Are Trade Unions Still Relevant Today? (Essay Sample)

Are Trade Unions Still Relevant Today?
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Table of Contents TOC \o "1-3" \h \z \u 1.Introduction PAGEREF _Toc124538028 \h 32.Reasons Employees Joined Unions PAGEREF _Toc124538029 \h 33.The Decline of Collective Unions PAGEREF _Toc124538030 \h 43.1.Demographics PAGEREF _Toc124538031 \h 43.2.Changes in employment structure and jobs. PAGEREF _Toc124538032 \h 44.Strategies for Trade Union Renewal PAGEREF _Toc124538033 \h 54.1.Organizing PAGEREF _Toc124538034 \h 64.2.Partnership PAGEREF _Toc124538035 \h 75.Conclusion PAGEREF _Toc124538036 \h 9References PAGEREF _Toc124538037 \h 10
1 Introduction
The evolution of trade unionism has been quite significant. Darlington (2014) points out that trade unions unite employees in opposition to employers. This generally helped to safeguard weak and manipulated low-paid workers. Unions frequently tapped into the group power that employees possess at work. This sparked conflicts over pay, employment terms, working hours, and conditions while also helping workers develop the boldness and class awareness needed to contest and ultimately topple the capitalist system (Flanders, 2022). However, trade unions have indeed been declining over the past 30 years in several sophisticated industrialised nations worldwide. Employers have been collaborating with employees to fight unions by using participative management techniques. Darlington (2014) observes that the difficulties trade unions have are a result of their seeming incapacity to reinvent themselves, with unions frequently preferring to depend on institutional assistance than formulating plans. Using relevant scholarly research, this essay aims to determine whether trade unions' techniques for renewal, such as organizing and partnership, are viable in the present. Additionally, it will look into what attracted people to unions in the past and what led to their decline. This will make it easier to understand whether the tactics used will turn trade unions into a successful industrial problem.
2 Reasons Employees Joined Unions
The mobilisation theory is one of the most useful explanations for explaining this occurrence. Darlington (2018) observes that it has primarily been applied to examine collective action in the context of strike activity. The goal of mobilisation theory is to clarify how people become collective actors who are prepared, willing, and able to establish and maintain a collective organisation and take part in mass action against their managers (Holgate et al., 2018). This theory also emphasises how identity, attribution, agency, and injustice all play a part in how people identify their interests. A more or less comprehensive reorganization of the relationships between labour, capital, and state evolved as a result of the emergence of collective action, which was accelerated during a time of class struggles (Holgate et al., 2018). The mobilisation theory, according to Martin (1999), falls short