I am a member of a union at work for which I currently pay £10 for the privilege. They obvioulsy undertake negotiations for wages etc which at the moment is very important. However people who are not members of the union get exactly the same deals as we do – is there actually any benifit to my £10 a month?!

legal representation?

You get to fund the Labour Party! Congratulations!

😉

a labour government?

One born every minute…

Well, if everybody decided to opt out then the union wouldn’t exist and you’d lose the collective bargaining power altogether. The idea rather relies on you pooling resources. 🙂

Legal representation in the event of difficulties. Advice in individual issues.

You do not fund the labourt party out of subscriptions. There is probably a political levy which you have teh opportunity to opt out of – and the political levy does not automaticzally go to the labour party.

Unions are like many other things – you don’t know how good they are until you need one.

Every week or so I give advice to someone on here who is not a union member.

If you are treated unfairly at work a union will act for you with great expertise for free.

more tea brakes for less work perhaps

time off when the wrong bog roll is installed

It depends on your job, and also the weight and credibility of your union. I teach undergrad / postgrad students and run a laboratory – both areas with real potential for legal aggravation re harassment, health and safety etc.

So I’m a union man, and would like to take pride in union membership. Unfortunately, my union is an embarrassment. They’re almost a self-parody of Daily Mail gym-mats-for-lesbians loonyism. (Their incompetence was demonstrated when they failed to intervene in the closure of a couple of chemistry departments a few years back. Many people lost their jobs and their careers over an unjustifiable decision that any half-decent union could have stood up to).

I’ve been meaning to stop membership and put the subs towards some sort of private insurance as a result, but have never gotten around to it.

i see my union membership as a form of insurance. i don’t like paying insurance but i wouldn’t do without it.
I also get cheap public liability insurance tailored to my industry through my union, most insurance companies wont offer me PLI so it is more than worthwhile.

I stopped paying my union subs when I realised they were going up at a faster rate than my pay.

You get to fund the Labour Party! Congratulations!

you can opt out of that

I can’t abide them personally.

They ensure that pay negotiations delay our annual pay increases by 9-12 months every year without fail. Not so bad if they managed to get an increase over the initial govt. offer but they never do! I doubled my pay increase over the past few years by saving on Union dues.

Surfr I do hope you work 60 hr 6 day weeks with no paid hoidays then – ‘cos thats what folk were doing before unions.

I hope you only take the managements offer of a payrise not anything that the union has negotiated on top of that.

In all seriousness its rather like insurance – when you need it you are glad of it. All the posts on here asking about employment rights and stuff over the last year. Unfair redundancies, dismissal and so on. Unions are very good for sorting that sort of thing out.

What TJ said.

You get to fund the Labour Party! Congratulations!

more tea brakes for less work perhaps (you had some good school’in – brakes indeed)

time off when the wrong bog roll is installed

Sometimes i am really shocked by some of the cr@p spouted on here.
Up the workers!

You get to fund the Labour Party! Congratulations!

Yeah as mentioned, not necessarily the case – some unions aren’t even affiliated to Labour, and we don’t even know robbo’s union.

Although of course really sensible unions would fund the Conservative Party – that would make far more sense, wouldn’t it Flash ? 🙄

I’ve been a trade union member all my working life, even held senior positions in the local work force union organisation (Chairman).

Can’t understand why anyone wouldn’t be a member of a union really. All fairly large employers have a HR department, the company actually employs people who understand the legal side of employment rights, but they use the employees ignorance (in many instances) to make slightly unethical practices common place in the workplace.

Now you as an individual in the workplace are not going to be clued up on the latest legislation etc – why would you want to put yourself up against HR individuals who know the legality (or not) of any workplace rights.

Seems to me, that you need someone who is their equal – but would have your interests at heart.

Really, tea breaks, not doing any work,Labour Party leftists….come on now,,,,I grew up in that era, but its really out dated.

I want a professional to represent me, and my entitled rights within the workplace.

TJ – I think you’ll find there are still plenty of people working 60 hr weeks – it’s just that we don’t have the luxury of working in roles where we can hold the country to ransom if we don’t get our way.

Farmer_John. Who exactly holds the country to ransom ?

hold the country to ransom

Very good point. When are the unions going to stop doing that ?

Because as everyone knows ………that’s all the unions ever do.

And this country wouldn’t be in the mess it’s in today if the unions didn’t keep holding it to ransom.
When will people ever learn that ?

pesky unions!

Yes, those pesky unions, holding the country to ransom, something business and banks don’t do at all.

From personal experience the last 2 major union actions in the industry I worked in were

Demanding a 10% pay rise with nothing in return
The company had offered 3% + 3%based on performance

before that they rejected an offer that would make people better off in the long run for more money in the first 2 years.

I’m sure there are some worthwhile things being done but there also still a few relics from the dark ages in there who want everything for nothing in return and believe that they are entitled to a job for life.