Is it always neccessary to join a union when having a job? If so why is that?

All jobs? No. It depends on the kind of job. Many are not unionized.

Some companies have a contract that will not allow them to hire anyone who does not belong to the union. Many union benefits are available to people who do belong, but you have to pay membership dues.

Membership dues? Is that like an up front payment?

Not every job has a union.
The ones with them, you CAN avoid the union, but from what I’ve heard from a few friends (working in grocery stores), the hassle to do it is not worth the money you save.
Your mileage may vary though.

but yes, being in a union will take some cash out of your paycheck. I believe there are some benefits to it though.

Cool, but what quantity of your paycheck is this union going to take? Any examples?

@troym333 Membership dues are deducted according to the arrangements with the company. Sometimes it is every paycheck, sometimes once a month. The amount depends on which Union you join. They each have their own plans, and the amounts vary. The money that is taken is to help pay for the work the Union does to make the best contract they possible can, with the most benefits for the workers. Without Unions, workers do not have any way to ‘force’ a company to give them benefits.

For an overview of Unions in the United States, see this excellent article

I support unions, but I have never had a union job.

Unions were once a powerful tool in leveling the playing field between labor and owners/management. Before the Unions, times were tough indeed for those doing all the work. Unions rose as labor (hard working humans) refused to be used as slaves and fought for their fair share of the pie. The fighting was hard and dirty, bloody and physical. Owners bought the police and used them against the worker.dudes. The worker dudes at times brought in hired “muscle” to fight back. Often this “muscle” was actually mobsters, so we have much mob activity involved with certain Unions, like Teamsters.
The use of mobsters was well worth it in the short run. For a brief moment, man had broken free from the shackles of being underpaid servants, and began to own their homes, cars; and bank accounts overflowed with individual wealth. Vacations were often and Leisure Time was bountiful.
By the 70s, the owners and management had had quite enough and found ways to undermine the unions until the unions were absorbed by the corporation and used as another tool of the owners to control, manipulate and enslave the labor force.

There may be one or two unions still powerful enough to maintain their integrity in the face of this wave of impotence, but they are the exception.

My friend paid £8 a month to join his union and when he was unfairly dismissed he said it was the best £8 a month he’s ever spent, as he ended up much better off than he would have done without a union rep on his side !!

If you get a job at a place where there’s a union, depending on the state you’re in, you will have a couple options: join the union, pay an “agency fee” and get all the benefits of the union contract without actual membership, or not join the union at all.

I have worked in one place that had unionized, and I joined the union. The dues I paid were a pittance compared to the benefits I got from what the union had done—and continued to do while I was working there.

Whether you must join the union depends on the situation between that union and that company. Your cost would be whatever that union makes you pay. You’ll need to get the specifics directly from someone.

(Now, as you are considering this unionized job…

Some would say that unions destroyed the American auto industry, which is food for thought to say the least. There’s no logical reason a car should cost $30,000. One reason they do is because unions force the companies to pay workers $75/hr for work that’s only genuinely worth $20/hr. Anyway, that’s a whole issue I don’t want to get into.

My preference has always been to work for smaller companies, because I can work hard, get noticed, get promoted, and get raises. In a union it’s all politics. It doesn’t matter how hard you work, as “seniority” determines everything. The longer you stick around, the higher you climb in rank, the more you get paid, and the less you have to care. That’s my experience in real situations. I have friends who laugh about how little they do and how much they get paid. Sure, it’s a joke that you’re getting paid twice what you should be. What they don’t understand is it means everyone has to pay twice what they should be for the products they make. And that’s just stupid. I once had friends working for the city (unionized of course) who would cut grass for an hour in the morning, then sit around for the other 7 hours doing nothing. What goes around comes around; people must be paid for the value they create, or the larger economy will never be in balance.

Sorry for the mini-rant, all I’m saying is if you want lots of money at any cost, and don’t care about the ramifications of it, then get into a union as soon as you can, keep your head down and don’t do anything to get fired. For a chance to be noticed, innovate, grow, and be rewarded for what you are really capable of, you may want to consider a situation with more freedom.

Then again I work in Canada, and get full benefits (dental, medical, optical, etc) with any job, regardless of the size of the company. I can’t imagine extorting my own employer to pay me more than I’m worth, or to simply treat me properly. This gives me the freedom to find work that’s truly enjoyable without worrying about the basics. It’s awesome, that’s for sure.)

@cwilbur In states that do not allow automatic agency fees (the so-called “right to work” states) or in states where agency fees have to be negotiated, the union still has to represent non-union members, so long as they are in the bargaining unit. These folks are called “free riders.” For obvious reasons, they screw the union over, and make it less likely that workers will be able to take collective action when they are getting screwed by management.

@daloon – the union still has to represent non-union members: how far does this representation go? or is it a case of whatever is negotiated for union members applies to all qualified workers, members or not?

They have to provide the same services to every member of the bargaining unit, whether they are union members or not. The union represents the bargaining unit, not union members. Now, usually most members of the bargaining unit join the union, if they were the ones who fought to get the union in the first place.

However, years later, the workers have no idea what the union did, or how it helps them, and so they wonder why they should join. They don’t believe the union helps them, or that they need union protection, because they have never had experience of a workplace where management is not held back by anything except law.

A contract provides many more protections for workers than the law does. Most workers may never need those protections. So they think they don’t need the union. Unions do not do a good job of informing people about what they have done, or what they can do, but then again, most workers don’t want to be bothered to find out. However, let them work without protection of a contract for a few years or so, and see what they think then.

Thanks, @daloon – We have similar arrangements in the Caribbean. Of late, with the downturn, the unions are much more vigilant, not to say militant. I have been a union member all my working life.