List two specific reasons employees join unions.

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

Beliefs about the effects of a union on a person's workplace are critical determinants of his or her intentions to vote for or against union representation. Unionization has been beneficial because employees are not undercutting each other, turnover is down, and workers are more dedicated and loyal. On the other hand, it is pure folly to assume that pro-union attitudes are based simply on expected economic gains; much deeper values are at stake. As one union leader recently noted, "Our union has never seen itself as just a collective-bargaining agent, but as an agent for social change." Indeed, if one talks to any worker long enough, and candidly enough, one discovers that his loyalty to the union is not simply economic. One may even be able to show him that, on a strictly cost-benefit analysis, measuring income lost from strikes, and jobs lost as a result of contract terms, the cumulative economic benefits are delusions. It will not matter. In the end, he will tell you, the union is the only institution that ensures and protects his "dignity" as a worker, that prevents him from losing his personal identity, and that prevents him from being transformed into an infinitesimal unit in one huge and abstract "factor of production." Managers who fail to treat workers with respect, or companies that view workers only as costs to be cut rather than as assets to be developed, invite collective action by employees to remedy these conditions. Among employees who see management as unwilling to share power, more than 70 percent say they would vote for a union. However, unions are not without sin either, and workers will vote against them to the extent that the unions are seen as unsympathetic to a company's need to remain viable, or if they feel unions abuse their power by calling strikes or have fat-cat leaders who selfishly promote their own interests at the expense of the members' interests.