Reflection Paper
Explain collective bargaining and provide an example. What economic, political, legal, and social factors could potentially influence contract negotiations for a large nationwide company? What are the pros and cons of collective bargaining?
Write a 3 page minimum double-spaced, 12 font, and APA (7th edition) formatted reflection paper that addresses the questions above. Your response to the questions, should be written in narrative (paragraph) format rather than individual responses to the questions.
Use textbook readings, outside experience, and a
minimum of 2 additional peer reviewed journal articles (these must come from Welder Library e-resources)
as your sources. Organize your paper with an
Introduction
,
Conclusion
, and a
Reference List
. In addition, create
headings
in the body of the paper (between the Introduction and Conclusion) that are named based on the content in that section of the reflection paper. Please review the
APA Heading Format Guidelines (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site.
in order to develop a good understanding of how to format the headings in your paper.
Lastly, please include a
Title Page
that includes the "title" of your paper and course information.
Please refer to the rubric for the grading requirements.
Reflection Paper Grading Rubric
Your submission will go through turnitin. Turnitin evaluates the originality score of your paper. Your turnitin score should be 25% or less.
Chapter 1 – Organized Labor and the Management Community: An Overview
Despite continuing management enmity, unionism has shown absolutely no tendency to retreat. Over five times as many workers are union members today as was the case in 1932, and the labor union seems to be very much here to stay. Indeed, union strength is highly concentrated in areas that are strategic to our economy and thus labor has an influence that is actually understated by simple membership totals.
The fast-growing white collar sector, however, has been relatively unreceptive to unions. Several reasons involving union imagery, weak union leadership, and certain unique general white collar characteristics that might work against unionization in any event are probably responsible for this. On the other hand, there are also grounds for union optimism here. Highly visible union successes in increasing blue collar wages may attract white collar workers. So, too, might the advent to unionism of governmental employees, in the process weakening the traditional association of organized labor with manual work. Improved prospects for more able labor leadership and the increasingly less enviable atmosphere in which many white collar employees work may also help unions organize in the white collar sector. From the union viewpoint, cases for both pessimism and optimism can be erected.
The many workers who
have
joined unions would appear to have done so because of a broad network of needs on their part. Of these,.
Reflection PaperExplain collective bargaining and provide an exa.docx
1. Reflection Paper
Explain collective bargaining and provide an example. What
economic, political, legal, and social factors could potentially
influence contract negotiations for a large nationwide company?
What are the pros and cons of collective bargaining?
Write a 3 page minimum double-spaced, 12 font, and APA (7th
edition) formatted reflection paper that addresses the questions
above. Your response to the questions, should be written in
narrative (paragraph) format rather than individual responses to
the questions.
Use textbook readings, outside experience, and a
minimum of 2 additional peer reviewed journal articles (these
must come from Welder Library e-resources)
as your sources. Organize your paper with an
Introduction
,
Conclusion
, and a
Reference List
. In addition, create
headings
in the body of the paper (between the Introduction and
Conclusion) that are named based on the content in that section
of the reflection paper. Please review the
APA Heading Format Guidelines (Links to an external
site.)Links to an external site.
in order to develop a good understanding of how to format the
headings in your paper.
Lastly, please include a
Title Page
that includes the "title" of your paper and course information.
2. Please refer to the rubric for the grading requirements.
Reflection Paper Grading Rubric
Your submission will go through turnitin. Turnitin evaluates the
originality score of your paper. Your turnitin score should be
25% or less.
Chapter 1 – Organized Labor and the Management Community:
An Overview
Despite continuing management enmity, unionism has shown
absolutely no tendency to retreat. Over five times as many
workers are union members today as was the case in 1932, and
the labor union seems to be very much here to stay. Indeed,
union strength is highly concentrated in areas that are strategic
to our economy and thus labor has an influence that is actually
understated by simple membership totals.
The fast-growing white collar sector, however, has been
relatively unreceptive to unions. Several reasons involving
union imagery, weak union leadership, and certain unique
general white collar characteristics that might work against
unionization in any event are probably responsible for this. On
the other hand, there are also grounds for union optimism here.
Highly visible union successes in increasing blue collar wages
may attract white collar workers. So, too, might the advent to
unionism of governmental employees, in the process weakening
the traditional association of organized labor with manual work.
