Trade Union Movement example essay topic

This paper will cover the comparison of the national and global union differences in a sense of generalizing. Knowing there are hundreds of unions and an assortment of different types, this paper will be a broad view of how they work and operate, and how they may not work and operate. Keeping this in mind some of the concepts and different ways of thinking often are not practical in today's way of life for having a successful business. Personally never having to deal with unions in my line of work, unions and military don't always create the best company.

If unions were to be incorporated in military life style and work ethics, I think the military would eventually fall apart and be less of an asset to the people and for the people. The trade union movement is engaging in the UN Global Compact not as an alternative to rules and regulations for the global market, but because we believe that no matter how good and comprehensive such rules may become, there is a need for voluntary, private initiatives. At the national level, social partnership has proven to be a flexible and dynamic complement to legal frameworks, which protect fundamental rights and labor standards. The International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU), which brings together national trade union confederations around the world, believes that international policy making would benefit from global dialogue between business and labor.

Dialogue is also important with NGO's and other elements of civil society. The UN and the international trade union movement, following a meeting on 20 January 2000 issued a joint statement on the Global Compact. An indication that conditions may be right for a dialogue process is the fact that some of the key language in that document is identical with that of the joint statement of the UN with the International Chamber of Commerce, as follows: "It was agreed that global markets required global rules. The aim should be to enable the benefits of globalization increasingly to spread to all people by building an effective framework of multilateral rules for a world economy that is being transformed by the globalization of markets".

The UN-trade union statement went on to state: "The meeting agreed that the Global Compact should contribute to this process by helping to build social partnerships of business and labor". (6th Specialized Course, Oct. 2003) Theories underlying the movements for labor reform were well developed before they became a national political issue. For many, the movements were the expression of pure compassion. Others discounted the charitable impulse or spirit as a basis for extensive reform and approached the problem of devastation created by tuberculosis, industrial fatigue, poison, accident, and death of workers less from a sense of pity than from a sense of the economic and social waste. In addition, as social waste and bad business the charity donors as well as the political leaders have recognized it at last.

Efforts had been made for many years to persuade capital that industrial fatigue and disease did not pay, even in terms of profit. Capital in various quarters recognized the point before industrial process became a political issue. Leading economists had successfully inculcated the theory among their followers that every industrial advance of labor is bound up with a continued and a progressive prosperity on the capital side. Every concession to labor involved an equivalent return to capital.

There are leaders of trade unions who seem to support this theory; but, leaving the leaders out of account for the present, the theory or the position is either instinctively or consciously opposed by the rank and file. Boldly stated, the position of the labor unionist is less work and more pay. Whether labor does or does not make an equivalent return for what capital concedes in wages; whether it pays or does not pay terrible prices for the gains it calls its own, are questions of first importance, but they have nothing to do with the difference between the attitude of the labor unionist and the reformer. This difference in attitude is the first point of separation between them. The unionist knows that less work and more pay sounds like robbery to the reformer, as it does to the capitalist and the politician. The reformer's formulation of the case is more pay, more work, and better returns to capital.

It may work out that way, but it does not sound straight as a union proposition. The unionist knows that he does not expect to give more or as much; that the very essence of his fight is that he gives too much. If the economist can prove to the satisfaction of every one that the capitalist will get more out of labor by giving more, well and good; but the unionist is not comfortable in alliance with those who talk that way. (Global Unions, Jan 2000) The reformer or the political leader lays emphasis on reforms, which to labor are secondary in importance.

Sanitary factories, fire drills, safety devices, healthful processes of manufacturing, are reforms of obvious benefit to the workman; they are amendments to industrial conditions which capital, with sufficient persuasion, can be induced to make. Nevertheless, the dangers from bad sanitation, from fire and special diseases of occupation are, to the workingman, only a few of the countless forces against which he is struggling. In comparison with the under-feeding, insufficient clothing, and housing of his family, which are pressing and immediate necessities, the other dangers that occupy the thoughts of reformers are to the union man merely approximate. He is too absorbed in keeping up living standards at home being seriously concerned with the reforms of the workshop.

Moreover, the average worker has no very lively expectation of the benefits received through state action; they are to him in the nature of vague promises. The adjustment of his vital interests depends on his own efforts his experience. The labor unionist realizes this more fully than the common run of workers. He realizes that the shorter hours and higher wages that he has enjoyed have come through the direct and collective efforts of himself and his fellow workers. As labor union records show, the unions are responsible for a mass of legislation, but the hopes and the efforts of two and a half million organized workers center rather around the regulation which they are able to impose on industry through their various methods of direct action. Nevertheless, on other grounds the labor unionist, if he is just a union member and not a well-seasoned official, is not at home with the industrial reformer.

Unionists have joined with their fellow workers to gain not only better terms of work and existence: their union is their declaration of independence. (Trade Union Rights, Sept. 2003) It bears the same relation to industrial life that other declarations of independence have borne to political life. Workingmen, who does not join unions, consciously or tacitly, accept a position of weakness; they virtually acknowledge their unfitness to direct or take part in matters of vital concern to them, their inability for judgment in what affects most directly their life of work and life of leisure. The labor unionist resents this position of fellow wage earners.

The men who join unions have a developed consciousness of their own manhood, and their membership in a union is a sign to the community at large, no less than it is to the employers, that they consider themselves capable of directing their affairs and determining their interests. The subjects of global and national levels of unions that have been covered in this paper are generalized because of the wide spread of unions and their variety of types throughout the world. However, for the most part unions are generally against management and are all about not working very hard, but at the same time want more money.

Bibliography

Global Unions and the Global Compact, 20 January 2000, International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU).
Trade Union Rights, 14 Sept. 2003, Unions Say WTO Meeting Has Final Chance to Move on Workers' Demands, (ICFTU Online Bulletins), web 6th Specialized Course on WTO Dispute Settlement Ends, Oct.
2003, World Trade Organization News.