Union Organizing 101

A union is a group of workers who join together to achieve better wages, better benefits, respect on the job, and a stronger voice in workplace decisions. With the help of a union, workers negotiate a contract with their employer to ensure these things.

Without a union, employers have 100% control over its employees and complete authority to make all decisions. Unions give employees some of this control to make their workplace better. A union's major goal is to give workers a voice on the job for respect, safety, security, better pay and benefits, and other improvements to working conditions.

The National Labor Relations Act states:

Section 7: "Employees shall have the right to self-organization, to form, join, or assist labor organizations to bargain collectively through representation of their own choosing, and to engage in other concerted activities for the purpose of collective bargaining..."

Section 8 (a): "It shall be an unfair labor practice for an employer...to interfere with, restrain, or coerce employees in the exercise of the rights guaranteed in Section 7..."

This means that you are legally protected when you volunteer to help organize and to join and support a union of your own choice. This includes, but is not limited to, such activities as filling out a union authorization card, getting your co-workers to fill out cards, attending union meetings, wearing union buttons, passing out union literature, and discussing the union with other workers.