Improved prospects for more able labor leadership and the
increasingly less enviable atmosphere in which many white
collar employees work may also help unions organize in the
white collar sector. From the union viewpoint, cases for both
pessimism and optimism can be erected.
3. The many workers who
have
joined unions would appear to have done so because of a broad
network of needs on their part. Of these, the needs for safety,
social affiliation, and to a lesser extent, self-esteem, appear to
be of primary importance to employees in contemporary
America. Similarly, the management resistance to union inroads
is
also
derived from a wide array of specific causes, even though the
desire to retain decision-making authority in managerial hands
lies at the heart of most of them.
In the governmental employee sector, the considerable recent
union penetration appears to have stemmed primarily from
favorable legal developments, from the public servant’s
increasing unhappiness as remuneration packages have fallen
farther and farther behind that of private employment, and from
the general collective action spirit of the times. Controversy
continues as to whether public servants should be allowed the
strike weapon, with increasing support for granting it to many
of them (policemen and firemen not included) under certain
conditions. More ominous tidings for public sector unionism,
however, now seem to lie in the general taxpayers’ revolt and
its corollary messages that “labor peace” at any price is no
longer acceptable to the electorate, and that public officials can
perhaps fare well with the voters by standing up to unions.
In overview, chapter 1 also touches upon the general progress
made in the union-management relationship in the relatively
recent past, and the vulnerability of this relationship (despite
the progress) to governmental control because of the
increasingly high level of public expectation concerning
collective bargaining.
4. Chapter 2 – The Historical Framework
The following constitutes a chronology of key dates in the
history of the American labor movement:
Late eighteenth century: The first trade unions, individually
encompassing printers, carpenters, tailors and artisans of
similar skill levels, are established.
1819: A major nationwide depression occurs and all but wipes
out these early unions.
1822–1850: With the return of a healthy economy, skilled
workers in the trades previously organized once again turn to
union activity. But economic hard times from 1837 to 1850
cause unionism to vanish almost completely once again.
1850–1865: With the return of prosperity, unions are again a
force to be reckoned with and now the nationwide scope of
many labor markets gives them more incentive to try to
standardize conditions. The first nationals are now formed and
by the end of the Civil War in 1865 there is a post-1836 high of
over 200,000 unionists — still virtually all skilled workers.
1873–1878: A new period of deep depression takes place and
once again it (combined with aggressive employer onslaughts on
labor) severely crimps unionism, but this time 50,000 unionists
survive the bad years.
1885: The Knights of Labor, American labor’s most notable
attempt to form a single, large “general” union wins a major
strike against the Wabash Railroad and its growth then becomes
spectacular, to 700,000 members one year later (from 70,000 in
1884). But a lack of leadership and other factors send it into a
permanent decline by the late 1880s.
5. 1886: The American Federation of Labor (actually established
in 1881) is officially founded and the pragmatic master plan of
its first leaders (most notably, its first president Samuel
Gompers) proves to be so successful that its basic tenets,
stressing the needs of skilled workers, remain unchallenged by
the labor mainstream for the next five decades.
1929: The most severe business downturn in the nation’s history
begins. By 1933, a staggering 24.9 percent of the civilian labor
force is unemployed and a newly elected President Franklin D.
Roosevelt and a “New Deal” Congress have squarely supported
collective bargaining, marking a drastic change in public policy.
1935: The Wagner Act, restricting management’s labor relations
conduct and establishing the National Labor Relations Board to
determine appropriate bargaining units and conduct
representation elections, is enacted.
John L. Lewis, unable to get his AFL colleagues to admit the
new fast-growing mass production sector industrial unionists,
forms the Committee for Industrial Organization (known after
1938 as the Congress of Industrial Organizations). This AFL
offshoot, its national member unions now expelled by the AFL,
claims almost 4 million recruits by 1937.
Late 1941: Total union membership now stands at 10.2 million
compared with less than 3 million only nine years earlier. Much
of the growth is due to newly aggressive AFL efforts, inspired
by the CIO’s challenge, to emulate the CIO and recruit
industrial workers.
