labor union

American  

noun

• labor unions
  plural

1. an organization of wage earners or salaried employees for mutual aid and protection and for dealing collectively with employers; trade union.

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labor union Cultural  

1. An organization of workers formed to promote collective bargaining with employers over wages, hours, fringe benefits, job security, and working conditions.

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Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

• labor unions
  plural

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Etymology

Origin of labor union

First recorded in 1865–70

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Example Sentences

See Examples For:

labor union

Thousands of auto industry workers in Germany protested against huge swaths of job cuts and state industrial policy Monday, following a call to mobilize by labor union IG Metall.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 21, 2026

That has catalyzed Hyundai’s labor union, which includes roughly 40,000 workers.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 15, 2026

“Additionally, today, him being here at a labor union and advocating for the working class and labor, I think, is very important.”

From Los Angeles Times ● May 29, 2026

But my family’s health insurance, supplied by their labor union, wouldn’t cover care at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York City, where I had 33 radiation treatments.

From MarketWatch ● May 27, 2026

Maybe I could use the fact that Cuba’s labor union was supporting the nationalization of all the private schools to convince Papa that going to the meetings was okay.

From "The Red Umbrella" by Christina Gonzalez

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Related Words

• trade union

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