ABSTRACT
The trade union movement has historically evolved from the development of wage labour which was ushered in by industrial capitalism. The capitalist mode of production, the separation of direct producers from the means of production, and the commoditisation of labour power are the antecedent material conditions for the emergence of the trade union movement. The constitutions of most labour organisations emphasise welfarism. For example, the Manual Workers’ Union, the most militant of Botswana’s trade unions aims to obtain and maintain just and proper rates of pay or remuneration, security of employment and reasonable hours and conditions of work for its members. Though the labour movements of emergent capitalist countries in the nineteenth century Europe were the object of detailed analysis by Marx and Engels and were the subject around which they constructed their theory of social revolution, they never developed a systematic theory of trade unionism.