1947: The Taft-Hartley Act, far less friendly to labor than the
Wagner Act and due in large part to labor’s fall from public
favor (because of its occasional strikes during World War II in
the 1941-1945 period and especially to its huge wave of postwar
6. strikes) is enacted.
1955: AFL and CIO leaders, culminating two years of intensive
negotiations, merge into the AFL-CIO. The new constitution
respects the “integrity of each affiliate,” including both its
“organizing jurisdiction” and its “established collective
bargaining relationships.”
1957: The AFL-CIO expels the International Brotherhood of
Teamsters for “corrupt influences.”
1959: The Landrum-Griffin Act further restricts labor’s freedom
of action, especially in the conduct of internal affairs.
2005: The original 15 million membership total of the AFL-
CIO in 1955 is down to 13 million and unions now represent
just 12.5 percent of the labor force, down from 35 percent in the
later 1950s.
New AFL-CIO leadership under John J. Sweeney, who is elected
federation president in late 1995 in the face of general union
unhappiness with labor’s stagnation since the merger, starts to
achieve some favorable results. New union members are
recruited and there is for a time a marked increase in labor’s
political influence as well.
But the returns for the first years of the 21st century in both of
these areas are not as encouraging as in the early Sweeney
years, and in 2005 three of the federation’s four largest unions
sever their ties to the federation. With four other unions they
announce the formation of a new coalition—“Change to Win”—
designed to reverse labor’s now-resumed membership slide by
pouring massive amounts of resources into heightened
organizing attempts.
7. By late 2008, it is still too early to tell whether or not the new
organization will have any lasting consequences in the
membership recruitment sphere – or, indeed, in the political
arena. The returns are both tentative and mixed.
The chapter ends with “Some Concluding Thoughts,” a segment
that above all argues that the current reports of unionism’s
impending doom may be greatly exaggerated: Organized labor
has confronted conditions at least as bleak as those surrounding
it today many times in its long history and has always proved
equal to the challenge. It would appear that too many workers,
from the early nineteenth century to the present, there really has
been no acceptable substitute for collective bargaining as a
means of maintaining and improving employment conditions.
Chapter 3 – The Legal Framework
There was almost no statutory treatment of labor-management
relations until the 1930s. Instead, individual judges exercised
public control over these relations. For the most part, they
totally repressed unions by finding most aggressive union
activities to be illegal and by extensive use of the injunction in
particular.
Public policy changed in 1932, with the passage of the Norris-
LaGuardia Act. It greatly narrowed the scope of the court for
issuing the injunctions, made yellow dog contracts
unenforceable, and explicitly recognized employee freedom of
association free from employer restraint or coercion.
Strong teeth were put into the governmental pledge to protect
employee collective bargaining rights in 1935. The Wagner Act
specifically banned five types of management action as
constituting unfair labor practices. And it set forth the principle
of majority rule for the selection of employee bargaining
representatives and provided that, should the employer express
8. doubt as to the union’s majority status, a secret-ballot election
of the employees would determine if the majority existed. It
also created the National Labor Relations Board to enforce both
of these provisions.
In 1947, public policy toward unions changed again. The Taft-
Hartley Act retained the basic principles of the Wagner Act
(which continue to this day, as does virtually all of Taft-
Hartley). But now six union unfair labor practices were
enumerated and prohibited in the same way that the employer
practices had been. In addition, Taft-Hartley recognized a need
to protect the rights of individual employees against labor
organizations and framed certain rights of employees as
individuals”; explicitly gave employers certain collective
bargaining rights; provided machinery for national emergency
strike situations; and in several other ways also demonstrated a
hardening of congressional and public attitudes toward unions.
In 1959, the national legislature passed another significant law.
The Landrum-Griffin Act was the direct outgrowth of the
unsatisfactory internal practices of a small but strategically
located minority of unions as revealed by Senate investigations.
It can be said to have marked the beginning of quite detailed
regulation of internal union affairs. Under Landrum-Griffin,
union members are guaranteed an ambitious and wide-
sweeping Bill of Rights that their unions cannot violate, officers
of labor organizations must meet a variety of reporting and
disclosure obligations, and the secretary of labor is charged
with the investigation of relevant union misconduct.
