Monday 13th October 2014. The effect of Trade Unions.

I am aware that i am starting rather late in the course, and that i will be mixing up the sections of the course as i have two different teachers whom start at different places on the spec. So, it's probably best to chose which blog you are interested in or want to know about and start from there.

- Today we looked at the effect of Trade Unions in the imperfectly competitive market. From here we can remember what sort of imperfections there are in the labour market:

• Immobility - The two main ones are Geographical and Occupational. Workers aren't always fully mobile due to factors beyond their immediate control such as the difference between where they live, and where the jobs are. An example of this is within the manufacturing and mining closures in the late 20th century in parts of Northern Britain, such as mining in Durham and the immediate unemployment which followed. This unemployment was as a result of the demand for labour was simply not found in these areas after these closures and so geographical immobility occurred. Occupational immobility refers to a mismatch of qualifications to the jobs in which require them, for example, those may wish to become a dentist, however may not have the necessary qualifications to become one, and so occupational immobility occurs. 
• Exploitation - Workers are not always paid to what they are worth in terms of productivity and their value, this concept delves into that of MRPL. Which is the Marginal Revenue Product of Labour and considers the extra revenue to the firm that one extra worker brings in in terms of the marginal cost that they consume (wages, etc). I will come back to this later. 
• Imperfect Knowledge - You should be familiar with this one after your AS course after covering it as a way in which the market 'fails'. Imperfect knowledge surrounds the labour market too where workers may not simply be aware of what jobs are available. 
• Monopsonistic demand for labour - This simply looks at how there can be one buyer/employer of labour in the market.. Instead of lots of little firms, which we would expect in a highly theoretical perfect comp market structure. 

So, Trade Unions.

British history is littered with the presence of them. But what actually are they?

Wikipedia spouts that Trade Unions are: 

'An organised association of workers in a trade, group of trades, or profession, formed to protect and futher their rights and interests'

Trade Unions are there to represent their employees in terms of the protection of their wages and job security and the protection of the working conditions that their workers will be employed in. This gives power to the workers, as they act as a collective, rather than on their own.

Some examples of Trade Unions in the UK are:

NUT - National Union of Teachers
NAPO - National Association of Probation Officers
BECTU - Broadcasting, Entertainment, Cinemaograph and Theatre Union 

The two famous stances Trade Unions take is; Collective Bargaining (only going to accept the wage rate in which they push for) and Closed Shop (The union says only members of the TC can be employed)

TBC

Note, i am using notes from Tutor2u, The AQA Economics A2 Textbook by Lawrence and Stoddard and Business Economics Microeconomics for AS by Nutter. Some of the notes are not my own.