A trade union, called a labor union in American English, is an organization of workers whose central purpose is to maintain or improve the conditions of their employment, bringing employees together to advocate collectively for shared workplace interests rather than negotiating individually with an employer. Trade unions pursue objectives including securing better wages and benefits, improving working conditions and safety standards, establishing formal grievance and complaint procedures, and setting rules governing promotion, employee status, and protection against termination, all aimed at strengthening workers' collective bargaining power. Unions are typically funded through membership dues that support headquarters operations and legal functions, and are usually led by workplace volunteers elected through internal democratic processes, with an elected leadership team and bargaining committee negotiating binding labor contracts on behalf of the membership, sometimes extending certain contract terms to non-member workers as well. Unions organize along different lines depending on structure and trade, including craft unionism for skilled workers in a single trade, general unionism spanning workers across various trades, and industrial unionism covering all workers within a particular industry.
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The cooperative movement and trade unionism developed together in nineteenth-century industrial Britain as parallel institutions of working-class mutual aid and collective economic action.
Trade unions arose specifically as an institution to represent and negotiate on behalf of wage laborers within industrial employment relationships.
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