No collective bargaining law of any significance has been
enacted since 1959, but in recent years unions have generally
not been happy with the overall thrust of public policy. A
comparatively pro-management National Labor Relations Board
in the Reagan-George H.W. Bush years was, it is true, replaced
by a definite tilt toward labor on the part of the Clinton era
9. NLRB. But the latter was itself supplanted by a Republican-
dominated board under George W. Bush, and unions feared the
worst in the early years of the twenty-first century, with (based
on new NLRB rulings) some justification.
Management’s increasing use of a relatively new strategy—the
hiring of permanent replacements for workers striking for
economic reasons—has proven surprisingly effective as a union-
weakener, too. Legal since 1938, the policy received a huge
shot in the arm when then-President Reagan authorized its use
in the 1981 air traffic controller strike. At the time of this
writing in 2008, labor had as yet been unable to get Congress to
declare it illegal.
The laws through the years, the steady expansion since 1932 of
governmental interest in labor-management relationships, the
appropriateness (or lack of it) of the current statutes and their
interpretations, and the fact that labor laws have become
anything but easy to comprehend.
Chapter 4 – Union Behavior: Structure, Government, and
Operation
Whatever else may be said of the structure of organized labor in
the United States, it cannot accurately be described as being a
simple one. Of the 109 “national” (or “international” as unions
are interchangeably called) unions in the country, 55 currently
belong to the American Federation of Labor-Congress of
Industrial Organizations (commonly referred to as the AFL-
CIO). The latter is a rather elaborately organized federation,
even if it is one that lacks real authority over the affairs of its
member unions except in quite limited circumstances. It
currently, through its member nationals, represents some 10
million workers, or about 65 percent of all U.S. union
members.
10. Of the remaining 54 nationals, a mere seven of them represent
collectively another appreciable percentage of the nation’s
unionized total: just under 33 percent. These unions were all co-
founders of the breakaway Change to Win federation established
in 2005. Six of them (the Service Employees, Food and
Commercial Workers, Teamsters, UNITE HERE, Laborers, and
Carpenters) were in 2008 in the ranks of America’s dozen
largest unions (the seventh is the 5,500-member Farm Workers
Union) and their combined membership now adds up to a
formidable 5.2 million. Their parent Change to Win’s exact
niche as a federation, however, still remains unclear: Many
observers, while willing to suspend judgment for a while longer,
tentatively view it as a rather unstructured confederation of
unions originally united essentially only by a sincere impatience
with the AFL-CIO’s recent-year record in organizing the
unorganized and these days by a desire to wage coordinated
action in doing this on their own.
The 48 smallish national unions that are today outside both
federations (having for one reason or another chosen not to
join) thus account for relatively few American unionists: only
about 500,000 out of a 15.7 million total.
Whether AFL-CIO or Change to Win affiliates, or independents,
the nationals are themselves generally subdivided into regions
or districts for more efficient administration. To further
complicate matters, although the vast majority of the country’s
approximately 40,000 local unions belong to national unions,
several hundred of them do not and are commonly described as
independent unions. Finally, some unions are craft in character,
others industrial, and some are both craft and industrial.
AFL-CIO nationals pay per capita dues to their federation above
all to gain protection against raiding (attempts by other unions
to dislodge the originally established union and take over its
members) and also for various other, if lesser, benefits related
11. to political, organizational, educational, legal, research and
social endeavors. The AFL-CIO governing structure includes a
quadrennial convention (the supreme governing body), and
executive council, and various departments and constituency
groups. There are also 50 state AFL-CIO federations and
hundreds of central labor councils.
The federation is an aggressive lobbyist in the political arena
and at times inactive and influential endorser of political
candidates. It also carries out a massive research program,
organizes on its own and helps its affiliated nationals in their
organizational drives.
Change to Win’s governing structure remains quite lean. Its
major emphasis by far is on the recruitment of new members for
its member nationals. 75 percent of its budget is regularly
earmarked for this purpose. It is, however, also (increasingly)
active in politics.
National unions, whether members of the AFL-CIO or Change
to Win (or as the few of them are, independent of both
federations) generally exercise considerable power over their
locals. They typically must approve both the strikes and the
collective bargaining contracts of these locals, and all national
union constitutions today contain provisions that establish
standards of conduct and procedures for the internal operation
of the locals. In turn, the national provides considerable
bargaining service to the locals, something that is increasingly
desired by the latter as the bargaining issues become more and
more complex. The nationals also, through their staff
representatives, aid the locals in the grievance procedure and in
arbitration and are the major force for organizing the
unorganized. Another major national union function concerns
political action (although nationals differ widely in their vigor
here).
