Ireland: The Importance of Union Membership.
Ok so kind of an important one. Who here is a member of a Trade Union? When was the last time you were approached about joining a Trade Union? And of course the other question, Why should you join a Trade Union?
Well what has prompted this post? Well RTE reports this afternoon that figures just released from the CSO for 2007, show a continued drop in Union membership to just under 30% of employees. This reflects a trend which started in 2003. Now regardless of the ins and outs of the economy and to what extent employers allow unions to flourish within their organisations, I honestly cannot remember when the last time was a Trade union approached me about signing up. This then begs the question, Why should I bother or even worry about the dwindling membership of the trade union movement in this country.
Quiet simply put, Why will I be joining SIPTU or another union properly when I leave college? Because I recognise the importance of being in a Trade Union when I am in the "Real World" for the defence of Worker's rights. Things may have changed alot in the last number of years with the advancement of Employment Equality Legislation, the Equal Status Acts, the Equality Tribunal or the Labour Court or even the Social Partnership process. All well and good but alot of these advances have come partly from ourselves and also from Europe: When we brought in the ESA in 1997, it was the most progressive list of Equality statues, 9, in Europe, which has provided the basis for the most extensive list which now exists in Slovenia.
However, just to refer to something I mentioned above Is it time for Unions to become a little bit more proactive in acquiring new members? Yes fair enough I am sure there are resource issues etc. but surely resources well spent on acquiring new workers dues will help the Union movement in the long run. Actually as I think of it, I can remember the last time I had a Union interaction, however I was not approached personally even though I was available for discussion. That particular interaction left a little bit of a polarised workplace for a couple of weeks which kind of created a definite Manager/Worker role which was quiet sad because a Union in that particular situation would have been quiet handy.
A weak Trade Union movement is bad for all of us. The powers that be, may not necessarily like to have a unionised workforce and it may be that you never need to use your Trade Union for anything in your workplace But in building up a solid Trade Union movement again, we can prevent the slip back and the encroachments of people's employment rights by the powers that be. So the moral of the Story: JOIN A UNION!
Links:
Quiet simply put, Why will I be joining SIPTU or another union properly when I leave college? Because I recognise the importance of being in a Trade Union when I am in the "Real World" for the defence of Worker's rights. Things may have changed alot in the last number of years with the advancement of Employment Equality Legislation, the Equal Status Acts, the Equality Tribunal or the Labour Court or even the Social Partnership process. All well and good but alot of these advances have come partly from ourselves and also from Europe: When we brought in the ESA in 1997, it was the most progressive list of Equality statues, 9, in Europe, which has provided the basis for the most extensive list which now exists in Slovenia.
However, just to refer to something I mentioned above Is it time for Unions to become a little bit more proactive in acquiring new members? Yes fair enough I am sure there are resource issues etc. but surely resources well spent on acquiring new workers dues will help the Union movement in the long run. Actually as I think of it, I can remember the last time I had a Union interaction, however I was not approached personally even though I was available for discussion. That particular interaction left a little bit of a polarised workplace for a couple of weeks which kind of created a definite Manager/Worker role which was quiet sad because a Union in that particular situation would have been quiet handy.
A weak Trade Union movement is bad for all of us. The powers that be, may not necessarily like to have a unionised workforce and it may be that you never need to use your Trade Union for anything in your workplace But in building up a solid Trade Union movement again, we can prevent the slip back and the encroachments of people's employment rights by the powers that be. So the moral of the Story: JOIN A UNION!
Links:
- SIPTU
- UNITE
- IMPACT
- Irish Congress of Trade Unions (ICTU) (www.ictu.ie) Note: ICTU is the umbrella organisation for unions operating in both the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. British unions operate in Northern Ireland, as do some all-Ireland unions, and some Northern Ireland-only unions.
- Wikipedia List of Unions across the World.
Labels: Dublin, ICTU, IMPACT, Ireland, RTE, SIPTU, trade union membership, Union, Unite
posted by John James at
3:21 PM
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