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by dea_ex_machina on February 18th, 2009
I am very much in favour of unions - but I think you need to understand that there are different roles for unions in different professions, and, as I see it, we have a different perspective of them in UK than you have in USA.
My union promotes professionalism in the workplace - and campaigns for improvements in working conditions purely in order to increase professionalism. For example, as teachers, we were required to spend vast amounts of time photocopying, chasing paper, compiling reports (by compiling, I mean physically organising 15 sheets of paper per child into alphabetical order, then stapling front and back covers) These are tasks which could be more easily done by admin staff, leaving teachers free to prepare, plan and assess. The unions fought for the removal of these admin tasks - in order to allow us to prepare, plan and assess. Result: teachers are now involved more in the planning of lessons, preparing of materials and assessing work - we still work the same number of hours, but out time is spent focussing on the children, not the paper.
The union also has a beneficial role in ensuring staff welfare, or representing colleagues. A classic example is with the issue of abuse from students - sadly some students do abuse staff at school, and we are largely powerless to do anything about it - but, with union support, we can insist that school mamangement take action - whether that action is removing the student from school (in extreme situations only) or reparing risk assessments and providing additional support for particular students.
There are unions whose members tend to follow a more radical path, but the one I am involved in has a much more conciliatory approach - all in all I am very happy with their role.
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