They were originally formed during the trade expansion, where classes of craftsman's wares were sought after by the shipping company owners to trade with their new expanding markets.
Guild halls were formed where craftspeople gathered and shared skill secrets, trained apprentices and held their ground when negotiating deals for their wares with the usually more powerful merchant classes. The traditional Unions as we know them today, weren't formed until the industrial age.
When factory workers got fed up with being exploited as individuals, they self organized. First on single factory floors, then later those collectives joined together and formed very powerful negotiation bodies to demand safer working conditions and better treatment of the workers in entire industries. Collective bargaining organization's heydays are in the past as well. The total percentage of workforce that is unionized today hovers around Some industries, such as the auto workers and entertainment industries, skew the norm and have a significant percentage of unionized workers even today compared to the rest of the workforce.
And there are some organized groups that are difficult to classify. Can they really be both the employers and the employees when it comes to nomenclature? Since they are legitimately on both sides of the table, depending on the situation, should we have yet another term for their collective bargaining organ? In part two we'll explore the legal and operational issues pertinent to Unions and Guilds as well as how individuals can best use them to their fullest advantage.
Free Resources. Town laws often codified that in order to sell a certain thing, or work in a particular field, you HAD to be a member of the guild or risk fines, imprisonment or worse. The opposite is true for unions--anyone can join a union I mean to join a plumbers union you'd want to be a plumber, but you get the drift. I have cut and pasted it here, because it does add to this answer, should be considered as a point, and I know comments sometimes go away: Comparing guilds and unions is a false equivalence.
Improve this answer. Erin Thursby Erin Thursby But if you look at the list of things a guild effects, and what a trade union effects, they start to look equivalent even if they are not--so that when looking up any info on guilds, an equivalency to trade unions is mentioned, however inaccurate that might be. I say that the OP was confused about the difference, and they are often mentioned together, so it's certainly not beyond the pale to compare the two, because it answers the question.
Otherwise, I agree with everything you've said! If I could accept two answers, I would. If I could accept 1 answer and mark the other as a close second I might have done that instead of changing the vote. But I couldnt and I still wanted to give Erin's answer the recognition I felt it deserved as it was very helpful.
Community Bot 1. I paused before submitting because when I re-read it I sounded like a communist. Printmaker, smiths, hide-tanners, etc. Meanwhile, a union is an alliance of skilled or unskilled workers who work for a boss and do not own the means of production. They use someone else's factory, someone else's tools, and someone else's raw material to make things, and get paid by the owners of the capital, instead of dealing directly with customers.
So when we try to explain the struggle of the lower classes throughout history, we all sound like marxists. Guilds represented monopoly on the "owner of production side", while trade unions represent a monopoly on the "employee side".
But both apply the same basic measure - restricting people from being able to enter a trade. And of course, some rare guilds were purely private enterprises, with no state grants - a free union of craftsmen, who shared their skills and knowledge, as well as a kind of "certification".
Unions can only survive through state grants that allow them to do damage with no consequences. It's rather complicated, intentionally obscured, hidden behind layers of deception. Unless guilds make a substantial part of your story, there isn't much of a point in researching too much - just get the few basic ideas to avoid "obvious" mistakes, and don't try too hard to mix modern elements in "high age" fantasy, unless you understand that aspect of society very weel in both the past and modern day.
Show 12 more comments. They: Adopted a training program based on apprentices, journeymen and masters to ensure adequate, supervised training on the job Imposed quality standards on the work of all guild members Built and protected the reputation of the guild through appointments to supply the Royal Household within monarchies, public service, licensing, and sanctions for members who threatened to compromise that reputation Served the community through charitable work and donations As they developed political influence and power, membership became desirable for these reasons, and members often became political actors.
My impression through recent readings is that your points were used even in the Middle Ages as moralizing top-cover for establishing a monopoly. Masters in the guild worked independently. The point was to ensure a decent standard of quality for a trade.
It wouldn't suit the guild to raise prices too high -- not enough people could buy their goods and thus the guild members couldn't live and too low might mean enough work, but not enough to live on.
Early guilds were often free enterprises - places to share knowledge, expertise and even a kind of certification. The justification was the erratic quality of goods and services in an unregulated trade; they proposed self-regulation a model currently used by the mutual funds, accounting, project management and other industries today to address this.
To be sure, some guilds were wholly motivated by the benefits of monopolistic practices. See npr. Swords from Solingen, porcelain from Meissen, glass from Jena, and so on. A guild maintaining quality control allows the master craftsmen of a city to keep out low quality manufacturers so that "made in Solingen" becomes a seal of quality.
I'd say in a way the modern analog to guilds would be chambers of commerce. Separatrix Separatrix k 38 38 gold badges silver badges bronze badges. Show 7 more comments.
Alistair Buxton Alistair Buxton 2 2 bronze badges. Catalyst Catalyst 7, 1 1 gold badge 14 14 silver badges 32 32 bronze badges. The exception obviously being self-employment but if you become well-known in an area the unions will usually reach out -- repetitively. If I recall correctly, one can be made to pay the dues or a portion thereof if the union has been chosen by majority vote to represent the employees. But sometimes people chose to pay and not join, for religious, philosophical or other reasons.
Paying and "not joining" is functionally equivalent to joining but not participating. In the US, many labour laws apply en. The "rights" of unions were mostly steadily increasing over the 20th century.
Mind you, unions are still much weaker and less common in the US than in most of the industrialized world, but they rest entirely on violence and an exemption from consequences of their actions. Students or apprentices work under strict supervision and must demonstrate a certain level of ability before moving forward. They also typically earn low wages while they pursue the right to carry licenses in their chosen field.
Once the apprentices earn their licenses, they can practice and associate themselves with the profession. Labor and craft unions are similar to guilds in that they unite workers of a given craft or industry under one umbrella. Labor unions became a powerful force during the industrial revolution, using the collective bargaining power of workers -- and the threat of labor strikes -- to improve working conditions and wages.
Labor unions often band together to multiply their power to better achieve their goals. Both guilds and unions attempt to improve the wages, benefits and employment rights of the artisans and workers they represent.
Guilds or associations have significant control over how members proceed with their careers. Beyond that, they also guaranteed the work of their members. These guilds controlled all branches of labour from butchers to plumbers and all the skills in between. Guilds were powerful associations of producers that trained crafts people, maintained control over production, regulated competition and prices, and restricted the entry of new people into the trade.
They had been granted the monopoly right to produce and trade in specific products by the rulers. What is the difference between a guild and union?
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