Craft Unions In The Workplace

A union is an organized group of workers who collectively use their strength to have a voice in their workplace. Through a union, workers have a right to impact wages, work hours, benefits, workplace health and safety, job training and other work-related issues. Under U.S. law, workers of all ages have the right to join a union. Having support from the union to ensure fairness and respect in the workplace is one of the key reasons workers organize.
All of the benefits and protections workers enjoy today came about as a result of the organized labor movement in this country. These include the minimum wage, social security payments, an eight-hour day and weekends, overtime pay, the American with Disabilities Act and the Occupational Safety and
Craft unions represent employees in a single occupation or group of closely related occupations. The members of craft unions are generally highly skilled workers. Examples of craft unions include the various skilled trades in the construction industry, such as carpentry, plumbing, and electrical work. Craft unions are most common in occupations in which employees frequently switch employers. A construction worker is usually hired to complete work at a specific job site and then moves on to work elsewhere (often for another employer). In addition to collective bargaining, craft unions often serve as a placement service for members. Employers contact the union's hiring hall and union members currently out of work are referred to the
A local may be confined to union members in a particular geographic area or company, or it may cover multiple contracts with various employers in the same business sector. They are often numbered to distinguish each local from each other. (For example OPCMIA Local 21). Locals have their own governing bodies which represent the interests of the national or international union but are able to organize regular meetings and be responsible to their constituents. Within the local governing body is usually an executive board elected to look over the interests of the union, control finances including union dues, and manage interactions between workers and employers. These positions often include a business representative/business agent, secretary and/or treasurer. Local branches may also affiliate with a local trades council or district council, an organization of local unions involved in all aspects of a particular trade or industry in a particular geographic area. An example of this is a local building trades organization comprised of many union