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In the general sense, a union is a democratic organization for workers within the same general line of work or industry who have organized in order to protect their rights and interests. They negotiate with employers to insure that workers receive good benefits and fair pay, in addition to developing guidelines related to maintaining safe working conditions, reasonable work schedules, and other issues related to the workplace. Feel like the CTO has singled out your team for unfair treatment? Unions also work to resolve issues that may arise between management and employees, and it is not uncommon for a worker to call on their union to help address such a the situation. A union is able to effect change in the workplace because it has the backing of its members: simply put, it’s a good example of there being strength in numbers. Unions are frequently successful when dealing with situations where a lone individual would fail.

Why would folks in IT even consider creating and joining a union? Well, the cold hard truth is that the economic interests of a company and the well being of its employees don’t always coexist harmoniously. Let’s say a company wants you to work for them, but they don’t want the added expense of hiring you a permanent employee; so instead they hire you as a “temp”. For a year. With no benefits and no guarantee of consistent forty hour work weeks. It’s not necessarily the worst deal if you’re able to command hourly wages upwards of $100 an hour, but that often isn’t the case these days, even for highly skilled IT worker.

So what do you do? Well, if you’re like a lot of people who’ve found themselves in a similar predicament, you get a second job or try to supplement your income with paying projects so you can afford to buy your own benefits. If you were unionized, chances are that you’d bypass this scenario because a union contract with that employer would ensure a certain level of benefits, and perhaps provide more opportunities to combat "temp-ization" of your company, and more opportunities for steady, full-time work.