Wal-Mart and Union Membership Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Wal-Mart and Union Membership - Research Paper Example The only advantage of having a union is that Wal-Mart will have to consult only the union when implementing its human resource policies rather than to consult the individual workers separately. It will also ease the government’s regulations in the industry as the government would know that the trade union is there to represent the interest of workers. Another advantage of Trade Unions for Wal-Mart is that it will make sure that all the grievances and resentment of workers are heard before they become an issue and hence it will result in better employee-employer relationship which will lead to smooth functioning of the organization.Hence, we can see that although Wal-Mart enjoys certain advantages when working with unions, but these are greatly outnumbered by the disadvantages of working with unions. 2) Employee gains a lot of advantages if they have union membership. The greatest advantage that it renders to the workers is strength in numbers. The bigger a group of workers demanding certain right, the more pressure it can put on the management and hence there are more chances that the management would give in to their demands. This encourages more and more employees to join the union and enjoy the benefits of being strong and more vocal. Another advantage for union membership is the Trade Union fund which is given in the form of allowances to its members in case they need them. It is disbursed to members who are going through a period of illness, trauma or any other kind of problem that requires them to use these funds of part of these funds. Similarly, Union membership allows the employees to communicate more actively with the government and press them to legislate for acts that promote workers’ rights and also increase job security. However, there are certain disadvanta ges of a union member also. Employees have to pay certain amount annually to the union as a membership fee. This puts an additional burden on employees. Individual employees cannot press for their demand and they lose their voice at the expense of what the large majority wants. Hence, one can say that although the union membership is beneficial for workers, it can also bring disharmony and conflict of interest among workers which can lead to other organization-wide problems. (Daft, 1996) 3) There can economics, social and ethical consequences of Wal-Mart trying to stop allowing its workers to hold a union membership. Many pressure groups will turn against Wal-Mart. They will declare Wal-Mart as an organization that does not support workers’ rights. This will lead to loss of goodwill and bad reputation for the company. Many customers might turn away from buying from Wal-Mart which will lead to loss of revenue for the company. It will also discourage workers joining Wal-Mart as they would see it as an organization that does not respect their rights and they are being treated not so well. This will lead to a decrease in supply of workers who want to join Wal-Mart and it will have to pay the workers who want to join Wal-Mart higher wages (Bamford, 2003). This can again lead to less of profitability in the income