A syndicate is a self-organizing group of individuals, companies, corporations or entities formed to transact some specific business, to pursue or promote a shared interest.
Etymology
The word syndicate comes from the French word syndicat which means "trade union" (syndic meaning "administrator"), from the Latin word syndicus which in turn comes from the Greek word σύνδικος (syndikos), which means "caretaker of an issue"; compare to ombudsman or representative.
Definition
The Merriam Webster Dictionary defines syndicate as a group of people or businesses that work together as a team. This may be a council or body or association of people or an association of concerns, officially authorized to undertake a duty or negotiate business with an office or jurisdiction. It may mean an association of racketeers in organized crime. It may refer to a business concern that sells materials for publication (newspaper, radio, TV, internet) in a number of outlets simultaneously, or a group of newspapers under one management.
Labor syndicates
A syndicate, labor syndicate or worker's syndicate can also mean a trade union. This usage mirrors the common meaning of the word's etymological cousins in languages such as French and Spanish.
Worker-managed enterprise
In this sense, the term is also associated with anarchist theory, specifically anarcho-syndicalism, in which trade unions form an alternative to both the nation state and capitalist corporations. Anarchists, syndicalists, and other libertarian socialists use the word "syndicate" to refer to an enterprise managed by its workers. Such an enterprise is governed by a face-to-face meeting of everyone who works there, in which each worker has one vote. Either there are no managers, or the managers are directly elected and recallable. In either case, the most important decisions are made collectively by the whole workforce. This is known as workers' self-management.
Crime syndicates
Crime syndicates are formed to coordinate, promote, and engage in organized crime, running common illegal businesses on a subnational, national, or international scale. The subunit of the syndicate is a crime family or clan, organized by blood relationships, as seen in the Italian Mafia and the Italian American Mafia crime families (the Five Families dominating New York City crime, namely, the Gambino crime family, Genovese crime family, Lucchese crime family, Bonanno crime family, and the Colombo crime family).
Media syndicates
In media, syndicates are organizations by name and credit. For example, BBC Radio International is a radio syndicated business. A news ticker, residing in the lower third of the television screen image, usually shows syndicated news stories.
Print syndication distributes news articles, columns, comic strips, and other features to newspapers, magazines and websites. They offer reprint rights and grant permissions to other parties for republishing content of which they own/represent copyrights.
Business syndicates
A group formed of several business entities, like companies or corporations, which share common interests in a market but usually are not direct competitors. Larger companies or corporations form syndicates to strengthen their position in the market. Internet companies and corporations, focusing on various Internet ventures, tend to form syndicates within their own group, with direct competitors involved. In such cases, they share a certain type of market, like brand management or search engine optimization, and usually form a Conglomerate Syndicate. They may be syndicated nationally or internationally.
Sales syndicates
A sales syndicate is a cartel with a joint sales agency. Such combinations were widespread before the Second World War. The organizational merger of the sales departments of the individual enterprises caused an increased dependence of the cartel member on the cartel administration. This in trend stabilized these combinations. Some headquarters and other premises of these syndicate cartels have remained up to the present via their monument status as historical buildings.