The Role of Trade Unions

Abstract

Trade unions can be defined as representative organizations of workers which are based upon but transcend the collectivism of particular workplaces and localities. 1 Their essential function is to overcome the individual worker’s weakness by substituting a collective bargain for separate individual bargaining. 2 This wider formal organization transforms the possibilities of shop floor representation and action by mobilizing support, providing organizational resources and framing united policies — a feature which has been appreciated by state agencies as well as social commentators. As Hyman 3 emphasizes, united collective organization for workers also implies ‘power over’ workers, to coordinate activity and ensure unity. Hyman accepts that collective organization allows workers to create social power much greater than their power as individuals, but points out that the organization of conflict also makes conflict manageable by employers and by governments. It does this by ensuring that ‘grievances are brought into the open, channelled to the appropriate authorities, expressed in a form which makes compromise possible and articulated by a bargaining partner with whom an agreement can be reached which employees will feel some commitment to observe. Thus an inescapable function of trade union action is, in Mills’s terms, “the management of discontent”.’ 4 These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.

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