How do unions work? How did they get in power and give us rights?
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People working within an industry or industries decide to make common cause with each other for the purpose of bargaining with their bosses as a collective group as opposed to as a series of disunited individuals. They believe by doing that they will get a better deal than the individuals would on their own.
At its base, that’s all there is to it. However much more has been built on those foundations, like the idea of levying a membership fee which can be used to hire professional organisers and lawyers for members who get into trouble, or to fund protest tactics such as strikes. Then you have the whole idea of union recognition where certain companies will agree that certain unions represent their workers and so have certain rights when it comes to consultation and decisionmaking. At its most extreme there’s even the “closed shop” model where you have to be a union member to work at the company and the union effectively takes over the day to day running of the company.
Each country has different laws that regulate trade union behaviour and this has a big influence on how they operate. British and American unions are very different for example.
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