is trade union membership worth it?

Southend1

Taiko wrote: »

Worth having the flipside of the coin, for balance. There are alternatives in everything.

Source? I can't find anything that backs this up for people on the same job role.

see post #14

Most people opt for legal cover on a home/contents policy. This will be covered in most cases.

yes you may have additional legal cover via an insurance policy if you need to go to tribunal but it's never going to match the support you get from your union. For example accompanying you to grievance or disciplinary hearings.


Most UNISON roles tend to have free training provided by the employer anyway in my experience.

not sure what you mean? Are you saying the employer runs courses for union reps that they can also get from their union?


Read - Money given to a political party in order to try and influence decision making.

Yes they do. And so they should. The Labour Party was born from the trade union movement. In Unison, members can opt into the general political fund if they don't want their subs to go to Labour. Or they can opt out of either political fund. However there are also many other campaigns e.g. The britain needs a payrise march organised last October by the TUC that David Cameron suddenly seems to have become a champion for (could there be an election round the corner? Would he be saying the same had the TUC not done so much to publicise the cost of living crisis? Probably not)


So would a non-union Health and Safety rep, which again is someone most places would have anyway.

Safety studies show that workers are twice as likely to be injured in a non-unionised workplace. http://www.tuc.org.uk/workplace-issues/health-and-safety/organisation/worker-involvement/union-effect


Discounts are good, but can you still get the deal cheaper elsewhere? Think it over, and you could be paying £240, and may struggle to recoup a fair proportion of that.

however members are not paying their subs primarily to receive discounts, so any they do get are a bonus

There are a number of rulebook benefits e.g. Death benefit, accident benefit.

Again, public sector jobs often have "death in service" benefits in the terms of employment.

nothing wrong with a little extra though


Which is all well and good, for a white heterosexual male

there are plenty of white heterosexual male union members so i'm sure they don't feel left out


Worth having the flipside of the coin, for balance. There are alternatives in everything.

maybe, but IMHO the subs pay for themselves many times over.

Takeaway_Addict

Helen224488 wrote: »

I work as an administrator in a school in Bristol and recently became the work steward/rep for UNISON as our last steward/rep left and we had no one to represent our school. I pay aprox £10 per month and the benefits are endless. Before I became the work steward/rep I was a member for years. I have recently attended the steward/rep training which I found very interesting.

The FREE benefits I have taken are: free will for myself and partner, 'Return to Learn course' at The Marriott Bristol, 12 weeks, Mon eves 6.30pm-9pm, this course really gave me confidence and I received a level 3 which is equivalent to A Level. It also included a residential weekend at The Marriott which was amazing. I also attended a weekend course at Croyde Bay 'Assertiveness for women in the workplace.' There are several free courses you can attend as a member and you can claim back your expenses for travel etc. No cost to you as a member.

FOR SOUTH WEST EDUCATION BROCHURE COPY AND PASTE FOLLOWING TO YOUR BROWSER:

http://www.unisonsouthwest.org.uk/_assets/images/eandt/photos%20and%20graphics/2015%20education%20programme%20-%20membership.pdf

My school is an academy and UNISON recently secured a pay rise - a minimum of 2.2% and a Christmas bonus of £100 (Previously the offer was 1%). There are also discounts on various insurances, holidays at Croyde Bay and death benefits etc.

I am glad I joined UNISON and am happy to be a workplace steward/rep.

The issue I have with this is that for the vast majority of cases when a union is involved I would suspect the employer deliberately starts low because they know whatever they put forward the Union will push for more, its not different between a retailer and a supplier agreeing a price on a product.

One starts low, one starts high and they meet in the middle where they were both really aiming to start with.

Southend1

Takeaway_Addict wrote: »

The issue I have with this is that for the vast majority of cases when a union is involved I would suspect the employer deliberately starts low because they know whatever they put forward the Union will push for more, its not different between a retailer and a supplier agreeing a price on a product.

