Introduction

Unions help build high-trust workplaces where workers are healthier, better skilled and more able to resolve grievances all of which lead to amore committed and productive workforce. Unions can also help maintain productivity during periods of employer innovation by providing ways of consulting with workers over change and reducing the chances of staff resistance.

Trade Union
A trade union is an organization of workers that have banded together to achieve common goals such as higher pay, increasing the number employees an employer hires, and better working conditions. The trade union, through its leadership, bargains with the employer on behalf of union members (rank and file members) and negotiates labour contracts (collective bargaining) with employers. The most common, but by no means only, purpose of these organizations is "maintaining or improving the conditions of their employment".

What do trade unions do?

An assessment of the role of trade unions in the labour market, particularly on employment creation requires a more holistic analysis of trade unions. Hence this section tries to answer that by looking at the role of trade unions in development. This has been manifested in having directly contributed to improving standards of living for their members by negotiating not only decent wages, but benefits such as medical, housing, pension and so forth, which all contribute to improving the living standards of working people. The role of trade unions which moves beyond workplace collective bargaining is one that moves away from the simplistic notion of trade unions as organizations who represent the interests of a specific group of people wage earners and places trade unions at the centre of the overall development agenda of a nation

Productivity and Its Importance

One basic element that distinguishes the world of human beings from the animal world is the necessity to work. Work is one of the basic conditions necessary for the existence of man. The animal world does not have to work in order to live, but man cannot live without work. All living beings other than man only consume what is given by nature. They are only consumers and not producers whereas man is both a producer and a consumer. To produce is to work. Since the days man left the food gathering stage and became a food producer, he has been constantly

pursuing the task of improving his productivity. Even in the food gathering stage, more so in the later stages, he did start making flint and crude tools out of stone and wood or whatever came handy to him. With the assistance of these tools, he made his labour more effective and productive. Since then this quest for improved productivity that is the quest for making human labour more effective has brought about tremendous changes in the tools and the techniques of work, but the pursuit has not ended. It is due to the success of this ceaseless pursuit that the industrially advanced countries of the world have come to enjoy an unprecedented improvement in their living standards. This has been achieved not because the people of those countries are putting in more labour or harder labour than they did in the past.

Meaning of productivity
: Productivity is the effective use of innovation and resources to increase the value-added content of products and services. It is the true source of competitive advantage that creates long term economic viability and a better standard of living for all. It can also be said that productivity is the ratio between input to output.

Forms of Productivity
The output of a given enterprise can be looked upon from two points of view of(a) physical productivity and (b) value productivity. The inputs are essentially in terms of physical concrete like so many hours of labour, so many kilowatts of electric energy, so many tons of raw material or so much of the depreciation of a given machine. These are the inputs in terms of physical units. These inputs can also be understood in terms of their money value. Similarly, the output can be viewed in terms of the physical units like so many yards of cloth, or so many tons of coal or so many tons of iron and steel and steel and cement. When sold in the market, the output requires a money value. The excess of the value of output over the value of inputs is called the profit or surplus. Productivity, thus, assumes two forms: physical productivity and value productivity.

Role of trade union in improving productivity

Workers and the factory owners are always engaged in a dispute related to wages, bonus, number of working hours, overtime, pension, compensation, medical benefits or provident fund contribution, etc. To solve all the problems of the workers, the trade

union movement was launched and, accordingly, various trade unions now exist that are constantly working for the welfare and betterment of the workers. Trade unions also get worker participation in the management as company shareholders. By doing so, the workers are encouraged in sharing profit of the company and they become a partner of the company, ensuring total involvement of the workforce while taking decision for maximum production apart from maintaining industrial harmony. Keeping in view the prevailing economic conditions and global recession, the trade unions apart from protecting the interest of the workers also look after industrial growth of the country. The workers, as part of the management, can improve the productivity and expand the business of the industry. This way, a new industrial relation is formed to face the international competition. The trade unions also consider the question of contractualisation of workers' services in industrial and services sectors. It has been noticed for the past several years that in the name of globalisation of market, productive and service centres are engaging labour on contract basis, victimising and eliminating permanent workers. The trade unions take seriously this alarming situation that leads to industrial disturbances contributing to more strikes and lockouts, thereby reducing production and prosperity of the country besides badly affecting growth rate Extension of legal framework conducive to working masses- formulation, revision and Intensive efforts to secure job from new economic policies informalising and casualising work. Massive unionization of formal as well as informal sectors of work. Widening the coverage and effective enforcement of minimum wages. Sound wage structures Fair working conditions Minimization of unfair labour practices, particularly in relation to women workers, child amendment to labour laws. Effective implementation of laws and regulations. workers and bonded labour Intensification of workers education programs, Efforts to establish and extend a sound social security system compatible with economy

Recommendations
To control the deteriorating situation and protect the workers as guaranteed by the Constitution, I suggest the following measures: No employer should be allowed to employ more than 10% of workforce as contractual labour, or Completely prohibit contractual workers from the regular job/ production. Let the managements engage contract labour purely on temporary basis, or

Contractual workers and trade union may be asked to form a labour cooperative society through which the recruitment of contract labour may be made and the wages along with other benefits may be determined in consultation with the labour cooperative society and trade unions. All the future permanent vacancies are to be filled with the above workers. If the above three proposals are not acceptable to the industry and the government, then all the contract workers should be paid wages, allowances and other facilities on par with permanent workers on the principle on equal pay for equal work. This way, the trade unions provides enthusiasm and encouragement to workers which, in turn, results in increased productivity

Some thoughts on markets where unions will produce higher productivity: 1. There are opportunities for deploying capital to replace low-skilled labour 2. The union wage is higher than the average prevailing wage for the workers' cognitive endowments and/or educational level 3. There are significant transaction costs to finding and retaining labour, such as the construction trades, where it is more efficient to call the union labour hall and tell them to send over 50 guys than hire them individually 4. The work easily lends itself to classification and regularization 5. Productivity is easily measured.

Conclusion
Generally, trade unions do not take much care about productivity. Workers' understanding of the concept of productivity and its significance is also very limited in countries like ours. Since incentives are very little to the workers from the side of government and employers and wages are not tied up with inflation, the workers should always struggle with the hand-to-mouth problem. The social security system is very limited and fringe benefits are almost non-existent. The evaluation of efficiency in terms of money and real terms has not been systematic enough to provide incentives to the workers. Through the workers education program and skills and technological training always promoted the productivity movement among the working masses.