Research shows unions make business more competitive
25th January 2012
CWU welcomes research carried out by the TUC
which has found that the presence of unions in the workplace helps
make businesses more competitive.
A report -
Facility Time for Union Reps: Separating fact from fiction -
found that union representation in the workplace saves employers in
the public and private sector as much as £701 million a year
or £2 million a day.
The report, published yesterday (Tuesday) comes at a time when
right wing Conservative MPs and think tanks are mounting an effort
to cut the amount of paid time allowed for trade union activity.
Written by Gregor Gall, Professor of Industrial Relations at the
University of Hertfordshire, the report found union representation
resulted in more productive, and better trained, workforces, safer
workplaces and fewer cases being taken to employment tribunal.
The research also found that a good deal of the work of union
reps takes place in their own time. Some 16% of union reps said
that less than a quarter of the time they spent on union work was
paid for by their employer. And the researchers estimated that for
every £1 spent on union facility time in the public sector,
between £3 and £9 is returned in accrued benefits.
"This report demonstrates the value of union reps
to the UK economy, not only helping improve workplace conditions
but also enabling private and public sector employers to keep costs
down, and so deliver huge savings to the taxpayer," said CWU
general secretary Billy Hayes. "Good
employers will always seek to work with unions and reap the many
benefits that union membership and recognition brings."
TUC general secretary Brendan Barber said:
"The highly exaggerated and wholly inaccurate figures being
bandied around by groups and individuals
on the right as to the cost of unions in the public
sector are supposedly borne out of a desire to save money. In
reality they are nothing more than a thinly-veiled attack on unions
and their ability to represent workers across the public sector.
"Yet our research shows that there are huge benefits to
employers - in both the public and private sectors - to be had as a
result of the funding of facility time for union reps. Successive
governments have recognised the moral, legal and economic case for
supporting workplace reps - ministers would be wise to do likewise
and avoid what appear to be ideologically-driven announcements
designed to appease right wing backbenchers."
Read the report Facility Time for Union Reps: Separating fact from fiction.
Do you belong to a union? Why not join the CWU now to benefit from a range
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