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The Benefits of Collective Bargaining through Professional network in University Colleges

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In many industries of employment worldwide worker representation is a key issue that is firmly enshrined in the law of the land. Employee representation in unions is a right and workers become members by default upon signing employment contracts with the employers. The unions exist to preserve the rights of the worker, and in case of disputes they come in for negotiations with employers or the government on the variety of concerns affecting workers. Such issues may be diverse and include the working conditions that employees are subjected to, the wages that they earn, employment benefits, and the total number of hours that they have to work in any one direction. These are critical matters because it is common for the government and employers to take advantage of workers, treating them unfairly for the sake of optimizing their profit motives.

While a majority of workers are sufficiently represented by trade unions there are some that are not, such as elements in university colleges; this is mostly due to contractual leeway taken advantage of by the employing colleges to avoid binding legal responsibilities for the workers. Interestingly, many cadres of thousands of administrative professionals are in this lot and have long suffered silently due to many inhibiting workplace-related concerns such as poor compensation and pay, misclassification of employee portfolio, the unfair workload for the same low pay, lack of respectful treatment at the workplace, job insecurity, and many others. In a growing number of university colleges, these unrepresented lot of workers have come together through administrative networks that they hope to bring together members in similar circumstances in the hope of successfully raising and arguing their grievances collectively with the relevant authorities towards beneficial conclusions. The importance is to urge ever more people to join in the advocacy professional networks so that collective voice can be louder and therefore heard and felt by the college authorities and act appropriately to safeguard the best interests of these workers.

With the help of established unions, the UC Administrative Network hold regular private meetings to address policy and pertinent emerging issues, they talk to work compatriots and solicit action plans for the sake of pooling together requisite resources and information supportive of the rights of the unrepresented workers in college environments. On the other hand, member workers are constantly updated about the goings-on in the network through digital contact cards and are urged to attend regular virtual town hall meetings to enhance and expand participation for better outcomes. Campus organizers are at hand to educate compatriots needing to learn more about the network while existing members are urged to spread the word to those that are targeted to join in. The advent of the Covid-19 pandemic has not helped much since salary cutbacks, layoffs and furloughs are a reality in some quarters to the detriment of the already burdened and represented staff. Thankfully this has probably expressed the greater need to come together in these administrative networks for collective member bargaining and overall gain directly with respective university colleges.