Labor union

October 12, 2009 ENG 1030*36

Nora Vargas Katherine Cammilleri

Persuasive/Argument Paper

Unions or labor unions are about workers joining together to improve their jobs. If youever worked for a living, you know about the disproportion of power between employers and employees. Employees want to form unions to have a voice at work to improve their lives. Today, there are twoways to join a union, be given voluntary recognition from their employer or have a majority of workers in a "bargaining unit" vote for union representation. Of course it has its pros and cons if thegovernment implements a law that requires all employers to provide employees the option to join a union with out any interference.
There is a law that the Congress passed in 1935 that gives theworkers the right to make a free and fair decision on whether to form a union and negotiate contracts with their employers. But today, we’re seeing how the law puts an extraordinary amount of powerin the hands of employers. The law isn’t working anymore. Workers’ freedom in the United States is violated regularly, protections for workers forming unions are inadequate and enforcement of existinglaws are too weak, according to Human Rights Watch (HRW). As a consequence, the law is not protecting the rights of workers who want a voice on the job. But it is protecting employers to misinform,harass, intimidate and threaten, often scaring employees out of exercising their freedom to choose a union representation. Employers illegally fire workers seeking to form unions and the penalties onemployers who violates the law are so minor that they sends a message to workers that they take a huge risk when they speak out for justice, creating an alarming effect. Non-Union companies don’t wantto unionize for a number of reasons such as having to negotiate the pay, the benefits, working conditions and so on.
There are many reasons why a labor union is advantageous to represent...