All India Trade Union Congress — Definition

Definition

The All India Trade Union Congress is a national trade-union federation founded in Bombay on 31 October 1920, with Lala Lajpat Rai presiding over its inaugural conference. It connected unions across workplaces and gave workers a wider platform for employment demands, public representation and participation in the national movement.

A federation differs from a single factory union and from a political party. Its resolutions express organisational positions; they do not by themselves establish that a demanded benefit became law or reached every worker.

Its history therefore requires attention to both collective mobilisation and the evidence of actual outcomes.