Introduction In the industrial world, the conditions and terms of many employees are negotiated by a union. In 2007 agencies such as Visser and OECD show that the rates of unionization are 70% in Denmark, Sweden and Finland. Places like the United Kingdom, Canada and Ireland have around 30% followed by the United States that just barely at 10% (Robbins, Coulter, Leach & Kilfoil, 2009). Although these numbers seem high, the have declined steadily over the years and even as much as 50% in the case of the United States since the 1960’s (Robbins, Coulter, Leach & Kilfoil, 2009) . Although these declines are significant, it’s safe to say that unionized workplaces will play a crucial role in the global economy. Management strategies and practices between unionized and non-unionized workplace environments have many differences and has been then focus of many studies. The laws concerning employment and worker’s unions vary from country to country so for these purposes I’ll focus mostly on Canadian and North American practices.
Pros and Cons of Unionized Environments The imbalance between employer and employee have always been lopsided. There was a time when employers had all the power when it came to contract negotiations. Not only would they possess the money needed for someone to survive but laws typically favoured the employers and in some cases to the extent of slavery. It was so one-sided that workers could be criminally convicted for not fulfilling a contract, no matter how unfair the terms. This situation caused the creation of a few different employment models including unionization (Brown & Warren, 2011). More specifically the Pluralist perspective was developed to group the collective voice of the workers to help level the playing field. As individuals workers had small amounts of leverage but together as a group workers could use their collective