Do you think highschool students should be taught how to unionize their workplaces? Why or why not?

20 comments

1. Unions in Europe (or at least in Spain) are not like unions in USA where employers have to form unions independently.

   Here unions fight for all workers rights, to change or create new laws, in the USA workers fight for their rights without bring really united. They are limited to make changes in the company they are working and that’s all

2. No. It’s pretty straight forward. Most places have a union already and you just join it.

3. There are already unions you can join here in Germany. What’s more important would be to teach students how to set up a Betriebsrat ([works council](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Works_council)) which is specifically and only for your company’s employees to have organized representation *within* the company.

4. Before that, I feel we’d need a basic politics course in the UK – and of course that would have to be taught quite neutrally and impartially.

   It is a bit bloody daft that you can go vote for the first time aged 18 and not really have a clue how any of this stuff ‘works’.

5. Why would I need to form a union for my workplace when there’s already plenty of perfectly fine unions out there? My employer is also one of the best paying in my field and unlike in certain other countries the government actually gives a shit about people’s rights so we’ve got ample protection written into the law already.

6. Like others said, in European countries there are plenty of unions, creating new ones isn’t really needed, especially in France where the number of union members tend to drop (to be linked with the decline of the communist party of france and heavy de-industrialisation).

   Moreover, we in France have a dedicated civic course with lessons on politics, and often on ecology.

   ( edit : fixed spelling and wording)

7. Maybe not unionizing as that isn’t really needed in Europe, but schools should definitely teach more about organizing “real life” like contracts and stuff. If I didn’t have my parents I would be so lost with everything from renting my apartment to getting a new phone tariff.

8. No, because they don’t need it. Everyone is saying “man i wish i learned XY in school that would be a useful skill”, but many teens or kids aren’t interested to learn stuff that doesn’t touch them directly (even if it might in the future) and you forget stuff you learned in school pretty fast if you get older (I couldn’t imagine that at 20 either, but not even 6 years later and I barely care for half the stuff that doesn’t concern me directly). unions also work different here, and a lot of life skills are situational, so it’s not something to teach in school as you want to teach “common knowledge” and “how to help themselves”, so later in life they know how to research and google to figure out solutions by themselves.

9. Of course? But it’s not super needed to know how to unionize, over 90% of all employees in Sweden are covered by Collective agreements that the Unions have made. There’s essentially always gonna be an already established union presence at most workplaces.

   A good workplace will even introduce you to your local union representative, at the best workplaces the Union representative will talk to all new employees about the Union.

   But back to high School, my Civics teacher did actually invite a Union worker from LO (Landsorganisationen i Sverige – The national organization in Sweden) to talk about your rights as a worker and what protection you have and what you should and shouldnt do. What the union actually does and how they can help workers.

   LO is a umbrella organisation for 14 unions in Sweden and is the largest gathering of unions here. It’s specifically tied to the workers movement in Sweden and was founded in 1898. It has strong ties to the Social Democrats the workers party that has been in power for roughly 70 years out of the last 100 years. It’s essentially a lobbying organisation for the workers, they have the backing of 1,4 million members, roughly 14% of the population. To put that into perspective, LO has more members than the the largest right wing pro-business opposition party has votes (1,4m vs ~1,3m)

10. Like everyone else has already said, we just have unions here as well that fight for everybody in a sector, member or not. Unions aren’t company-specific. You can easily sign up to one you like the look of.

11. Here in Denmark about 67% of people in the workforce are in unions. There are some big ones that most are part of, and generally a given union focuses on a work sector (NNF for bakers, butchers, dairy workers; Horesta for hotel, restaurant, and tourism; like that) but there are also some that are general (like Det Faglige Hus). You are free to join any or no union no matter where you work here, but joining one that focuses on your industry means they have a better understanding of the history and current affairs within that branch.

    As a result, there is no minimum wage enshrined in Danish law, but collective bargaining on the part of unions has ensured that Denmark has some of the highest wages in the world (a study in ‘09-‘10 showed Copenhagen with the second-highest wages in the world after Zurich). As a population, we have five paid weeks holiday per year, 52 weeks of maternity leave with no strike against your position in your job, and myriad other benefits that have been made in collaboration with unions and the government.

