Sweet and Subversive Stuff: An Exploratory Survey of Yellow Unions

Abstract

Yellow unions are trade unions established by or under the influence and control of an employer. They have two essential characteristics: they are workers’ organizations that assume harmony of interests between capital and labour, and they make it their business to combat workers’ organizations that have the opposite standpoint. This article offers some building blocks for the comparative-historical study of such organizations. It distinguishes three historical periods. The first started around 1900 and began in France and Germany; the second took place in the interwar period and spread to the United States, the British colonies, Japan, and other countries; and the third period, from the 1950s, manifested also in the global South and former ‘socialist’ countries. The article concludes with some preliminary observations on factors that enable(d) and shape(d) the development of yellow unions.