Trade Unions VS Guilds: semantics or is there a 'real' difference?

Question

Quick Question: I have looked at both separately but can't find a clear answer that compares them side by side and clarifies what the actual difference is. There seems to be a large overlap between the two.

Trade Unions appear to be modern 19th century onwards. A result of the Industrial Revolution.

Trade Guilds appear to be more ancient, featuring prominently in the Middle Ages and nearly all magical based storylines.

Is there an actual difference? Can you have a Trade Union in a mediaval setting? What would be different to the standard Middle Ages Guild Tropes?

I know we still have some guilds, or remnants of them. So there does seem to be a difference, of some sort. But I can't figure it out clearly. Or is it mostly semantics, and not letting go of the past?

Note: I'm trying to figure out what my trade unions/guilds has the power to do/organise etc, but I keep getting confused in my history readings. Can I apply modern day trade union tactics/methods in a trade guild? Or do I need to focus on Guild-type History only?

Answer 1

Here's the boiled down version

Guilds--

• focused on setting the standards for goods produced by an industry (which was often, but not always, a cover for establishing a monopoly)

while trade unions--

• focused on setting the standards for how workers are treated (which is really just a cover for getting more money for the workers & power for the union itself).

Now, this does not mean that a guild wouldn't set wages for workers. They might, but only to make sure that guild members couldn't compete with each other for employees, and to make it easier for them to keep the workers they have (because they are the only game in town).

Both guilds and trade unions might set a particular standard for training when it comes to workers, but for very different reasons. The guild wants to control the quality of the goods and they want to make sure that not too many people have high level training. The trade unions want years of training to be built into agreements (and sometimes even into law) so that it's more difficult to get scabs to step in during a strike, which helps them with bargaining.

So, in practice though, despite whatever their aims might be, when guilds are defined, trade unions are mentioned as an equivalent. Here's the difference, as to what trade unions do vs. guilds.

Commonalities & the Reasons for them in Each This is to illustrate that while they might be doing the same thing, the reasons why change the endgame & flavor of it. Guilds aren't totally unconcerned with workers, just as unions are sometimes pro-management, so please take this list as generalities...

• Taking care of the worker/artisan after retirement or death, is something you will find in both unions and guilds.
• Both restrict the number of highly skilled workers allowed to train in a field. Guilds do it to cut down on the "mysteries & secrets" of their craft from being common, and therefore flooding the market, cutting down on profits for management. Trade Unions do it so that wages stay higher for the worker, which isn't in the best interest of management in a more modern era.
• Both can work to set standardized wages. In guilds it's to management's benefit. They want the wages low enough to turn a profit and many can and do ask for ridiculously long apprenticeships, particularly in fields where lots of labor is needed to produce the goods before skill is brought in. But smart guilds don't want it so low that they can't compete with other industries. When guilds abuse their power, it can lead to depressed wages in an area. For Trade Unions, setting wages is to protect the workers, not benefit management.
• Both can set the standard for working hours. For guilds, among other reasons, this is because you don't want the guy across the way working his salaried apprentice over the standard hours, producing much more than you are, perhaps FASTER than you can. Guild membership means a level playing field for all the managers of a profession, at least in theory. Everyone is supposed to get a slice of the pie in equal measure. Some guilds DID have punishing hours and standards that all apprentices had to follow, it really depends on the guild. Trade Unions, in theory, do this to help the workers in a field, and make sure they aren't overworked.
• Both can set the standards for working conditions, HOWEVER, guilds are less likely than unions to do so. When a guild does set a standard like this, the focus is more often on working conditions having an effect on the quality or perception of goods, or that the working condition might cause something like, say, a fire. While it might kill workers, the real concern is that it might set fire to the town, which would cause resentment of the guild and might lead to sanctions from town governance of the guild overall.

Differences

• Guilds price fix goods. Trade Unions are not supposed to.
• Guilds were far more focused on setting standards for the quality of items made with a guild seal. It was like a brand, in some places (but not in others, guilds vary widely), and the guild seal on a sub par item hurt everyone who used it, so you could get tossed if it was traced back to you. Some guilds even had different marks for different quality goods, so that you would know what you were getting.
• Guilds focus a little more on community service than Trade Unions did, mostly as good PR/marketing for their services. Often a way to advertise.
• Guilds work to be mandatory for the profession. 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.
• Exclusivity is key for guilds--you have to go through hoops or be sponsored by another member just to get into the profession/guild in the area. 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.)

Please see kingledion's comment below on why guilds and trade unions should not be seen as equivalent (they are not, though they are mentioned together often). (I've upvoted both his answer and this comment, as both are useful).

