KYAMBOGO UNIVERSITY

FACULTY OF SCIENCE
DEPARTMENT OF CHEMISTRY
BSc. TECHNOLOGY –CHEMISTRY
YEAR ONE SEMESTER ONE

COURSE UNIT HUMANITIES AND COMMUNICATION SKILLS

COURSE CODE 1107

TASK ASSIGNMENT

GROUP 3

NAME REGISTRATION SIGNATURE

NUMBER
1 MUHINDO JENNIFER 18/U/CTD/8074/PD
2 AUMO FAITH 18/U/CTD/8062/PD
3 MAJWALA SAMUEL 18/U/CTD/15362/PD
4 NALUMANSI BRIDGET MARIA 18/U/CTD/15361/PD
5 KWIZERA IAN 18/U/CTD/275/GV
Questions

1. Trade unions
2. Advantages and disadvantages
3. Human rights and describe the characteristics of humans rights
4. Account for various human rights abuses in our community today
5. What is unemployment and the causes of unemployment
6. Give tangible solutions to unemployment
TRADE UNIONS
These are organizations where membership consists of workers and union leaders united
to protect and promote their common interest. They can also be defined as organizations of
workers in a particular trade/interest/company who come together to achieve common goals
through collective bargaining.
There are two types of trade unions .i.e. free trade unions’ .e.g. central organization of
free trade unions, national organization of trade unions and political trade unions .e.g.
international union of federal trade, Uganda government and allied workers union.

Objectives

 To negotiate wages and working conditions terms.

 To regulate relationships between workers and employers.
 Take collective action to enforce the terms of collective bargaining.
 Raise new demands on behalf of its members.

Advantages of trade unions

Trade unions provide training for members through connecting them with employee
of different working environments during activities such as trade fairs. Here they learn new skills
on how to better their work and incorporate it into their work places.
They help establish contacts between employees and their employers and also
cooperation amongst employees. This is because it reduces status inequality as everyone is taken
on common ground despite their statuses.
Act as savings and credit societies. Members can save their money and take loans with light
interests from the organization. This gives them social security.
Trade unions ensure peaceful means of solving workers problems by organizing
workers for industrial action in case negotiation with employers fails. During strikes they ensure
that employer’s property and statuses are respected and protected.
They negotiate labor welfare to workers through attainment of better wages and
benefits such as allowances, retirement fees,
 They also help to implement new working practices like healthy competition in a company.
This increases productivity of workers.
Reduces job turnover and ensures that employers get skilled employees. With good
working conditions and arguably relative income, employees are motivated to stay at a given job
for a long time. They are convinced to work even harder for the benefit of their work place.

Disadvantages of trade unions

Undermine worker education and experience as they mostly favor the senior
members who have served longest in the trade union despite presence of members with better
qualifications for a common job.
Result in wage inflation. If trade unions become too powerful, they bargain for
higher wages than the rate of inflation. In occurrence of such a situation, general inflation may
arise .e.g. powerful trade unions were the significant cause of UK´s inflation rate of 27% in
1979.
Trade unions are concentrated in developing regions hence resulting in uneven
growth as better facilities and developments are only limited to those areas.
Multiplicity of trade unions. These are wrangles or rivalries among different trade
unions as a result of unhealthy competitions.
Trade unions require membership and submission fees which are paid per a given
duration of time as per to the working policies of a given trade union. These may be burdensome
to low earning workers in a trade union.
They also discourage individuality. They are based on collective bargaining
therefore personal complaints that are not beneficial to otter members may be ignored.
Trade unions are hierarchal environments and power is in denominations from the
executives to the members which may disorient equality to dictatorship.
Some workers may be laid off from work in case they don’t meet with the required
standards hence resulting in unemployment.
 HUMAN RIGHTS
These are freedoms established focusing on the protection of human dignity, life, personal
identity, and community development. They can also be termed as rights inherent to all human
beings regardless of race, gender, nationality, ethnicity, language, religion, or any other
denomination or status that acts as a point of difference among humans.
S.C Kashyap H.R. said that they are the fundamental rights to which every man or woman in
world is entitled to by virtue of being human.
They connect with human dignity and rely on human conscience.
Some people may confuse human rights for constitutional laws, but it’s not the case because are
set by the government and are fully revised such that they are favorable the people they govern.
Whereas human rights are justified and nullified by virtue of being human and par tend
sympathy to the humanity race. The constitutional laws evolve around the human rights.

Examples of human rights

 Personal liberty
 Freedom of thought, expression, religion, organization and movement
 Freedom from discrimination on basis of status .e.g. religion, age, race.
 Right to basic education, employment, property ownership
 Right to belong to a family.

