Labor Relations and Collective Bargaining

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Labor Relations and Collective Bargaining
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Labor and Management In United States

• Labor like laborers were seen as second or third
  class citizens in early USA.
• Collective action by unions was seen as illegal
  and severe action was taken to diminish its power
  (counter to the economic growth of the nation

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• 1930s President Franklin Delano Roosevelt sign
  National Industrial Recovery Act.- Start the
  string of legislation we have in place today

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Why do people join unions?

• Management sucks
• Low morale
• Fear of job loss
• Arbitrary management actions

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What do unions as an institution want?

• Dollars thru more members
• This done more and more through political clout
  not through economic power at the collective
  bargaining table.
• Union security
• Closed shop (illegal except in some industries
  longshore, printing
• Union shop (must join after hired)
• Agency (Not required to join must pay dues)
• Open shop (individual choice)

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How does a private industry firm become union?

• Initial contact by union
• Labor relations consultants
• Union salting (plants)
• Obtaining authorization cards
• NLRB holds a hearing to determine who can vote
• Potential bargaining unit)
• Campaign
• No threats, bribes or coercion
• Lost by
• Not paying attention
• Appoint a committee to handle the campaign
• Focus on money issues
• Ignore workers and focus on automation
• Election
• Loose Collective bargaining starts
• Win no union involvement for a year

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Collective Bargaining

• What must be negotiated?
• Wages, hours and working conditions
• Good faith/Bad faith bargaining
• Surface bargaining
• Inadequate concessions
• Inadequate proposals and demands
• Imposing conditions that are onerous
• Bypassing representative
• Withholding information
• Ignoring mandatory item or insisting of
  permissive item

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Impasse

• Mediation
• Fact Finders
• Arbitration
• Strikes
• Boycotts
• Game playing
• Lockouts

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Grievances

• Wages, hours, working conditions
• Disciplinary action
• Overtime
• Plant rules
• Currently most are resolved through a step by
  step process ending in arbitration (binding on
  both parties)