Labor Relations Paper

A union is an organization of workers who join together in order to have a voice in improving their jobs and the quality of work within the organization. In many occasions, unions help employees of an organization negotiate pay, benefits, flexible hours and other work conditions that may arise. Unions have a role because some degree of conflict is inevitable between workers and management (Noe, 2003). In this paper, I will be discussing the impact of unions and labor relations within an organization.

Labor Unions

Labor unions represent workers interests and the collective bargaining process provides a way to manage the conflict (Noe, 2003). More than ever, union employees have come to see unionizing as a way to achieve an effective voice to improve their jobs and the quality of work they provide to the organization. Also, the members of unions have a sense of political power to voice for workers rights. For example, one of the largest unions for Kaiser Permanente is United Healthcare Workers SEIU Local 399. UHW prides itself on being not only the fastest growing union in the nation, but the largest and most powerful healthcare union west of the Mississippi.

Unions may have its pro's and con's with both the employee and employer. Some individuals believe that it is better not to be a member of a union while others believe that they would not want to work in a union-less environment. If an individual works for a large organization, odds are that it would be in his/her best interest to be a union member. As a union member, an employee may have the protection from the union. An employer does not have the right to fire or discipline an employee without having a meeting with a union representative, such as a union steward. A union steward is actually an employee of the organization that is elected by the union members to represent them and investigate complaints and help them file grievances if an employee feels that his/her union contract was violated in any way. Union stewards will fight to avoid disciplinary action for the employee's behavior. Union officials and union stewards are voted in by the union members.

One disadvantage of being part of a union is that the employee must pay to be represented by the union. Different unions have different pay rates. At Kaiser Permanente employees need to contribute 2% percent of his/her annual pay to the union. Union fees are usually withdrawn from the employee's paycheck on a bi-weekly basis.

Labor Relations

Labor relations purpose is to minimize costly employee and organization conflicts and try to always find a "win-win" solution to issues that arise. Labor relations strategies, negotiating contracts and administering contracts are the three levels of decision that are involved within labor relations.

Kaiser Permanente is an organization that is successful in dealing with labor relations. In today's challenging health care environment, Kaiser Permanente employees have created a high performance partnership of labor and management employee's. Together, union, management and physician leaders have identified Labor Management Partnership (LMP) as the operating strategy for high performance (www.kp.org).

Because each employee is an expert in his/her job, the key to high performance is to fully engage union members and leaders in identifying and solving problems, creating business plans, and redesigning work processes. Making the transition to Partnership means fundamentally changing the way people work, by giving the people who do the work a real voice in how it gets done. LMP goes far beyond labor-management committees or labor-management cooperation. At Kaiser Permanente, unions and union members are included in all stages of decision making. What's more, many frontline managers say joint decision making leads to better determinations, less stress for them and improved morale in their departments.

Contract Negotiations

It usually takes months for bargaining contracts to be negotiated. The bargaining agreements are drawn up by the labor, management and union representatives. In most cases, bargaining agreements governs wages, benefits, and the working conditions for the union coalition employees. The agreements also set common goals and ground rules for the employee's and management.