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. The two organizations are separated in time by hundreds of years, between which a fundamental change in production occurred: the Industrial Revolution. Guilds were groups of owners at a time of low productivity and low demand for products such that mass production was not possible. Unions were groups of laborers at a time of high productivity and high demand. The two concepts are so well separated in time and social context that claiming equivalence is disingenuous. As I point out in my answer, the two are functionally opposite.

Answer 2

Guilds are the opposite of labor unions

Labor unions are formed to advocate for worker's rights against management. Labor union's tool is the strike, shutting down business operations and causing management to lose business. Labor union's goal is higher pay and better benefits for the workers.

Guilds, on the other hand, were management. Guilds consisted of the highly skilled craftsmen who would take on workers to help increase production capacity. Unlike modern labor-management relations, guilds existed at a time when businesses were small enough that the guild-member master still participated in the actual work of the business (at least as a first-level overseer).

Guilds were actually the very opposite of labor unions. They acted as a cartel, getting government blessing to monopolize certain industries in a city. Since only those members of the guild could practice a certain business, they were free to set prices and wages as they pleased. The modern day equivalent to guilds would be a cartel of oil companies or airlines or the like colluding to raise prices and reduce employee pay.

Guilds contributed significantly to depressing the wages of workers and as time wore on, guilds became increasingly hereditary and aristocratic. The guilds of the later middle ages made a natural transition through a few centuries of modernization into the capitalist bourgousie of the proto-industrial revolution.

Answer 3

While most answers here seem to emphasize the exclusivity of guilds, the main (original) point of a guild has been only touched upon.

Guilds were founded to ensure competency in a professional trade, such as Coopers (casks - a barrel is a 32-gallon cask), Mercers (merchants), Fishmongers, Haberdashers (not hats, but clothiers in fine materials, such as silks), Ironmongers, Vintners, two kinds of Chandlers (candles), Cordwainers (fine leathers, shoes), Fletchers (arrows), Scriveners (notaries public and scribes), Upholders (upholstery), Farriers (horseshoes and vets), Feltmakers (yes, hats), Paviors (road paving), Masons (stonemasonry) and so on.

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. This also sometimes led to tendencies towards nepotism, cronyism, and elitism. This tendency is characteristic of all exclusive professional organizations that are not subject to external oversight. It must be actively opposed by the leadership themselves to ensure that hiring, promotion and other work rewards are solely merit-based.

Interestingly, the UK has recently re-adopted the training of apprentices by journeymen in many fields.

Note, however, that trade unions are not primarily focused on the competency of their members; as others have stated, they are primarily focused on securing the best compensation for, and the safety of, their members.

Answer 4

A trade union is a body that primarily represents a group of employees of an organisation in negotiations with the organisation. It has no place in the middle ages because the only employers of the scale that would allow trade unions are the military, navy and church. It's not until the industrial revolution that unions would be viable.

Guilds are effectively governing bodies of an industry and act as a membership body for self-employed persons. Membership of and mastership certified by the guild was the statement of competence of a craftsman. Without membership of the guild related to his industry a man would hard pressed to get work. The closest we have now are the chartered institutes that effectively replaced the guilds when the concept of being apprenticed to a master was lost as the only way into an industry.

While both attempt to set pay scales, the union does it by negotiation with the employer and the guild does it by negotiation with the membership and effectively acts as a price cartel in their region.

Answer 5

Something that nobody mentioned yet is that guilds usually provide training by funding apprenticeships and courses and even in some cases by creating whole universities. Trade unions typically do not do this to anywhere near the same extent.

In the UK many guilds still exist, and continue to provide certification and training. See Livery Company.

Answer 6

Historically, guilds restricted who could practice a trade -- sometimes based on ability, and other times based on family ties, education, fees paid or politics. So as @kingledion pointed out, they can act basically like cartels, restricting who is allowed (by law, custom or not burning down) to work or start a business in in a given field. Think local exclusivity.

Trade unions can also be less than perfectly pro-competition, but (in the US at least) workers at a given place may have a choice on whether (or which) trade union to join. Unions are more workers-rights/wage-negotiation oriented.

Answer 7

When you talk about Guilds and Trade Unions, you have to be specific about what Guilds and Trade Unions you talk about. This depends on country traditions and laws.

• Where I work, one union represents all the workers in the company except for very senior management. The admin in IT, the personal assistant of the CEO, the call center people in customer support, whatever, the union negotiates working conditions for all of them.
• Union membership is not mandatory, yet negotiated pay raises apply to all employees who did not negotiate a higher rate for themselves. So you don't have to talk to your boss if you want inflation adjustment, you just talk to your boss if you think you earned more than that. Hardly anybody is a dues-paying union member, but the work they do for the rest of us is mostly appreciated.

So depending on the legislation, there might be several differences:

• Guilds may be organized by profession, unions may be organized by company.
• Guilds may be mandatory, unions may be voluntary.
• Guilds watch over the hiring process, unions watch over the firing process.