Labor Unions and Their Advantages and Disadvantages

 
 
LABOR UNIONS
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Labor Unions
A labor union denotes an organization established by employees in a particular company, industry, or trade to improve working conditions, benefits, and pay. A labor union chooses representatives to negotiate with workers in a collective bargaining process effectively. This process leads to an agreement that stipulates the working conditions of employees in a specific period. Markedly, a union organized by different workers to fight for the protection and rights of workers, including minimum wage and reduced workday, has a long history in the United States of America. To be sure, unions hold a salient democratic structure and conduct elections to elect officials responsible for making beneficial decisions. Workers are responsible for paying dues to associations that advocate for their rights and privileges. In sum, unions are sector-specific and mostly tend to be prevalent among government or public sector organizations and those in utilities and transportation.
A wide range of steps is involved in forming a successful union and determining its operation. Specifically, unions have a practical democratic structure where elections are held to select officials who are responsible for making beneficial decisions. Workers pay their dues to the union, which in return serves as their advocates (Vallas, 2019). Most unions primarily appear to be sector-specific and are shared among utilities and public sector employees. A national-level labor organization gives a charter to employees to form a successful union. Precisely, the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO) and the Change to Win Federation (CtW) oversee most labor unions across the United States of America (Von der Leyen, 2019). Also, almost all unions work and are structured in the same manner. American laws demand workers bargain with their unions in utmost good faith, although the employees do not enjoy the right to agree on specific terms. The union's unit performs the required negotiations. Moreover, a Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) that includes employment terms, working conditions, working hours, sick days, pay scale, and vacations are agreed upon and signed (Durazzi and Geyer, 2020). A worker cannot alter the agreement without the approval of a union representative. Thus, the formulation of a labor union revolves around following fundamental tenets and laws regarding its operation and overall function as a protector of workers' fundamental rights.
Advantages of Unions
Unions offer considerable benefits for workers in the manufacturing sector in terms of building trust and affording workforce safety, which makes them essential for employees in the current work environment. Unions offer a unique mechanism for dialogue between employers and workers, which plays a central role in building commitment and trust within the workforce (Durazzi and Geyer, 2020). Moreover, it is easy to identify and solve problems fairly and quickly through unions. Consequently, companies can gain substantial benefits from timely problem-solving. Besides, union membership implies that ther...