A national trade union center is a federation or confederationof trade unions in a single country. Nearly every country in the world has a national trade union center, and many have more than one. When there is more than one national center, it is often because of ideological differences—in some cases long-standing historic differences. Some countries, such as the Scandinavian, Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Finland have different centers for blue collar workers and professionals.
Among the larger national centers in the world are the American Federation of Labor-Congress of Industrial Organizations and the Change to Win Federation in the USA; the Canadian Labour Congress; the Trades Union Congress (TUC) in Britain; the Irish Congress of Trade Unions; the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU); the Congress of South African Trade Unions; the Dutch FNV; the Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish LO; the German DGB; the French CGT and CFDT; the Italian CISL, CGIL and UIL; the Japan Trade Union Confederation RENGO; the Argentinian CGT and CTA; the Brazilian CUT, and so on.
Many national trade union centers are now members of the International Trade Union Confederation though some belong to the World Federation of Trade Unions.
Famous quotes containing the words national, trade, union and/or center:
“The principle of all sovereignty resides essentially in the nation.”
—French National Assembly. Declaration of the Rights of Man (Sept. 1791)
“We are the trade union for pensioners and children, the trade union for the disabled and the sick ... the trade union for the nation as a whole.”
—Edward Heath (b. 1916)
“These semi-traitors [Union generals who were not hostile to slavery] must be watched.—Let us be careful who become army leaders in the reorganized army at the end of this Rebellion. The man who thinks that the perpetuity of slavery is essential to the existence of the Union, is unfit to be trusted. The deadliest enemy the Union has is slavery—in fact, its only enemy.”
—Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)
“Everything that explains the world has in fact explained a world that does not exist, a world in which men are at the center of the human enterprise and women are at the margin “helping” them. Such a world does not exist—never has.”
—Gerda Lerner (b. 1920)