Labour Union

Labor Union

Labor union or trade union is an organization formed by group of unsatisfied worker to voice out their opinions and seeks employee's right and benefit from the employer. Salamon (1992 : 78 ) defines trade union as 'any organization , whose membership consists of employees which seeks to organize and represents their interests both in the workplace and society and , in particular , seeks to regulate their employment relationship through the direct process of collective bargaining with management .' However there is no union in One World Hotel.

Having labor union in an organization has their advantages and disadvantages. Most labor union use a labor contract to have mutual agreement or understanding between the employee and management. The contract usually will stated clearly about employee's salary, right and benefits, working conditions, safety and much more. Through labor contract, employees and the organization will have a good relationship and a pleasant working environment. This will allow them to work effectively and efficiency without having any issue occurs.

Besides that, the entire employees in the organization can gather their opinions and complaints then participate in a negotiation with the management represented by the union leader called collective bargaining. This is better than the individual employees going negotiate on their own as the chances of success are higher because it will be easier to be heard if affiliated with a union.

While labor union in an organization can ensure both parties working in a good environment, however there are also some disadvantages and caused things not to work out smoothly between the employees and management. The labor union representative not all the time can reach a successful agreement with the management. Therefore, when negotiation failed it will affect both employees and employer relationship. Employee will get fired or resign from the organization and employer will lack of staff to run their daily operation.

Labor union demand high salaries and this will encourage employers to either reduce the number of workers or to hire oversea labor to work. In some industry that involved manufacturing process, employers rather outsource the work to oversea countries that doesn't involve labor union. Members who involve in labor union could hardly get promoted to higher level as the organization doesn't want them to have more power and over control the management.

In short labor union can have the pros and cons to an organization but it's all depend on how they carry it out to achieve commons mutual agreements between the employee and employer.