Labor Struggles in the Shipbuilding Industry of Piraeus

Trade unions as organized entities for concerted workers’ action have numerous and varied descriptions and definitions, including as labor market parties or as “social partners” (Hyman 2001). The latter seems to offer an operational definition conceptualizing them as voluntary organizations that sprang out of civil society’s need for representation, protection, negotiation, and advancement of its members’ interests. Hence unions can be seen as combative organizations, bargaining associations, or even as mere economic agencies satisfying “economistic” claims, as Lenin would put it. However, this equates them to any organization that seeks to meet its members’ interests, employers included, and assumes that