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Chapter 9
Managing Labor Relations and
Collective Bargaining
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When you finish studying this chapter, you should be able to:
• Discuss the nature of the major federal labor
relations s.
• Describe the process of a union drive and
election.
• Discuss the main steps in the collective
bargaining process
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Why Do Workers Organize?
• Workers’ belief that it is only through unity
that they can get their fair share of the pie
• Often means that low morale, fear of job
loss, and poormunication foster
unionization
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What Do
Unions Want?
Union
security
Improved
benefits
Improved
hours
Improved
wages
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Union Security
• Closed shop -pany can hire only union
members
• Union shop -pany can hire nonunion people
but they must join the union
• Agency shop - Employees who do not
belong to the union must still pay union
dues
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Union Security
• Open shop - up to the workers whether they
join the union
• Maintenance of membership arrangement
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• Right to work - used to describe state
provisions banning the requirement of
union membership as a condition of
employment
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• American Federation of Labor and
Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-
CIO) - voluntary federation of about 100
national and international labor unions in
the United States
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UNIONS AND THE
• Until about 1930, Employers didn’t he to
engage in collective bargaining with
employees and were virtually unrestrained
in their behior toward unions
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Period of Strong Encouragement: The
Norris-LaGuardia Act (1932)
and the National Labor Relations Act
(1935)
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• Norris-LaGuardia Act - guaranteed to
each employee the right to bargain
collectively free from interference, restraint,
or coercion
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• National Labor Relations Act
( Wagner Act) - banned certain unfair
labor practices, provided for secret-ballot
elections and majority rule for determining
whether a firm’s employees were to
unionize, and created the National Labor
Relations Board (NLRB) for enforcing
these two provisions.
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Unfair Employer Labor Practices
• Interfere with, restrain, or coerce
employees” in exercising their legally
sanctioned right of self-organization
• Dominate or interfere with either the
formation or the administration of labor
unions
• Discriminating in any way against
employees for their legal union activities.
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Unfair Employer Labor Practices
• Discharge or discriminate against
employees simply because the latter file
unfair practice charges
• Refuse to bargain collectively
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Taft-Hartley (or Labor Management Relations) Act
amended the Wagner Act limiting unions by:
• prohibiting unfair union labor practices
• enumerating the rights of employees as union
members
• enumerating the rights of employers
• allowing the president of the United States to
temporarily bar national emergency strikes.
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Unfair Union Labor Practices
Unions were banned from:
• restraining or coercing employees from exercising
their guaranteed bargaining rights
• causing an employer to discriminate in any way
against an employee in order to encourage or
discourage his or her membership in a union
• refusing to bargain in good faith with the
employer about wages, hours, and other
employment conditions
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Taft-Hartley Act
• Protected the rights of employees against
their unions
• Right-to-work s - outed labor contracts that
made union membership a condition for
keeping one’s job.
• Ge employers certain rights - full freedom
to express their views concerning union
organization.
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Period of Detailed Regulation of Internal
Union Affairs:
The Landrum-Griffin Act (1959)
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• Landrum-Griffin Act (officially, the Labor
Management Reporting and Disclosure Act)
- aim of this act was to protect union
members from possible wrongdoing on the
part of their unions
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Landrum-Griffin Act
• Provides for certain rights in the nomination
of candidates for union office.
• Affirms a member’s right to sue his or her
union
• Ensures that no member can be fined or
suspended without due process
• Laid out rules regarding union elections
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Initial contact
Authorization cards
Hearing
Campaign
Election
UNION
DRIVE AND
ELECTION
Five basic
steps
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Step 1: Initial Contact
• Union determines the employees’ interest in
organizing, and an organizingmittee is
established
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• Union salting refers to a union organizing
tactic by which workers who are in fact
employed full-time by a union as
undercover union organizers are hired by
unwitting employers
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Step 2: Authorization Cards
• For the union to petition the NLRB for the right to
hold an election, it must show that a sizable
number of employees may be interested in being
organized.
• Thirty percent of the eligible employees in an
appropriate bargaining unit must sign before an
election can be petitioned
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Step 3: The Hearing
• Employer may contest the union’s right, in
which case it can insist on a hearing
• Consent election
• Bargaining unit - group of employees that
the union will be authorized to represent
and bargain for collectively
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Step 4: The Campaign
• The union and employer appeal to
employees for their votes.
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Rules Regarding Literature and Solicitation
• Non-employees can always be barred from
soliciting employees during their work time
• Most employers can bar non-employees
from the building’s interiors and work areas
as a right of private property owners
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Step 5: The Election
• Secret ballot.
• The NLRB provides the ballots as well as
the voting booth and ballot box.
• It also counts the votes and certifies the
results of the election.
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• Decertification Elections
• legally terminate the union’s right to
represent them
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What Is Collective Bargaining
• Management and labor are required by to
negotiate wages, hours, and terms and conditions
of employment in “ good faith”
• Good faith bargaining - both partiesmunicate
and negotiate
• proposals are matched with counterproposals and
that both parties make every reasonable effort to
arrive at an agreement
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When Is Bargaining Not in Good Faith?
• Surface bargaining
• Concession.
• Proposals and
demands
• Bypassing the
representative
• Dilatory tactics
• Imposing conditions
• Unilateral changes in
conditions
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• Voluntary bargaining items - be a part of
negotiations only through the joint agreement of
both management and union
• Illegal bargaining items
• Mandatory bargaining items - include wages,
hours, rest periods, layoffs, transfers, benefits, and
severance pay
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Bargaining Stages
• First - each side presents its demands
• Second - reduction of demands
• Third - sumittee studies
• Fourth - parties reach an informal
settlement
• Finally - the parties fine-tune and sign a
formal agreement
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• Impasse - occurs when the parties
are unable to move further toward
settlement
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Third-Party Involvement
Mediation
Arbitration
Fact-
finding
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• Mediation - neutral third party
tries to assist the principals in
reaching agreement.
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• A fact-finder - neutral party who studies
the issues in a dispute and makes a public
rmendation of what a reasonable settlement
ought to be.
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• Arbitrator may he the power to
decide and dictate settlement term
• Binding arbitration - both parties
aremitted to accepting the
arbitrator’s award
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Strikes - withdrawal of labor
• Economic strike results from a failure to
agree on the terms of a contract
• Unfair labor practice strikes protest illegal
conduct by the employer
• Wildcat strike is an unauthorized strike
occurring during the term of a contract
• Sympathy strike occurs when one union
strikes in support of the strike of another
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• Corporate campaign - organized effort by the
union that exerts pressure on the corporation by
pressuring thepany’s other unions, shareholders,
directors, customers, creditors, and government
agencies
• Union member boycott - removal of patronage
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• Lockout - refusal by the
employer to provide
opportunities to work
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Contract Agreement
• Management rights
• Union security
• Grievance procedures
• Health and safety
provisions
• Disciplinary
procedures
• pensation rates
• Hours of work and
overtime
• Benefits such as
vacation, holidays,
insurance, and pension
may contain just general declarations of policy
or a detailed specification of rules and
procedures
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• Grievance process - steps that
the employer and union he agreed
to follow to ascertain if some
action violated the agreement
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Why the Union Decline?
• Proportion of blue-collar jobs has been
decreasing as service-sector and white-
collar service jobs he increased
• Intense internationalpetition outdated
equipment and factories
