Trade Unions

Trade Unions

Trade unions are organisations that represent people at work. Their

purpose is to protect and improve people's pay and conditions of

employment. They also campaign for laws and policies, which will

benefit working people.

Trade unions exist because an individual worker has very little power

to influence decisions that are made about his or her job. By joining

together with other workers, there is more chance of having a voice

and influence.

All sorts of jobs and industries are covered by trade unions. Some

unions represent people who do a particular job or work in a specific

industry - for example, the National Union of Journalists (NUJ), as

its name suggests, represents journalists, and the Union for Finance

Staff (UNIFI) is made up of people who do different jobs in the

financial sector.

Other unions include a mixture of people in different jobs and

sectors. The biggest unions in Britain are the GMB, UNISON and the

Transport and General Workers Union (TGWU), they represent people

working in a range of different occupations and industries in the

public and private sectors. Often this is because unions have merged

with other unions so that they can increase their membership and their

influence.

Trade unions are democratic organisations, which are accountable to

their members for their policies and actions. Unions are normally

modelled on the following structure:

* Members - people who pay a subscription to belong to a union

* Union representatives - sometimes called shop stewards - who are

elected by members of the union to represent them to management

* Branches - which support union members in different organisations

locally. There is usually a branch secretary who is elected by

local members

* District and/ or regional offices - full time union officials

usually staff these. These are people who are paid to offer advice

and support to union members locally