Unions

p Unions

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In the United States , labor unions are legally entities which represent workers in various industries . The major unions are those found among the employees in the public sector such as the police and teachers . The main activity of the unions involves collective bargaining over benefits , wages and working conditions of their members . Unions in the US are either members of THE American Federation of Labor-congress of Industrial Organizations or the Change to Win Federation umbrella organizations (Lawrence , 1995 , pp .17-18

p The private sector union members are governed by the National Labor Relations Act while public sector union members are partly governed by state laws and partly by federal laws . In 2007 , the public sector union membership rated five times higher than the private union membership with the training , education and library occupations having the highest unionization rate among all occupations . The black men also had the highest rate of membership while the Hispanic women had the lowest Workers between the ages of 16 to 24 were less likely to join the unions while ages 55 to 64 were the most likely to join . Local government worker such as fire fighters and policemen had the highest membership within the public sector unions . On the other hand , the private sector occupations with the highest membership included telecommunications transport and utilities and construction (Lawrence , 1995 , pp 18-21

In the private sector , retirement plans and options are also quite different from those enjoyed by the public sector . The...