12. Most national unions have regular conventions, as their supreme
authority, but nothing in the laws requires that this be the case
(although Landrum-Griffin does demand that national officer
elections be held at least once every five years) and if the
leadership is autocratically inclined it can use this fact to help
perpetuate its power. National officers have political machines
(involving the powers of patronage, the purse, and the press),
anyway, and this helps account for the long tenure in office of
many such leaders, particularly at the presidential level. But
most national union leaders are deservedly popular because of
proven competence, and they hold office with longevity for this
reason and not because of political machination.
The local union is “where the people are,” where personal
knowledge of and contact with union leadership take place, and
thus where the union member really belongs. Local union
officers generally work without pay, lack the political
machinery that their national counterparts have, and are under
constant and often highly critical observation by their
constituents. They are motivated to hold their jobs (despite all
of this) for a variety of reasons, among them a desire for
recognition, a devotion to the labor movement, and the viewing
of local union office as a vital stepping-stone to attaining higher
union office. Local officers most frequently directly negotiate
the labor agreement with the employer, handle grievances, and
oversee the disciplining of union members alleged to have
violated union rules. Local unions also at times are active in
politics and engage in a variety of social, educational, and
community activities.
Chief expenditures of unions—particularly at the national level,
where the lion’s share of dollars is spent—involve salaries and
expenses for union officers and staff people and the building up
of strike funds. The annual income of American unions from all
sources amounts to about $5 billion, but most unions are still
regularly hard-pressed for money. Yet, as political animals, they
13. are normally reluctant to raise union dues (which often equate
to about two hours’ wages per month) and they typically ask the
membership to pay more only as an absolute last resort.
Chapter 5 – At the Bargaining Table
The labor contract negotiation process has been depicted as (1)
a poker game; (2) an exercise in power politics; (3) a debating
society; and (4) a rational process. It is likely that all of these
traits have marked most negotiations over time. At present,
however, bargaining is most commonly an orderly process in
which problems are discussed relatively rationally and settled
more or less on the basis of facts.
By far the major prerequisite for bargaining is preparation for
the negotiations. In recent years the time allotted for such
planning by both sides has steadily lengthened, basically
because the issues dealt with have become more and more
complex. Thorough planning is needed. Each party may find it
advisable to use not only general data (U.S. Bureau of Labor
Statistics wage information, for example), but information that
is more specifically tailored to its own needs. Thus, most larger
unions and employers now have their own research staffs and
they may also use the services of outsiders on an ad hoc basis.
Increasingly, too, the top echelons of both parties have
appreciated the need to carefully consult with lower level
members of their respective organizations before framing
specific bargaining table approaches. (The union has the further
job of screening the many demands that emanate from the rank
and file. They must be considered, but they are frequently
inconsistent and unrealistic.) Legal and, often, public relations
expertise is also needed by both sides in the preparation for the
negotiations.
Negotiations often begin with the union presenting extreme
demands. Usually, these are meant only as ploys in a logical
14. bargaining strategy and are not to be taken literally. Indeed,
some managements have increasingly come to appreciate the
strategic value of the large demand themselves and nowadays
similarly engage in such “blue-skying.” Because of this kind of
strategy, however, a large gap normally separates the parties at
the opening sessions.
In the later stages of bargaining, experienced negotiators
(having a fairly good idea of what the other side wants) seldom
take a rigid position and employ a variety of techniques,
including trading points and counter proposals. Yet frequently
the last stages of scheduled negotiations are reached with the
complete contract far from being resolved.
It is the strike deadline that is the great motivator of labor
relations agreement. The strike threat and its attendant
uncertainties generate a willingness to bridge differences that
has not been in evidence before.
Strikes do, however, occur—because of inexperienced
bargainers, because constituent sentiments have been
misjudged, and for other reasons. And crisis situations with or
without strikes are frequently seen in the bargaining. Bypassing
the difficult issues until the easy ones are settled,
depersonalization by negotiators, being prepared in advance
with alternative proposals, and the use of joint study groups
during the contractual period can all minimize the chances of
negotiation breakdowns. Mediation is also a potentially
valuable appendage to the bargaining in crisis situations.
