Business International Labor Organizations essay
The position of the labor force, employees, which constitute the overwhelming majority of the population of the world is under a threat because the process of globalization increases the opportunities for large, multinational corporations to overcome traps, which are traditionally imposed on them by unions since the difference in legislation and the level of the development of the union movement in different countries of the world allows them avoiding a substantial impact of unions on their policy. As a result, the threat to the efficient protection of rights and interests of workers and ordinary employees by unions increases dramatically, while the declining union membership, which may be traced worldwide, is one of the major indicators which reveals signs of the possible crisis in the union movement in global terms. In such a situation, it is extremely important to understand the essence of the process of globalization and its impact on the union movement and union membership in different countries of the world. Nevertheless, the unionization at the international level is the major way to the protection of workers’ rights and liberties through the pressure from the part of international labor organizations on employers, including large multinational corporations.
Today, it is possible to trace a trend to the decline of union membership in many countries of the world. In this respect, globalization creates conditions unfavorable for the development of the union movement. First of all, the elimination of fiscal barriers between countries, which stimulate the development of international trade and the formation of international networks and multinational corporations prevent unions from a strict control over the performance of large multinational corporations and their policy in relation to employees. As a result, the effectiveness of unions decreases consistently and employees feel dissatisfied with their membership in unions and naturally take decision to stop their membership in unions. In fact, the employees’ dissatisfaction with unions is one of the major causes of the decline of union membership in the modern world (Scruggs and Lange, 2002).
Obviously, the dissatisfaction of employees with unions decreases their trust in the ability of unions to protect their interests and rights and, therefore, employees view their membership as useless or ineffective in the contemporary business environment. At the same time, union membership requires permanent pay offs, which become a considerable financial burden for employees (Soskice, 1999). Naturally, in the situation, when the role of unions decreases and the dissatisfaction of employees grows, union membership decreases steadily.
At the same time, along with the growing dissatisfaction of employees, it is possible to mention other causes of the decline of union membership. In this respect, it is worth mentioning such a cause as the redundancy or change of the workplace by employees (Dunning, 1998). In fact, today, the problem of redundancy becomes quite widely spread because the weakness of unions in developing countries and outsourcing of production in developed countries leads to consistent job cuts and, therefore, employees either lose their job or change their workplace.
On the other hand, it is necessary to understand that redundancy is another evidence of the weakness of unions and their inability to protect interests and rights of employees. To put it more precisely, the job cuts may be beneficial for owners of companies, but, obviously, they produce extremely negative impact on the life of employees. As a rule, the loss of a job means the consistent deterioration of the life of employees and members of the family because they lose a considerable part of their earnings. Consequently, they are forced to change their traditional lifestyle, limit the consumption of products and services they get used to while working. In such a context, unions have to protect employees and minimize the risk of redundancy, which is probably one of the major threats to the well-being of employees. However, there are a lot of examples when unions have failed to prevent redundancy. For instance, it is possible to remind the redundancy in Sanmina, which resulted in considerable job cuts and employees were practically left aside without any substantial financial support from the part of the company or unions. Naturally, such cases decrease the popularity of unions.
Even if employees take independent decision to change an employer, they also stop their union membership because the new employment, as a rule, implies the new union membership. However, in the contemporary world, people tend to change their workplace faster than they have used to do before in the past (Scruggs and Lange, 2002). In such a situation, the significance of union membership decreases because frequent changes of working places does not contribute to the stable union membership and any benefits from such membership for employees.
Furthermore, L. Scruggs and P. Lange (2002) underline the fact that economic globalization is marginal and conditional on the union movement. In actuality, the increasing international cooperation and internationalization of business contributes to the free labor force movement worldwide that increases the competition on the labor force market and, therefore, decreases the opportunities to influence the policy of employers even in spite of the pressure from the part of unions. In addition, the process of globalization leads to the growing trend to the weakening of the position of unions since the low development of the union movement in developing countries of the world deteriorates opportunities of unions in developed countries to influence the policy of large multinational corporations
In fact, the difference in the union movement in different countries of the world produces a profound impact on the decline of union membership. In this respect, it is important to underline that the difference in the union movement is quite substantial and it is not only the difference between the progress of unions in developed and developing countries of the world. For instance, M.J. Slaughter (2007) underlines the more advanced development of unions in Europe compared to the US. However, such a difference between the US and the EU does not prevent the decline of union membership. The decline of union membership is mainly determined by the inability of the unions to unite their efforts and oppose to the pressure from the part of employees.
On the other hand, it is important to underline that unions attempt to undertake counteractions in order to prevent the growing pressure from the part of employers, especially large multinational corporations through restructuring the organization of unions (Dunning, 1998). To put it more precisely, unions attempt to develop international structures and modernize their organizational structure in order to enlarge their opportunities to operate on the international level and, therefore, consolidate their policy and protect interests of employees and their rights on the international level.
However, such restructuring often results in the growing bureaucratization of unions and employees feel dissatisfied with unions (Slaughter, 2007). The latter may be partially explained by the complexity of the organizational structure of unions. In fact, employees are not confident in reorganized and restructured unions and, what is more, they feel abandoned by unions because the gap between union leaders and ordinary members of unions grows wider. As a result, union membership decreases, in spite of efforts of unions to increase the efficiency of their work in regard to the protection of interests and rights of employees.
Thus, the union membership declines internationally. However, the union movement is still extremely important in terms of the protection of workers’ rights and liberties as well as their interests. Internationalization of union movement helps unions to unite their efforts in the struggle against oppression of workers’ rights by large companies and multinational corporations. International labor organizations help to unite the international community in the struggle against the violation of basic human rights of employees worldwide.
