THE TWO FACES OF UNIONS

JOAN E. PYNES

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DOI: 10.2190/WFPH-8GLV-5N5J-0NLG

Abstract

This article recognizes that unions adapted to a variety of workplace changes and have played a critical role in defining many public policies. Unions have been in the forefront negotiating family-friendly contract provisions such as childcare, eldercare, domestic partnership benefits, and paternity care leaves. Unions have continued to promote health and safety protections for their members, as well as fight for their job security. Two tables are included: one identifies typical contract clauses, the types of items one would expect to find in a collective bargaining contract; the other table provides examples of some new and progressive contract clauses. The purpose of unions is to represent their membership. There are those who would argue that unions are nothing but self-interested organizations worthy of even greater suspicion than government from the electorate's viewpoint. Although unions actually do more than simply behave as economic agents and what may be unions' self-interests may also serve the general welfare, these arguments are often lost on the more cynical members of the electorate and those groups who have a vested in the lack of viability of organized labor [1, p. 307].

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