Definition and Introduction
The relationship between labor movements, unions, and civil society is ambivalent. First, on the one side, labor movements had and have strong roots and traditions to socialist and communist ideas and are therefore opposed to ideas of the liberal civil society. On the other side, labor movements were one of the driving forces that helped to integrate working classes into society by bringing participation and emancipation into segments of the population, which were previously excluded from these basic societal processes. In addition, these labor movements and labor unions acted in a very early period as international-orientated civil societal actors. Second, labor movements and labor unions act in a force field between fighting for the self-interests of a part of society (better working conditions for workers) and fighting for a common good (just society). Third, on the one hand, in the long run, some labor movements reacted in special historical contexts...
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Schmidt, J. (2020). Labor Movements and Labor Unions. In: List, R., Anheier, H., Toepler, S. (eds) International Encyclopedia of Civil Society. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-99675-2_57-1
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