The Advantages of Labor Unions

It is the job of labor unions to protect the interests of the employees within a specific company and/or organization. Some organizations outlaw these labor unions as a way of gaining leverage in keeping employee related decisions in the hands of the company's owner. 

• With a labor union, companies are prevented from playing favorites. The employer is not allowed to hire his golf buddy's kid for a job for which one of his current qualified employees has applied. 


• Labor unions prevent employers from paying a man more money for the same job that he is paying a woman less pay to perform. Wages are not determined by gender, race or sexual orientation. 


• Discrimination is prevented by these labor unions. With a labor union employees are not passed over for jobs due to key factors in which other companies will use to discriminate against their employees. With a labor union at play an employer would need a legitimate reason for not promoting an employee. Such reasons would include: job performance, write-ups, tardiness or a proven general inability to complete the job duties. 


• A meeting is initialized when employees want to address issues within the organization. A selected representative within the union and/or organization addresses upper management to discuss these issues. This is different from 'open-door policies' found at other companies and/or organizations. Open-door policies are supposed to provide employees the opportunity to speak directly to their manager about issues. Too often when these policies are initialized the employee ends up fired for a wide range of reasons. With a labor union this is prevented as the representative and employees have protection from termination based on discussions of issues or demands.