Union Perspectives

One way union leaders are failing their members is that the leaders don’t know who their members are. To stop union busters, one must first understand union workers or even non-union workers’ view of unions. It is imperative that union leaders first understand the factors that influence a worker’s view regarding unions, which include the worker’s family background, including their parents’ occupation and any experience that their parents or other close relatives have had with unions, which may affect the attitude of a young or frustrated worker. How do you know what the worker is thinking if you don’t know who the members are and you speak with them? As a union rep, you should know the workers’ employment experiences, their pay and working conditions, their treatment by supervisors, the degree of security they feel, their advancement opportunities or failures for advancement because these can all profoundly influence how a worker perceives their employer and their reaction to unions....