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Unit 11: Trade Union Act, 1926

4. Common’s Environment Theory: He was sceptical of generalisations and believed only Notes
that which could be proved by evidence. He agreed that collective bargaining was an
instrument of class struggle, but he summarised that ultimately there will be partnership
between employers and employees.
5. Mitchell’s Economic Protection Theory of Trade Unionism: Mitchell, a labour leader,
completely rejected individual bargaining. According to him unions afford economic
protection too.
6. Simon’s Theory of Monopolistic, Anti-democratic Trade Unionism: He denounced trade
unionism as monopoly founded on violence. And he claimed monopoly power has no use,
save abuse.
7. Perlman’s Theory of the “Scarcity Consciousness” of Manual Workers: He rejected the idea
of class consciousness as an explanation for the origin of the trade union movement but
substituted it with what he called job consciousness. According to him, ‘working people
in reality felt an urge towards collective control of their employment opportunities, but
hardly towards similar control of industry.’ Perlman observed that three dominant factors
emerged from the rich historical data:

(a) The capacity or incapacity of the capitalist system to survive as a ruling group in the
face of revolutionary attacks (e.g., failure in Russia).
(b) The source of the anti-capitalist influences being primarily from among the

intellectuals in any society.
(c) The most vital factor in the labour situation was the trade union movement. Trade
unionism, which is essentially pragmatic, struggles constantly not only against the
employers for an enlarged opportunity measure in income, security and liberty in
the shop and industry, but struggles also, whether consciously or unconsciously,
actively or passively, against the intellectual who would frame its programmes and
shape its policies.
But Perlman also felt that a theory of the labour movement should include a theory of the
psychology of the labouring man. For instance, there was a historical continuity between the
guilds and trade unions, through their common fundamental psychology; the psychology
of seeking a livelihood in the face of limited economic opportunity. It was when manual
workers became aware of a scarcity of opportunity, that they banded together into unions
for the purpose of protecting their jobs and distributing employment opportunities among
themselves equitably, and to subordinate the interests of the individual to the whole labour
organism. Unionism was ruled thus by this fundamental scarcity consciousness (Perlman,
1970, pp. 4-10, 237-47, 272-85).

8. Hoxies Functional Classifi cation of Unionism: He classified Unionism on the basis of its
functions. His classifications were Business Unionism for protecting the interest of various

craftsmen, “uplift unionism” for the purpose of contributing better life such as association
of sales engineers, etc., “Revolutionary Unionism” which is eager to replace existing social
order and “Predatory Unionism” which rests on the support of others.
9. Tannenaum’s Theory of Man vs. Machine (1951): According to him, Union is formed in
reaction to alienation and loss of community in an individualistic and unfeeling society.
In his words, the union returns to the workers his society, which he left behind him when
he migrated from a rural background to the anonymity of an urban industrial location.
The union gives the worker a fellowship and a value system that he shares with others like
him.

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