind enough to say it is a trade union and does not act in the public interest.’
  • ‘It is estimated that less than one in four immigrant workers are represented by a trade union.’

  Synonyms

  association, alliance, league, guild