The key to unionising your colleagues is understanding your workplace – knowing what issues impact them the most and how a union would be able to help.
So if you work in a factory, your colleagues may be concerned about health and safety. If you work for a larger organisation, your colleagues may be more focused on contract renegotiations. Have redundancies been discussed in your workplace? Have your conditions been changed from when you started? These are all things it is good to understand in order to get the best out of a union in your workplace.
Sometimes people may not decide to join a union instantly, and that’s completely fine! More often than not people prefer to go away and have a think at their own speed and will like to have something to read over as they do this.
This is why it is so important that you are fully stocked on the right union resources, be they a Community benefits guide, a poster on how unions make work safer or paper join forms. A guide to our full resource list can be found here and an order form can be found here. Remember some of our resources are available in other languages.
Anyone can join a trade union, and you don’t have to be in a recognised workplace to receive the benefits and support of union membership. However, having a recognition agreement allows a union to bargain on behalf of employees on things like pay and terms and conditions. It can also make the union stronger in the workplace as union Reps would be entitled to time off to complete their duties.
Read our full guide to recognition agreements here.
© Community Trade Union 2023