Unite CEC branch offers
- advice on workplace policies and procedures
- support during disciplinary or grievance processes
- power in negotiations for pay and conditions
and so much more.
Unite the Union members’ benefits include
- deals on home insurance
- free legal advice
- training and development opportunities.
What is a trade union?
A trade union branch is made up of a group of people who all work for the same, or similar, employer.
Members of a trade union understand and agree that the best way to protect and advance their own interests at work is for all employees to realise that their employment interests are often similar to their colleagues’ interests.
The best way to protect and advance shared interests is to stand together on matters of common concern.
Unite the Union is a member-led trade union. You raise the issues that concern you. You are on the frontline. You see the results.
Officers and employees of the union are accountable to lay reps, such as branch conveners, branch secretaries and shop stewards. In turn, lay reps are accountable to the broader membership. Members elect who they consider to be the best person to represent their shared interests to employer representatives.
Watch this video by Unite member Jamie-Max Caldwell for more. Read the screen-reader friendly transcript.
What have the unions ever done for us?
Individual representation
Another way to look at the trade union is as a type of insurance for your employment. You insure your house, your car, your possessions, so, why not insure your job?
Union reps can go a long way to levelling the playing field between employer and employee.
We fight for fairness in both the design and the application of policy and procedure.
When your livelihood is under threat the trade union will always be there, so long as you are a member.
Myths dispelled
Unions operate as collectives of workers supporting each other in the workplace and beyond. This means that if a worker has an issue, such as a disciplinary or grievance, in the workplace then they would be supported by a fellow worker—their workplace rep—when they are a union member.
Union reps negotiate on behalf of groups of workers when issues affect more than one worker.
Our union is not a service that members pay for, like a mobile phone contract, it is rather workers supporting, defending and negotiating for the best interests of fellow workers.
Being a union member is more like being in a sports club or community organisation where some members voluntarily step forward, take on roles and work in order to ensure the organisation works to its function: to support members.