When do labor movements come to support universal welfare policies? This article examines this question through a comparative account of the British and American labor movements at the turn of the twentieth century. Drawing on newspaper and meeting records from the Amalgamated Society of Engineers (ASE), the Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants (ASRS), the Cigarmakers International Union (CMIU), and the Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen and Enginemen (BLF) from the mid-nineteenth century to World War I, it considers why, given a common tradition of exclusive benefits, the two movements diverged on the question of universal state health and pension schemes at the turn of the century—with the British labor movement abandoning its voluntarist orientation and the AFL preserving it.

Complementing existing sociological accounts that emphasize state and party structure, sectoral composition, pace and quality of industrial change, and the demographic makeup of labor movements, this article builds on approaches from the sociology of organizations in centering the importance of organizational arenas in shaping trade union strategies and aims. In particular, it investigates the role of friendly and fraternal societies in structuring trade union interests over this period. The article demonstrates how changes within the friendly and fraternal society movement shaped the contextual significance and strategic value of benefit provision in each trade union over time. In doing so, it opens the way for a deeper reflection on the importance of organizational reasoning in shaping trade union organizing and the trajectory of welfare institutions.

劳工运动什么时候开始支持全民福利政策？本文通过对二十世纪初英国和美国劳工运动的比较来探讨这个问题。借鉴十九世纪中期工程师联合协会 (ASE)、铁路公务员联合协会 (ASRS)、雪茄制造商国际联盟 (CMIU) 和机车消防员和发动机兄弟会 (BLF) 的报纸和会议记录从上个世纪到第一次世界大战，它思考了为什么这两个运动在世纪之交在全民健康和养老金计划问题上出现了分歧，鉴于都有排他性福利的共同传统，英国劳工运动放弃了其唯意志主义取向， AFL 保留了它。

本文以组织社会学的方法为基础，强调组织领域在塑造工会方面的重要性，对强调国家和政党结构、部门构成、产业变革的速度和质量以及劳工运动的人口构成的现有社会学解释进行了补充。战略和目标。特别是，它调查了这一时期友好兄弟社团在构建工会利益方面的作用。本文展示了友好兄弟社会运动的变化如何随着时间的推移塑造了每个工会福利提供的背景意义和战略价值。这样做，它为更深入地反思组织推理在塑造工会组织和福利机构轨迹方面的重要性开辟了道路。