Public Opinion And It's Impact

Is Public Opinion having a real Global Impact?
The Importance on Trade Unions in the Professional Environment

Now a day we live in a world in which information travels around fast, we receive information through social media, electronic communication, etc. In this era public opinion plays an essential role, we all want to give our opinion on what is happening around the world, however publicopinion is more than just what we as an individual think but rather it is what we think as a society, as a collective system. As humans we have the basic need of affiliation, we all wish to fit in, to be part of a community hence we adapt our thoughts and opinions to the ones of those who surround us. Public opinion is inevitable, all that is said and all that is done will have repercussions interms of public opinion. A few decades ago it used to be that actions generated public opinions but since globalization it now happens the other way around; public opinion influence actions. The global impact of public opinion has had an effect in all professional areas.

In the professional environment the biggest impact that I think public opinion has had is in the creation of trade unions.Trade unions are the result of the cooperation between workers, these are organizations formed by employees in order to achieve common goals, such as the protection of workers, fighting for the right remuneration of their works among many others. Over the years trade unions have developed into many forms the most controversial one is industrial action that is taken into the form of strikes, lockouts,etc. Trade unions were created out of the necessity that workers had of getting heard. The only way in which their “public opinion” could be taken into consideration is through trade unions.

The history of trade unions begins in the 18th century, workers in the coal mining industry attempted to form unions. Colliery owners refused to negotiate with these trade unions hence the future for tradeunions didn’t seem to hopeful. In 1799 the Combinations law made it illegal for workers to join together in order to press their employers for better wages, better working conditions, this legislation remained until 1824, after an outbreak by workers in the form of strikes which resulted in the 1825 Combination Act which narrowly defined the rights of trade unions. It took many years until tradeunions were finally acknowledged as a formal organization and employers were willing to negotiate with them. In present times we hear many stories in the news about strikes, lockouts that happen as a result of lack of understanding from industries to employees.

A strike that shows the magnitude of public opinion in an industry is the Writers Guild of America Strike that happened in 2007-2008.The strike lasted approximately four months, more than 12,000 writers -working in film, television and radio- joined the strike. What writers wanted to achieve through this strike was to increase monetary compensation in comparison to the profits of the larger studios. The result of this strike was the halt in the production of all television shows- except reality shows-, the television shows thatwere affected first were entertainment shows such as “the Colbert Report” “Real Time with Bill Maher”, these shows are rarely pre-taped, but rather because they depend on current events they are filmed live hence with no writers to write monologues and sketches on these events they were greatly affected and production was abruptly stopped. Even the Golden Globes ceremony of 2008 did not happen dueto the fact that writers were not willing to write for the ceremony as long as they didn’t reach an agreement with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP). On February 12th, 2008 the strike ended for good, more than 92 percent of the members of the Writers Guild voted to end their work stoppage after bargaining with the AMPTP a new deal for three years which has been...