 In 1873 a number of the associations in the German-speaking areas formed the Workers' Federation (), which represented around 5,000 by the late 1870s and campaigned for legislative reform.In 1880, the Workers' Federation dissolved itself into two separate wings; the Swiss Trade Union Federation (SGB/USS) and the Social Democratic Party.For the most of the latter half of the 20th Century, trade unions enjoyed relatively stable and secure positions within the country's consensus-oriented industrial relations system.