What Are Trade Unions For?

available.  If these sort of negotiations where taken to court people would expect legal services, for example, representation at industrial tribunals and legal advice in cases of the employer's negligence.  Trade unions would also be expected to provide advice and financial assistance when the employee is faced with loss of pay and/or employment, for example, during a strike. This is a general idea of what is required from a trade union and it can be applied into to almost every sector in the economy.  McDonald's is an equal opportunity employer, ensuring that employees and job applicants are selected, trained, promoted and treated on the basis of their relevant skills, talents and performance and without reference to race, colour, nationality, ethnic origin, gender, sexual orientation, marital status, age or disability. The company aims to ensure that no job applicant or existing employee is disadvantaged by conditions, requirements and policies that cannot be shown to be just and fair.McDonald's have announced these attributes of their business to fall into the requirements of the trade union.  If employees believe they are being fairly treated then it would motivate them to enjoy their work more, thus creating a better working atmosphere.  When researching into job application possibilities I discovered that McDonald's will recruit people who have a positive attitude towards customers, themselves and other employees, and who are capable of delivering the highest standards of quality, service and cleanliness to their customers.  This shows that the company is looking to employ people who willing to fit into the ways of the business and wont cause conflict or trouble amongst other staff.  Enforcing this employee status would maintain a good relationship between staff and fewer people would complain about the way they are being treated to the trade union.Employees and unions are both interested in the long-term plans of companies for a number of reasons.  Businesses are always looking for innovative more efficient ways to make money.  To do this many companies invest into machinery, which replace the work of people.  Alternatively they may even plan to reduce their work force in an attempt to cut costs.  These ideas may be incorporated into the long-term plans of a company so it is vitally important to an employee to view how safe their job is.  If an employee has an ample amount of notice to a redundancy they may be able to get a new job in the mean time.  Trade unions would be interested in the plans to see if any of the redundancies were subject to unfair dismissal.If the company wanted to cut back on costs it may put less money into maintenance or new equipment, this may lead to poor health and safety measures which would be quickly highlighted by the trade unions.  If the company looked as if it was functioning extremely well and had brilliant plans for the future an employee may request a deserved job promotion or pay rise.  The trade union would help to negotiate terms with the employer and work within the employee’s rights.However if the companies long-term plans suggested that they were on the down and looking towards bankruptcy then an employee may want to start looking for a new job.  The trade unions would want to see how many people would be made redundant and how the company would treat them. Many trade unions are powerful in the economy and there are a number of factors, which affect its presence.  The amount of people inside it would have a great affect, as a group of 10,000 would be much more influential than a group of 10.  If a union was to go on strike the more people involved would generate a bigger result and make companies pay attention.  Trade unions can be made powerful by powerful leaders who will fight until their demands are met.  A union with less members but more dedicated leaders would have a much better result than a simple union with many members.Possibly the most important thing in making a powerful trade union is how influential to society its members are.  If 1000 cleaners went on strike it wouldn’t even be close to the affect that 1000 ambulance drivers would have.  The recent fire-fighter strikes have had a very big affect on the government as they had to negotiate with the workers or many people would die.  Some industries such as the coal or electricity are very powerful because they have a knock on affect to many other businesses and therefore would have a big say.In conclusion I believe trade unions are a very important thing in the everyday life of people.  Without them who knows how employees would be treated.  Staff could become demotivated and sales would fall, as a result the employees would be put under even worse bad conditions and it would be a never-ending cycle.  On the other hand there have been reported complaints regarding trade unions.  Not keeping proper membership records, failure to conduct elections of officials in the proper manner and misusing union funds are amongst them.  This suggests not all trade unions are perfect but it would be near impossible to function without them.