Other topics dealt with in this chapter are: Costing the labor
contract, the vital need for testing and proofreading of the
contract before signatures are affixed to it; coordinated
bargaining, the name given to the increasing tendency on the
part of unions to band together for contract negotiation
purposes, and the growing threat to labor of multinationals and
15. the prospects of “one big global union.” General Electric’s
imaginative approach to bargaining from the 1940s until the
1970s — Boulwarism — is also analyzed. An inspection of the
many interdependent variables (from the current health of the
economy to the role of personalities) that individually might be
of major importance in a given bargaining situation, or of no
significance at all, concludes the chapter.
Chapter 6 – Grievances and Arbitration
With the establishment of a collective bargaining agreement, the
broad guidelines of labor/management relations are set down.
What follows is the often more involved task of applying and
interpreting these general principles. It is important to keep in
mind that labor relations is a day-to-day issue. Two mechanisms
for resolving issues in a peaceful and orderly manner are the
grievance procedure and arbitration. They are decidedly more
attractive ways to resolve conflict than the chaotic and
disruptive alternatives of strikes and lockouts.
The grievance procedure allows management and labor to
interpret and apply the contract within a system of specific
stages and time limits. It is a personalized process in which the
participants in an enterprise decide its labor relations issues.
Often these individuals help to negotiate the collective
bargaining agreement and are better able to react to particular
circumstances and to judge the impact of a decision upon
industrial relations. The grievance procedure often produces
compromise and is a most useful and efficient means of contract
enforcement.
This bilateral arrangement helps prevent small issues from
becoming major areas of contention. A better climate for both
management and labor can be attained. A tribute to its efficacy,
and the sincerity of the participants, is the fact that the vast
16. majority of application and interpretation problems are solved
at the grievance procedure level.
In the best of situations, there will always be conflicts that the
bilateral grievance procedure cannot resolve. Some 99 percent
of all collective bargaining agreements provide for arbitration,
another peaceful and orderly solution to the questions of
application and interpretation. At this stage, an impartial
outsider is selected to decide the issue, and his or her
conclusions are invariably stipulated in the contract to be final
and binding upon both parties.
The American system of arbitration is private and voluntary.
Arbitration is not required to be a contract provision, nor is it
an area of government control or participation. The United
States Supreme Court in the Trilogy cases has given its full
support to this process, and has greatly strengthened the
integrity and authority of the arbitrator’s decision. Recent
Supreme Court decisions, though qualifying the finality of the
arbitrator’s decision in the areas of civil rights, union
representation of the employee in arbitration proceedings, and
Fair Labor Standards Act rights, do not overturn the traditions
of the arbitration procedure.
The key person in arbitration is the arbitrator. Those who
exercise this role must adhere to a strict code of ethics, be free
of any bias, and be very knowledgeable about industrial
relations in general. They are normally bound by the provisions
of the contract, but may rely on past practice in the absence of
clear cut guidelines. It is their responsibility to keep the
process, which is less formal than a court proceeding and more
formal than the grievance procedure, moving smoothly and
efficiently. The main responsibility of labor and management is
to make sure the arbitrator is presented with all the relevant
facts and evidence bearing upon the case. The method of
selecting the arbitrator is specified in the contract. In most
17. instances, the choice is made on an ad hoc basis from names
supplied by both governmental and private agencies. Some
collective bargaining agreements opt for the appointment of
permanent arbitrators. Both the ad hoc and permanent methods
of selection have advantages and disadvantages.
Although arbitration is an efficient and fair procedure, it does
have some problems. The costs are high, and the time delays
often produced cannot be justified. Several solutions are being
offered today to meet these criticisms. One relatively new
procedure is mini, or expedited, arbitration. With this approach,
a hearing is scheduled very soon after an appeal, and a decision
rendered sometimes as quickly as 48 hours after the hearing.
Only the more routine or simple cases can be handled in this
manner, but it has proven successful in the steel industry and
elsewhere. Another alternative described in the chapter is that
of grievance mediation.