Trade unions play an important role and are helpful in effective communication between the workers and the management. They provide the advice and support to ensure that the differences of opinion do not turn into major conflicts. Seeking a healthy and safe working environment is also prominent feature of union activity.

Trade unions help in accelerated pace of economic development in many ways as follows:
* by helping in the recruitment and selection of workers.
* by inculcating discipline among the workforce
* by enabling settlement of industrial disputes in a rational manner
* by helping social adjustments. Workers have to adjust themselves to the new working conditions, the new rules and policies. Workers coming from different backgrounds may become disorganized, unsatisfied and frustrated. Unions help them in such adjustment.

Important social responsibilities of trade unions include:

•       promoting and maintaining national integration by reducing the number of industrial disputes
•       incorporating a sense of corporate social responsibility in workers
•       achieving industrial peace

Why Employees Join Unions

Individuals join unions for many different reasons, and these reasons tend to change over time. They may involve dissatisfaction with management, need for a social outlet, opportunity for leadership, forced unionization, and peer pressure.

A union is an organization that represents employees' interests to management on issues such as wages,
hours, and working conditions. Generally, employees seek to join a union when they

(1) are dissatisfied with aspects of their job,
(2) feel a lack of power or influence with management in terms of making changes, and
(3) see unionization as a solution to their problems.

a. Dissatisfaction with Management—Unions look for problems in organizations and then emphasize the advantages of union membership as a means of solving them. Management must exercise restraint and use its power to foster management and labor cooperation for the benefit of all concerned. Some reasons for employee dissatisfaction are described:

1. Compensation: If employees are dissatisfied with their wages, they may look to a union for assistance in improving their standard of living.

2. Job Security: If the firm doesn’t provide its employees with a sense of job security, workers may turn to a union. Employees are more concerned than ever about job security due to a decline in employment in such key industries as automobiles, rubber, and steel.

3. Management Attitude: Employees do not like to be subjected to arbitrary and capricious actions by management. In some firms, management is insensitive to the needs of its employees. When this situation occurs, employees may perceive that they have little or no influence in job-related matters, thus becoming prime targets for unionization.