The Collaborative International Dictionary
trades union \trades" un`ion\, or Trade union \Trade" un`ion\ . An organized combination among workmen for the purpose of maintaining their rights, privileges, and interests with respect to wages, hours of labor, customs, etc.
Wiktionary
n. (dated form of trade union English)
WordNet
n. an organization of employees formed to bargain with the employer; "you have to join the union in order to get a job" [syn: union, labor union, trade union, brotherhood]
Usage examples of "trades union".
Red Ron had lots of lines out to members of the trades union movement, including that well-known libertarian Ben Basher Baker of N.
There were other meetings on the Friday evenings, great raucous shouting gatherings where hundreds of white miners crowded into the huge Fordsburg Trades Union Hall, most of them boozy with cheap brandy, loud and inarticulate and spoiling for trouble.
He was a big beefy Yorkshireman, florid, with pale blue eyes, an ex-coal miner and shop steward with important friends in the Labour Party and Trades Union Council.