Mandatory Bargaining Topics
The mandatory bargaining topics are those issues considered quite critical and important to the survival of an employee in the organization. The issues classified as mandatory topics normally have the largest impact on the welfare of employees. In fact, employees look at these topics when deciding whether to take up a given job offer or not. The mandatory bargaining topics include remuneration, health, safety, management rights, workplace conditions and benefits. Examples of mandatory bargaining topics include the pay rate and structure, the health policies and severance payment offered at the organization.
National Labour Relations Act
The National Labour Relations Act is a law which guides and regulates the relationship between employers and employees. This law sets the terms and conditions based on which the transactions between employers and employees are carried out. The law is normally applied in the case of unionized employees. There has been debate on the issue of the NLRA favouring workers more than the employers. The assumption is that the NLRA concentrates on dictating employers how they should treat workers fairly.
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Notably, the NLRA is also referred to as the Wagner Act. It was enacted in the year 1935. The law introduced protection of some fundamental employee rights such as striking, bargaining and protesting. This law has been amended overtime introducing other protections such as barring employers from retaliating to protesting or striking workers. This law was also substantially amended with the enactment of the Taft-Hartley Act, passed to check the acts and rights of unions.
Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002
The Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 is a law that was enacted to protect employees who make public ethical or legal violations against their employers. It is a law that encourages whistle-blowing among workers. There are many things which may happen within an organization that are illegal. This law encourages employees to bravely reveal bad acts taking place at the workplace to the public and still have their employment secured. It means that an employer who wishes to terminate the contract of such a worker must be ready to part with heavy fees in terms of damages payment and indemnification.
Railway Labor Act
The Railway Labour Act is a federal law which was passed by the United States Congress in the year 1926 with the aim of regulating labour relations issues within the railway industry. The airline industry was added to this law through an amendment in the year 1936. Essentially, the main aim of the RLA is to prevent strikes in the railway and airline industries by replacing them with mediation, bargaining and arbitration talks meant to settle disputes.
The RLA classifies disputes at the workplace as major and minor. Strikes by employees for minor issues are banned under this law. For the major issues or disputes, strikes by employees can happen after the completion of elaborate processes of mediation and negotiation.
Landrum Griffin Act
The Landrum Griffin Act was enacted in the year 1959 ( McLaughlin, 2016) . The law gave unions the right and protection to hold secret elections and submit their annual financial reports to the U.S. Department of Labor. Importantly, the same law also set standards to govern the expulsion of a member from a labour union. Therefore, it can be noted that the overall aim of enacting this law was to regulate the internal affairs and running of labour unions across the country. It aimed at ensuring corruption and malpractices on the part of union leaders were curbed and restricted.
AFL-CIO
The American Federation of Labor (AFL), founded in the year 1886, was meant to increase the remuneration and job security of workers. Political conflicts within the AFL led to the formation of the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) to achieve the same purpose. However, the two organizations merged in 1955 to form AFL-CIO. The basic goal of the merged organization is now to support the local labour unions in carrying out their functions in their respective companies ( Edelstein, 2017). This merged organization is comprised of 56 labour unions which makes the biggest alliance of unions.
Common exceptions to employment-at-will
An employee can choose to end a give job engagement at will. The same applies to the employer. However, there are exceptions to employment-at-will. They include the public policy, implied contract, and good faith as well as fair dealing exceptions ( Edelstein, 2017) . The employer cannot fire an employee if such an action amounts to violation of the doctrines of an individual state. If the employee was led into believing there was an implied contract, the employer cannot fire him or her as long this allegation is proven.
“ Union shop,” “closed shop” and “agency shop”
A union shop is a firm that helps in the recruitment of new members to a given labour union for a specific period of time ( Edelstein, 2017) . A closed shop means a firm where an agreement to only hire or retain members of a union at all times exists ( Edelstein, 2017) . An agency shop does not require all members of a company to join the union, but collects union contributions referred to as agency fees from all workers regardless of membership status.
Intent of “right to work” laws
The main intent of the right to work laws is prohibiting the requirement for an employee to join a union in an organization or pay contribution fees even if the same worker benefits from the union contract on joining ( Edelstein, 2017) . Therefore, these laws seek to offer protection to employees of companies from the exploitations of labour unions.
References
Beginning Management of Human Resources. Authored by: Anonymous. Provided by: Anonymous. Located at: http://2012books.lardbucket.org/books/beginning-management of-human-resources/s14-02-employee-rights.html. License: CC BY-NC-SA.
Edelstein, J. D. (2017). Comparative union democracy: Organization and opposition in British and American unions . New York: Routledge.
McLaughlin, D. (2016). Landrum-Griffin Act and union democracy . University of Michigan Press.
Nature of Unions, by anonymous author. Provided by: PEOI. Located at http://www.peoi.org/Courses/Coursesen/hr121/contents/frame11a.html. License: CC BY-NC-SA.