    This isn’t taught in depth at public school, but is explained when you join a school for trades, or if you take gymnasial education and you take social sciences you will learn more about them.

12. I’d lump it together with general knowledge on people’s rights and duties as a citizen.
    And how the society works – like taxes, wellfare benefits, legalities, your general rights and duties as an employee.

    what is okay and what isn’t.

    How to seek help and what are your rights as a customer, patient or as a student.

13. No need as there are already numerous unions that will fight for you whether you are a member or not.

    There is also an alliance of unions.. In Yugoslavia most of unions were public, or run by the state, but by the end, more and more independent unions were made and now we have an alliance of those.

    The alliance coordinates the member unions, so they can have a better leverage when trying to accomplish something.

14. There needs to be at least some political activism activities.

    When I was at school it was mostly a farce (no actual influence on school decisions). So everyone avoided these “school presidency” at all costs.

    Just before the war there were few projects when government allocated grants for school projects proposed by the students. Students then needed to propose the project, promote it among other students so students will vote for the winner that will be implemented. This may be more effective to show that you can make collective action, negotiate and propose realistic goals.

15. UK: Even though there’s not many unions here I honestly don’t know what your suppose to teach them. Its just a case of find one and sign up.

    I did learn about employee rights when I studded business at school and would think this would be more useful and beneficial. It could be taught as part of social studies or something on those lines

16. Unions are nationwide and independent of the companies. You can almost join any union (as some are specific to one sector, only people working that sector can join). There’s no need to unionize a workplace.

    Companies themselves are obliged to have a works council if they have more than 50 employees. The works council can only consist of employees of that specific company. Every employee can vote for representatives in the works council.

    The works council can negotiate on behalf of the workers with management. There’s no membership and no dues to be paid.

    The works council is also pro-active, as they’re told about big decisions before they’re made public. The works council can then, in private, give advice to management on the decision to make it more worker friendly. If that doesn’t work and the decision is made public, then the union steps in as they’re more reactive. As the union has their own specialist employees and lawyers, they’re better suited to fight the company on behalf of the employees.

    Google translate the following wiki page

    https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ondernemingsraad_(Nederland)

17. I don’t know if there are unions in Romania… Maybe some organizations specific to a certain profession, like the colege of medical doctors who hands out the licenses to practice medicine and who oversee malpractice cases, but not for wages and contracts.

    We have ok worker’s rights here. If anyone actually bothers to follow them…

    In primary and grade school we have civics class where we learn how the government operates and stuff that have to do with the working of the country. Then in high school it depends on your profile. In my case (biochemistry profile) we had one year of psychology, economics, philosophy and… sociology?! I honestly don’t remember. But in economics and this other thing we talked a lot about the inner working of the country.

18. I would’ve been happy to be taught what unions were at all lmao. Literally the only information on them I received at my fairly prestigious grammar school was that they make companies less efficient and that they aren’t needed anymore because we have good labor laws now. How do they work or what they do? Never mentioned. Had to find all that myself later. Honestly seeing how openly ideogical our social studies teacher was and how little sense she was making played a huge role in pushing me left.

19. With union membership declining more and more, it definitely wouldn’t hurt if they were at the very least taught more about unions and unionizing. I have been talking with the societal studies teachers at the school I work at about how they teach about unions and a lot of the time they either don’t treat the subject or don’t have the time to go into depth about it.

20. As many others said, in Italy too there are a lot of unions, some of them are so big that they will discuss the terms of the “collective national contracts” with the state.
    Basically jobs in Italy are regulated through this set of standard contracts that employees have to choose, and they decide everything from salary, advancements, vacancy days etc…

    So, even if you are not inside one, you have style their protection when you sign a contact.
    Also they will protect you assisting you during trials and stuff.

    Then there is a whole bunch of other problems, like fake contacts to elude those contacts, connivent unions etc…