There are circumstances that make merging of labor unions necessary. The major reason why national labor unions merge is because of the conflicting interests. Two labor unions may be serving the same workers. When it comes to bargaining, these labor unions give different interests to the employers. This confuses the employers and makes it difficult to decide whose request to honor. It is difficult to decide which union to negotiate with. In such circumstances, the members of labor unions may pressurize the unions to merge to serve the best interests of the employees. By merging, the new labor union comes up with a concrete proposal to the employers hence encouraging honoring the proposal (Sloane, 2010).
Labor unions may come together to gain more political and economic power. When two unions merge, the membership in the new union is high. With a large number of members, such labor union is powerful and many employers honor its request. The chances that such labor union has political connections are high. The contribution of members to the union is large and hence the financial ability of the union is stable. Therefore, such as a union is able to carry out its responsibilities easily. The international union of mines and united steel workers of America merged to increase their power in the bargain for the employees’ interests (Chaison, 2007).
Sometimes, union’s leaders may find it difficult to manage the affairs of the union. In this response, the leaders may decide to merge with another union so that better leadership is provided in the new union. This occurs especially when the members of a union complain about the leadership of their union (Sloane, 2010). The members may pressurize the union leaders to merge with another union if they feel that the current leaders are not effectively serving the interests of the members. Federation of organized trade decided to merge with American federation of labor when it realized that it was not able to meet the needs of its members.
References.
Sloane, A.A. & Witney, F. (2010). Labor relations (13th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.
Chaison, G. N. (2007). Union mergers in hard times: The view from five countries. Ithaca, N.Y: ILR Press.
