Belonging to a union - necessary or not?

Jeannine

Apologies if this is not in the right forum...

I'm a teacher and will have to pay £135 if I want to join a teaching union for next year. Well, I've been paying for membership for the last 25 years and it seems to be to be a huge amount of money. I'm beginning to resent paying quite so much (it's gone up £7 since last Jan). I suppose that I feel I should belong to one in case there were any legal issues or support that I needed if there was a problem at school. I just wondered if there were any other teachers out there who don't belong to a union?

:xmassign:

Hermia

I think belonging to a union is essential, especially if you work in the public sector. I work for a local council and the union reps are never without something to do! At the moment the council is trying to cut the (already meagre pay) of the hard-working cleaners. I have seen situations where a company has tried to screw their employees and the non-union members have not known what to do. I pay for my union membership monthly so it is not too painful.

Do you not get any discounts from being a union member BTW? My friend has just got her car breakdown cover via the union and she saved a lot of money.

jonesMUFCforever

I would agree 100% with above posters.
Whilst you think paying £135 is a pain - what would you do if you really needed help?
You can't just join when or if you requested assistance (in my job anyway)but it is comforting that if I was screwed by my employer that they would be there for me.

conradmum

It's not just a matter of them helping you if you need help. The pay that you get has been negotiated by your union. If your union didn't exist, the chances are that you would be paid a lot less than you are. It's worth supporting your union for this reason too.
Don't forget the solidarity with your fellow teachers too. Your subscriptions will be going towards help them out in disputes.

Jeannine

Good points - thanks everyone!

Savvy_Sue

As well as the tax benefits, I believe that your union subscription would also be taken into account if you have children when you do your application for WTC and also for their HE grant application. It might not make a huge amount of difference but worth knowing.

conradmum

Yes, that's right SavvySue. I'm pretty sure my union subscriptions are deducted from my income statement in my CTC application.

frugglewump

I'm a university lecturer and I haven't joined a teaching union (although I am a member of the IEE). Given the restructuring happening at the moment I rather wish I had joined and will be doing so as soon as I can afford it.

[Deleted User]

I disagree that is worth belonging to a union in this day and age.

A friend of mine, working in the public sector, was paying £17 per month. She has recently come out of her union (Unison) as she felt she was getting nothing out of it.

Unison are excellent for representing very poorly paid people, people on the lowest pay and who work in the poorest conditions. But if you are not in that category, and especially if you are in the public sector it is a waste of money. Also, the more you earn, the higher your contributions go.

Why exactly does one need to be in a union when employment law covers you for your rights, as does the law relating to Health & Safety, Equal Pay Act, and myriad other laws including the Human Rights Act?

If you have a accident or work related illness there are plenty of no win/no fee lawyers who will represent you - and if opt to have legal cover lumped into your motoring and/or household policies for an average of under £20 extra per annum you will find there is little that you are not covered for.

My own previous experience of union reps are that they are merely reps because it gets them out of doing their normal job and gives them opportunities to go on endless 'jollies' and courses etc... thus spending as much time as possible away from their own jobs.

Many of the people I knew were also very 'in' with the bosses hence staff were poorly represented and many of the reps were less than able to stand up to bosses when the employee was in the right.

Before everyone jumps on me for this - I do know that there ARE also some excellent union reps whom I acknowledge do a lot of good work in their own time.

Unfortunately they seem to be the minority.

Many unions can negotiate special deals on things like mortgages for example - with Unison it used to be in conjunction with Britannia B/S - but the deals on offer were always WORSE than you could find elsewhere by shopping around. Ditto for other special offers too.

bargainhunt_3

I think the point about who a union represents is very relevant and carefully selecting the right union if you want to join one is vital. In my case I worked as a senior researcher for a university and thought about joining the union the lecturing staff were membres of. The union reps were only ever interested in the lecturing staff and this was obvious from the emails we used to receive, indeed I don't think they ever mentioned research staff at all. Also they would frequently campaign directly against the interests of the research staff, for example by ensuring we would have the worst accommodation possible (when compared to the teaching staff) and also there was talk of them asking the university to increase our workloads by making us take on some of their teaching.

I felt that all this meant that I could not be part of their union and ultimately joined Amicus which seemed much more interested in research staff. Although I rarely had any cause to actually call on their services.