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Originally Posted by kissmygaseye
Each to their own i suppose. The 'company' pays my wage as well but it doesn't stop me from fighting and winning cases that cost the 'company' money. It doesn't stop me from making sure my membership gets a decent payrise each year. It hasn't stopped me from making sure the 'company' pays over and above the statutory redundancy pay. It hasn't stopped me from getting extended benifits for people being made redundant. But of course, I've only done this for Union members. Because that's what they pay their subs for.
Unions have been responsible for Pay increases, better conditions, shorter hours, paid holidays etc. They don’t just happen. Neither are they freely volunteered by a ‘charitable’ employer. They are all won by union negotiators. You may be dissatisfied with your pay – but, think what it would be like if there was no union to press for improvements.
A union is only as strong as it's membership. If you have many active members the 'company' take notice. If you don't, then, why should they bother? Because the people who work for the 'company' seem not to be worried......
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I agree that in general a union is a very good thing, I joined a number of years ago whilst working for a company being taken over by another that wouldn't recognise unions. I felt it was well worth the money every month to think as an insurance policy should I become badly treated by the company, we had a few s**g off the unions and claiming they weren't helped by the union rep, but generally in those cases the individual more than deserved what the company did to them.
I do however think union negotiations for things like pay rises, are more effective in large organisations where there are large numbers of employees doing the same job. ie: Call centre operatives.
In a large company with a small number of employees carrying out a different task, your issues seem to get lost whilst negotiating issues for the majority. I was also in the situation a number of years ago where I was getting a good wage rise every year, as it was based on performance and productivity. Some of the lazy employees complained and the union got involved in the pay rise negotiations, that year the company spread the pay rise equally, I got the worst percentage rise I had ever had and the lazy ones got exactly the same.
That's my only criticism of unions being involved in negotiations of that sort, they tend to benefit the lazy employee at the expense of the good worker.
But in general to unions
