Introduction
Teacher greets the class.
If necessary, explain basic rules to the learners.
Such as:
- Raise your hand for questions and answers
- Listen attentively without interruption
- Respect each other during class time
After greeting and explaining the class rules, discuss unions overall (How a group of employees come together to regulate relations between them and their employers) as well as the functions of trade unions (protects the rights of workers, represents people at work in disciplinary matters).
Explain to the learners that trade unions have the right to negotiate with employers on behalf of its members.
Task
Activity:
1. Are unions beneficial to workers / employees or bosses / employers?
Why do you say that?
2. What is the key role of a trade union?
3. What can workers do if negotiations fail?
4. What can employers do if negotiations fail?
5. Do workers receive a wage when they strike?
6. Are workers fired when they go on strike?
Process
Contribution of trade unions to sustainable growth and development:
In general, wage increases are followed by price increases so that workers are not better off.
Two Causes of Unemployment - Low Skill Levels and Unskilled Workers
For the country to ensure sustainable growth and development, jobs must be created for the needy and the labor market must undergo transformation.
The key factors in making growth and development sustainable are:
- More labor-intensive (this is a form of work which is a large amount of work that needs to be done) production
- Increasing education and training of people to enable them to find work and lead a sustainable livelihood
- Investment in housing, electricity and water
- Trade unions must continue to help workers fight unfair (inequality) redundancies or cuts (the fact of reducing or limiting something)
- Farm workers and domestic workers are now protected under the new Labor Relations Act
- The poorest part of the population is in the rural areas
The impact of strikes on the economy:
- Economic growth occurs when productivity (the effectiveness of productive efforts especially in the industry, it is basically how well the employees perform their tasks) increases
- This means that businesses play an important role in economic growth
- When workers strike, goods are not manufactured or services rendered
- This sometimes leads to businesses having to close during strikes
- A decline in productivity causes a downturn in the economy.
The video clip at the bottom will mostly repeat what was already discussed but will explain it with pictures that everyone will understand it better.
Evaluation
Memorandum:
1. Open answer. Yes / No and a reason for their answer.
2. To prevent exploitation of workers and ensure good working conditions.
3. Strike
4. Exclusion
5. No
6. No. Some workers are on leave (so they have the right to participate)
Yes. If they are employed, employees do not have the right to strike, if this happens they can be fired.
Conclusion
The teacher goes through the sections that are not clear to learners. Mostly Ask learners to explain if a other learner say they don't understand something.
The teacher ask questions and learners answer it as good as they can.
The teacher also asks two of the learners to hand out notes about today's lesson and explains to the learners that they should cut and paste the pages neatly in their books at home this afternoon.
Each learner will also be required to do research on unions and to get one union's information so that they can pass it on to the rest of the class in the next period.
Learners must know the full name of the trade union, its abbreviation and for whom they protect and the importance of that trade union.
Credits
Via Africa: Economic and Management Sciences Grade 9 learner's book: P. Bean, S. De Bod, B.D. Houghton, M. Kleyn, T. Kotze, E.L. Llewellyn, A. Marx, J.N.T. Mbotho, B. Ndlovu, C.S.F. Trollip
Amber Kapot
Teacher Page
I chose unions as a lesson because learners need to know what it is and it's importance. Trade unions will be involved in everyone's lives, those who will work in any workplace and register for trade unions. Every learner must learn about it because unions will not be teached in other areas or subjects. Learners need to know that unions are important in any profession. Teachers, doctors and everyone else have unions of their own, it is the employers responsibility to make their employees aware of the Union but it's more important that the employee knows that they have unions to protect them.
The activity I gave to the learners is to ensure that everyone understands unions and to be able to remember the important functions of trade unions.
This section contains learning work and knowledge of the teacher who is involved with unions. Every learner must stay focused and take action to facilitate the learning work.
