Aug 18 2008
Why I am Union Member
My employer and my union are currently negotiating a new enterprise bargaining agreement. There is, as always, a lot of B.S. coming from both sides. It particuarly annoys me when the union says inflammatory and insulting things about my employer. They don’t seem to understand that having been with my employer now for well over 10 years I have a loyalty and a respect for the institution. I’m not against them, I spend my working life being for them, trying to make their business as successful as possible.
It particularly annoys me at union meetings when they get up and address us as “Brothers and Sisters”. I mean, come on, this is not a 1930’s communist uprising.
So why do I stay a member? I’m not naive enough to think that a large organisation cares particularly for me. They’re not my family, they are my employer. I don’t think that we would have anywhere near the offer that we do have were we required to bargain as individuals. I pay my money to have a professional negotiator sit down with the professional negotiators employed by my boss. It puts me on a level playing field and ensures my services are sold at a fair price.
Of course, if I wasn’t a member, the unions would still exist and the negotiator would still sit down, and my pay and conditions would still be improved by the same amount at the end of the process. I retain my membership because I don’t think it’s fair to stand back and let other people fight for benefits that come to me.
Unions have lost touch with their members, but the answer is for employees to join unions, demand reasonable union behaviour and vote no to strikes and industrial action they don’t agree with. That way we maintain a strong voice to stand up for fair pay and conditions and we reserve the right to industrial action in extreme cases where employers behaviour is genuinely unfair.