Introduction to Labor Relations

Chapter 1
Introduction to Labor Relations

1.2 What is Labor Relations and Why Study It?

According to the book Labor relations is a “process” to make decisions between management and the union that represents the employees. This decisions include matters such as wages, working conditions, job security, etc. When the negotiation starts between management and the union the process is formally called “Collective Bargaining”, this is because in the negotiation the union represent all of the collective interests from employees.

        When the negotiations are done and the two sides reach agreements on their individual issues these are called “Tentative Agreements”, this is because it is not all settled, still union members need to approve by votes the previous agreements. Once the agreements are approved, union and management sign a written agreement called “Collective Bargaining Agreement, or CBA”.

         The terms of employment are very important; for example it usually includes price of labor (wages and bene fits), work rules (work practices and hours of work), Individual job rights (seniority and promotions), management and union rights, and methods of enforcement and administration of the contract.

1.3 Labor Unions Today: Pros and Cons

The term “Labor Union” is created by a group of employees who get together to work on affecting their employment relationship. Usually they decided to take action when sometime alarms them, then they decide to go talk with management, they believe that because they are many they will be stronger, that’s the reason why they work as group instead of approaching individually. Very often the group of employees contact formal labor union to get some help.

The following is an important right available to private sectors under NLR Act: Sec7 “Employees shall have the right to self-organize, to form join, or assist labor org. To bargain collectively through representatives of their own choosing” to mark as important, the act never talks about union but labor organizations.

The pros and cons depends on who you are. For example if you are a member of the union the pros are: higher wages, representation in discipline cases, greater job security, better health care, pensions, and other benefits; cons are: union fees, and no as many individual rewards. If you are in the management part the pros are the following: system for grievance handling, fewer individual requests, and standard rules reducing problems at the work place; cons are: higher personnel costs reduce competitive positon, less flexible work rules, greater time spent on grievances, and less competitive that nonunion.  If you belong to the general society the pros are: increased middle class and the leadership in passing major employment laws; cons are: U.S. firm less competitive in global markets, image of union leaders, and less relevant in today’s global marketplace.

1.4 Why join a union?

There are many factors that influences employees when deciding if they want to be part of a union or not. The following are the strongest ones: Job security, Wages and benefits, Working conditions, Fair supervision, Need to belong and Collective voice. According to the records employees are better off belonging to a union in their per hour compensations as well of other noneconomic benefits like job security, protection against discretionary actions and due process.

Most supervisors believe that employees are only motivated to be part of a union because of hard issues like benefits and wages but there are other factors like soft issues that also make a big impact on employees such as:
Recognition: to make employees appreciated.
Protection from humiliation: Not humiliate in front of other employees.    
Hopelessness: help promotions.
Double standards: Benefits to some parts of the employees.
Lack of control: empower employees to control their jobs.
Job insecurity: To work with the confidence of knowing that they can only be terminated by “just cause” and not “at will” like non-union.
Broken promises: Employers can’t make promises to influence a union election.
Representation: If employers don’t received the right representation thru their supervisors or hr department they can look for external help.

1.5 Union membership

In 2009 for the first time there were more member from the public sector than the private. An analysis made by the Department of Labor says that the largest increase in members of unions were in public service industries. Such as elementary and secondary schools, hospitals, public safety, universities, and health care; during that analysis they also found out that the largest loss in union membership were in the private sector.

The four important trend in U.S. union are the National Labor Relations Act was passed in 1935 giving employees the right to organize themselves and to use collective bargaining to increase different benefits. Public Sector was very low until de 60’s and now day’s it keeps on rising. Union density which is the percentage of worker that belong to unions had a strong peak in 1955 after 50 years it has been declining until now that it only has 7%.

1.6 Opportunities for growth

The opportunity to growth in the unions is mainly based on the following industries Hospitality, Health Care, Airline, Casino, Shipping, and Professional, Immigrant Workers.

1.9 Types of Unions

Crafts unions, are those groups of workers who have a skill in common. Industrial unions, are usually found in factories where employee doesn’t need to be very skillful. The Entertainment and professional sports unions are by little growing and they are mostly notice when their activities affect the public. Lastly the transportation unions, mainly based on the railroad and airline industries had an impact after 1981 strike, also in 2007 pilots got together and created a strong group.

1.11 National Labor Relations Board

It is mainly in charge of the labor relation activities in the private sector. It was created by the National Labor Relations Act with the purpose of minimizing conflict in the industries and to have a legal process to engage collective bargaining between labor and management.

The rights are the following, to self-organize, to form labor organizations, to bargain collectively through representatives choose by them, to engage in other activities with the purpose of collective bargaining, to desist from all of them. It also talks about Unfair labor practices that may violate the rights mentioned before.