Characteristics of human rights

They are universal. Human rights are everyone’s privilege and are the same in every part of the
world.
Are egalitarian .i.e. same for everyone. As long as one is human they have equal rights
irrespective of their race nationality, status, wealth, e.t.c.
Call for empathy for others.
Inherent/irrevocable .i.e. belong to the people.
 Fundamental/essential and necessary. Generally human rights govern the world at large
because they are silent laws which everybody is entitled to obey. They bring organization and
order among people through morality.
Inalienable that is no one has a right to deprive them of some body. Someone’s status doesn’t
dictate them to be better considered to deserve better rights than other because they are equal to
everyone.
Indivisible. Human rights move hand in hand with each other just like basic needs. This is such
that there is no possibility of compromise for differences but there is compromise for equality.
Interdependent

Human rights abuse in our country.

Human rights abuse is the situation where the dignity and freedom of humans are violated. This
can be done in various ways such as battering, physical, emotional and psychological torture,
arbitrary arrest, child labour, human trafficking, rape defilement, child soldiers etc. All of these
are done against the will of the victimized person. Human rights abuse is an injustice to the
human kind and is punishable by the law.

The following are the reason for human rights abuse;

Ignorance about human rights. Human rights are not properly communicated to the whole
society so the people may not be in position to own them as part of their life. Some abuses of
human rights may sound minor yet they inflict pain on the victims.

Poverty. Lack material possession or money may influence people to abuse their own rights for
example through child labour; the labour is paid for but is illegal.
Difference in status. People of a higher social or physical status may find their minors
insignificant to them and may therefore undermine the rights of those they are superior to.
Objects, greed for material possession and many others that have led to acts such as rape,
human sacrifice, human trafficking which abuse the rights of others.
 Drug abuse. Use of alcohol and drugs like marijuana and narcotics has led to demoralization of
human rights as the users easily inflict torture on the people around them at the slight instances
of anger.
Poor law enforcement. Human rights are not properly emphasized hence are easily violated by
other people due to scanty sensitization.
Corruption. With the existence of corruption people who abuse human rights are not punished
accordingly and injustices continue prevailing unless they are pointed out.
 UNEMPLOYMENT
Is a situation where a person is seeking, willing and able to work but fails to get a
job. Or it can be defined as the state of not having a job.
Statistics show that the average number of youth is unemployed in African countries despite the
increased globalization and industrialization of the world. However at least a million graduands
are honored by each college per year. This indicates that there is at least one academically
qualified person in 50 people. Even in such a case occurrences of unemployment are strikingly
overwhelming because it’s like an epidemic whose antidote hasn’t been discovered.
There are many reasons for unemployment such as
Technological unemployment. The advancement of technology has resulted in laying off of
many qualified people with an aim of cutting down the production costs. Few people are
therefore employed to control the machination of work. This is also so because technology
increases the rate of doing the work hence increased production.
Lack of qualifications. Despite education being widespread few people are fully qualified to
meet the specifications of companies. The bar is set high through experience, advanced higher
education honors among others so that only those with the stated are employed which is quite
hard because of limited funding to advance higher in education.
Lack of skills. Beside education qualifications there is an added advantage for having technical
skills in the job market. Most employment opportunities are advancing from theoretical to
practicality so that there is swiftness in specialization and production.
Nepotism / meritocracy. Some employment opportunities are biased to a given sect of people
that share a common identity such that people outside the identified group are not considered
qualified.
Underpayment. With the increasing need of money in our day-to- day lives, workers find it
frustrating to stay at a job that undermines their efforts by rewarding them with low payments.
They are therefore forced to desert their jobs in pursuit for greener pastures.
Large population. In Kampala for example the population more than doubles the employment
opportunities available. Only a few people can ably access employment in cases of a large
employment.
 Cheap labour. Some companies are found of employing under qualified workers at a cheaper
wage as compared to the qualified. This is aimed at reducing the administration costs in the long
run.

Solutions
Seeking education. Education opens the door to many possibilities and equips one with both
life and work skills. Education should be more accessible to everyone by the government
through awarding scholarships or loans to the underprivileged people so as to increase the
number of qualified people.
Diversification of economy. This can be done by creation of small scale industries that can
provide employment to people in their different denominations. This can be drawn from the
example of the 2007 global recession when many firms closed or reduced the number of
employees as a result of economic policies. Better policies such as entreprenual skills can be
mobilised to increase economic growth.
Geographical mobility. This can be achieved by looking for employment beyond national
borders.
Exploration of talents such as art, music, public speaking, e.t.c. and embarking on improving
them to a standard instead of seeking employment that will depreciate the value of creativity and
handmanship of a person.
Improved communication of available opportunities such as advertising through media that is
commonly used by many people of the given qualification like newspapers, posters.