Seriously, I’ve heard so many people cheer on union but when I search up what it is I don’t understand it in the slightest bit.
Please, explain like I’m five.
In: 7
It is strength in numbers.
If workers want higher pay or better benefits or better safety conditions or be treated more humanely, they can go to their boss.
If a single worker goes to the boss and ask for more or better working conditions, the boss can fire them or tell them to leave if they don’t like the job.
If all the workers get together and go to the boss as a single group they can say, change this or we will all leave.
The boss can easily stomach the loss of a single worker, but if all the workers threaten to stop working together he has fewer choices.
Basically if workers unionize they can negotiate with their employers as a single block. This give them power and the ability to negotiate for higher pay, more time off and better safety and health rules.
OF course employers don’t like having to pay workers money and thus hate unions and would like to stop their employees forming unions.
In the past those conflicts have escalate to outright violence, with mine and factory owners employing police, Pinkertons and the national guard to kill and beat workers who unionized against them.
Those days are mostly in the past in the US though. The bosses won and this is why unions in the US have a bad reputation and workers in the US have far fewer rights than their counterparts in places like Europe.
A union is a group of organizers, lawyers, and charismatic ppl who advocate on behalf of laborers for better working conditions, wages, benefits, and pensions. Their have been problems w organized crime using (past and present) unions to skim union dues off the top to line their own pockets. There have also been issues when a union is too good at what they do. Union’s are around only to support their members. If they become too good then municipalities and companies can become incapable of honoring their contracts. The city of Detroit came into this issue when they capitulated to union demands which lead to an inability to fund pensions as they were too aggressively promised. THis happens most often politicians look for votes from union members by promising to negotiate union forward contracts which are not able to be honored over decades.
The inverse is wo unions, labor has often been exploited to horrific effects. Both sides have pros and cons and society seems to be at its best when there is a balance.
If a workplace is unionized, that means everyone employed there must pay in dues for the union, and need to be approved by the union. In return, the union has the power to negotiate with the company on behalf of everyone in the union (e.g all the employees), getting better pay and work conditions for the employees through collective bargaining – much harder for the company to just walk away from the union than it is for them to fire one person asking for more.
It is the prevention of divide and conquer. An employer does not want their staff getting together and making cohesive demands. Its about where the power lies in the agreement to work for a fee. Without a union the employer has the power and with a union the employee has some power.
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