WHEN I was first asked to join a union, I remember thinking it was the last thing I wanted to do. But I actually wasn’t asked to join, I was told to join. It was a stipulation of accepting the job.

That did not sit well with me. I was young, energetic and ambitious about my future. I just could not see how being a part of a union would help me in pursuit of my career plans.

But several years passed and I learned the value of a union. I saw non-union and union workplaces from the inside and outside, and found that unions often were a stabilising factor in labour-management relations because they often helped steer everyone to the middle ground.

I also recognised that unions had a severe image problem, one that nearly overshadowed their mission to help workers lead better lives.

Sadly, unions struggle with that today. They seem easy targets to criticise. They are blamed for increasing the cost of doing business, protecting bad workers from losing their jobs and being an obstacle to innovation and productivity. Sometimes, those complaints are valid. Sometimes, they are misguided.

Union membership in the US has been in sharp decline for the past three decades. Fifty years ago, unions represented about one in three American workers. Today, slightly more than 12 per cent are union members.

Federal organising laws have been undermined by government policies, employers have discouraged union organising, and abuses of the right to have a union have been rampant in recent years without fear of reprisal.

The actions of the federal government and employers in recent years have made a mockery of the National Labour Relations Act – the 1935 law giving workers the right to organise into collective bargaining units and providing the basis for improving workers’ health, safety and benefits since then.

In early February, the Employee Free Choice Act was introduced in Congress. The legislation should not be necessary, but it reaffirms and strengthens the nation’s commitment to allow workers to organise unions in their workplaces, if they wish.

The provisions of the legislation are simple:

. it calls upon the National Labour Relations Board to clarify and safeguard union organising if a majority of workers in a particular workplace agree to organise;

. it requires Federal mediation 90 days after a union is certified if no contract agreement is reached and requires arbitration 30 days after that if there still is no contract; and

. it carries stronger penalties for companies that violate the anti-organising and intimidation provisions.

A recent poll by Peter D Hart Research Associates shows that 68 per cent of American workers believe unions can make a difference in their workplaces and 62 per cent think their wages and benefits would suffer if there were no more unions.

Clearly, unions are fighting battles that represent more than 12.5 per cent of the working population.

The truth is unions remain the best counterbalance to unchecked management rights in the US.

Think of the way the federal government is structured. It does not give power to any one entity. The government’s power structure is divided between the executive, judicial and legislative branches. But perplexing these entities can be at times.

I would wager that nearly all Americans agree this system of checks and balances is one of the more magnificent creations in the modern world. That is because laws that emerge from this structure represent the values of the citizenry and the intent of our forefathers.

Unions and the collective-bargaining processes might at times be frustrating, but they are an essential component of the American workplace.

– Copley News Service