Abstract

This research aims to analyze the Union and Non-Union Differences and Advantages. The study is focused towards secondary research. Unions are formed by employees who desire to improve their compensation, benefits, and working conditions and to bring greater fairness and due process to their workplace. Most labor historians generally agree that the first real union in the United States was formed by shoemakers in Philadelphia in 1792. Unions contribute to a better working environment in terms of pay, benefits, and various other factors.

Table of Contents

Introduction3

Discussion3

History of Unions3

Formation of Labor Unions5

Difference in Pay and Benefits5

Wal-Mart as a Non-Union Organization6

Comparison to Non-Union Teachers7

Conclusion8

Union and Nonunion Differences and Advantages

Introduction

Unions are formed by employees who desire to improve their compensation, benefits, and working conditions and to bring greater fairness and due process to their workplace. Employees recognize that unless they have unusual or unique skills or talents, individuals have very little influence with their employers and very little power to improve the conditions under which they work. The organizations which have unions, contributes positively to better working environment for employees.

Discussion

History of Unions

Most labor historians generally agree that the first real union in the United States was formed by shoemakers in Philadelphia in 1792. It was later called as cordwainers. By 1806, the courts banned the cordwainers, and all other unions, as conspiracies in restraint of trade. When this decision was overturned in 1842, the government found other ways to discourage the formation of unions, including issuing injunctions and the use of police and militia to put down strikes, demonstrations, and other forms of collective action (Ehrenreich, pp. 55). Meanwhile, most employers used a variety of strategies to fight the unionization of their workforce, including firing union activists and blacklisting them so they could not find other employment, evicting pro-union employees and their families from company-owned housing, and engaging in violence against workers who tried to organize.

These efforts on the part of employers did not entirely prevent workers from forming local, and even national, unions, but they did succeed in keeping unions relatively weak and on the defensive. However, legislation passed in the midst of the Great Depression as part of the New Deal changed the legal status of unions and ensured their existence as a central part of the U.S. economy. The National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), passed in 1935 as part of President Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal, changed public policy toward unions in a dramatic, even radical, way. After more than a century in which government routinely assisted employers in the suppression of unions, the NLRA now granted most American workers in the private sector a legal right to organize, bargain collectively, and engage in strikes, if they choose to do so. Employers vehemently opposed the legislation, but it was declared constitutional by a 5-4 vote of the Supreme Court.

The passage, and confirmation of the constitutionality of the NLRA by the Supreme Court in 1937, meant that the federal government would no longer side with employers against unions; rather, it would actively protect workers' rights to organize, bargain, and strike. The NLRA included a set of rules that would dictate how ...