One starts low, one starts high and they meet in the middle where they were both really aiming to start with.

Whereas with individual bargaining the employer starts low because they know they can get away with it and there's nothing the employee can do other than get another job elsewhere.

Takeaway_Addict

Southend1 wrote: »

Whereas with individual bargaining the employer starts low because they know they can get away with it and there's nothing the employee can do other than get another job elsewhere.

With some, yes granted but actually you'd probably find the vast majority of employers are fair from the start and give fair pay rises.

And really the point is if I was negotiating with a union and I wanted to give 2% payrise then I would not start with this because the union would try and push it up to 2.5-3% (and I'm not saying this is wrong of the union because its their job) so i would start at 1% knowing full well I had wiggle room to go upwards.

Helen224488

Takeaway_Addict wrote: »

The issue I have with this is that for the vast majority of cases when a union is involved I would suspect the employer deliberately starts low because they know whatever they put forward the Union will push for more, its not different between a retailer and a supplier agreeing a price on a product.

One starts low, one starts high and they meet in the middle where they were both really aiming to start with.

It is not my employer that deliberately started low. The 1% was the offer to Local Authority Schools. We are an academy and many academies set their own pay scale and do not follow LA pay scales. In the first instance of becoming an academy, your pay and conditions would remain the same because of the protections of TUPE (Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) Regulations 2006).

New employees can be employed on different pay and conditions
because academy schools are not in any way bound by the national pay and conditions framework nor any agreements negotiated locally with your local authority.

I had a meeting with our headteacher once the 1% was rejected by Local Authority Schools and a second UNISON ballot was held for academy schools to vote as we were not allowed to vote previously. The ballot was 'for' strike action in Oct 14 but was suspended/cancelled as the offer of 2.2% was made. Our headteacher as an academy school was under no obligation to match the 2.2% or the Christmas bonuses. Obviously if they did not I would of had to go back to UNISON to try and negotiate a fair pay rise. Luckily they did agree to match The Local Government offer.

Southend1

Another recent union success on pay was Unison, UCU et al in HE last year where the employers initially offered 0.5%, negotiated up to 0.8% then 1%. They insisted this was the absolute limit due to the public sector pay cap, despite government ministers warning vice chancellors about taking huge pay rises for themselves while restricting staff pay. Union members took part in strike action and won a 2% rise plus amendments at the bottom of the payscale which means most lower paid staff at least earn the equivalent of the living wage. Which proves that the 1% pay cap didn't apply in HE anyway and the sector could afford a more reasonable (even if VERY modest) rise that they wouldn't have been awarded without collective bargaining.

bluelass

£20 a month sounds quite high but I suppose it depends on how much you earn. I pay about £6 a month to unison and yes I think its worth it you never know when you might need their help and support.

w00519772

It would be good to be able to use some of the benefits I am entitled to. I have looked here: https://www.unison.org.uk/member-benefits/exclusive-deals-offers/. Does anyone use these offers?

The only one I may benefit from is this on: http://www.unisonprepaid.com/home?utm_source=Unison-national&utm_medium=banner&utm_content=6167&utm_campaign=unison.org.uk/benefits/special.asp. How does Unison Prepaid plus compare to TopCashBack? This website rates TopCashBak quite highly.

I am interested to hear how other members use their Unison benefits.

theoretica

The other point no-one has mentioned is supporting the union not just because 'it may happen to me one day' whatever it is, but because it does happen to colleagues and I want to support them. And with a strong percentage of union membership it is perhaps a little less likely to happen as the employers know they will be taken to task.

t0rt0ise

I'm a member of the RMT. I joined because I have a disability which means that I have a medical restriction at work, meaning there's one area that I'm not allowed to work in, and I wanted to be sure that if I was every treated badly or discriminated against, I would have the union to help.

When I worked in the NHS I didn't join the union because I've always found them to be useless there.