What Is A Trade Union?

A trade union is an organisation consisting of wage-earners who have joined together to maintain and improve their conditions of employment.  

These organisations have developed over the last 300 years and have many different objectives and activities.

These have included a range of benefits to protect their members against things like unemployment, ill health, old age and funeral expenses.  Most of these benefits are provided by the state nowadays, but things like professional training, legal advice and representation are an important benefit of membership of a trade union.

Other trade union activities include collective bargaining, organising and/or negotiating settlements to industrial disputes, and political activity such as promoting or showing their support for proposed legislation that will benefit their members.

Those who support trade unions say that their creation saw an end to child labour, improved worker safety, helped increase wages and brought about an improvement in general standard of living.  

Critics say that unions benefit only insider workers, those having secure jobs and high productivity and that this comes at a cost to outsider workers, consumers and shareholders.