Workers have rights. It is your right under federal law to form a union, select representatives of your choice and bargain collectively with your employer. These rights help balance the power that an employer holds over his or her employees.
Further, being part of a union protects you and provides you with rights that most workers do not have individually. When workers join together to bargain collectively, they are able to secure wages and benefits that allow themselves and their families to live more comfortably. Some of these benefits include:
• A living wage
• A pension
• Paid health care
• Better sickness and accident benefits
• Better working conditions
By federal law, once you have formed a union, your employer must bargain with you on wages, hours and working conditions.
• Threaten you with discharge or punishment if you engage in union activity
• Threaten to shut down their business if workers form a union
• Prevent you from soliciting members during non-working hours
• Question you about union matters, union meetings or union supporters
• Ask you how you or other workers intend to vote in an election
• Ask you whether you belong to a union or have signed up to join a union
• Transfer you or assign you to less desirable work because of your union activity
• Threaten to terminate your benefits because you unionize
• Threaten that voting for a union will be retaliated against by a layoff or loss of jobs
• Join a union of your choosing
• Attend a union meeting on your own time
• Talk to a union organizer
• Declare yourself a union supporter
• Assist in forming a union