Independent Trade Unions
How can they democratize your workplace?
Why do so many of us work in unions that don’t seem to fight for us? Sometimes, being in a union feels like having another job and still no say in your professional life. The CEO of a union no more represents an entry-level employee or a blue collar worker any more than the CEO of a corporation.
Business Unions operate under the founding premise that unions ought to be run like businesses. Business Unions often have strong threads of influence from the employer, rather than being completely controlled by workers. Business Unions are technically outlawed in the United States by the National Labor Relations Act, but we know that illegality does not always translate in practice. In the same way the National Labor Relations Act hasn’t eliminated coercion and influence by employers, bad representations can make its way into any union where workers don’t have power.
Fighting Unions, or more formally known as Independent Trade Unions, are organized by workers, for workers, to fight for things like safe working conditions, living wages, better benefits, social and economic justices outside of the workplace environment, and more. These unions are organized from the bottom up, with workers making decisions about their benefits, rather than these benefits being gifted to them by wealthy union…
