The labor unions are groups of workers and employees who converge together to get good working conditions, fair hours and fair pay for their labor. In the United States, the organized labor unions affect the lives of many citizens in a roundabout way. The labor unions affect different people ranging from the blue-collar workers to white-collars, students, stay-at-home and retirees. This essay examines and addresses the upsides and downsides of unionization to make a respectable negotiation plan. The essay further addresses the methodologies that the administration can implement to work with another union.
In most cases, the businesses and workers union end up on the opposite side of the bargaining table; represent different interests which make their relationships to be adverse. However, employers and unions can profit from their interactions if they continuously enhance their relationship. To achieve a healthy workplace that leads to commitment and engagement, vital best practices need to implement jointly by the union-management relationship. Regular communication, mutual respect, proactive policies, and teamwork are among the best practices that need to be addressed.
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With regard to regular communication, employers and unions will be able to improve the working relationship quality and reduces conflicts. From time to time, various elements that continually influence the business of the employer and worker emanate. For example, expanded rivalry from organizations that pay low-wage in different countries could make the employer's organization to come up with another strategy to pay or downsize employees (Ostrowsky, 2005). The ability of the employer to initiate continuous communication with the employee union will enable the organization to formulate the best strategies to tackle such market disturbances while maintaining a good and conflict-free working relationship.
Along with regular communication, proactive policies should be formulated. The employers can improve their relationship with the unions by adopting proactive employment policies. In most cases, the employers are aware of the role of the unions and therefore need to devise policies and practices that reduce the constant negotiation. Most states are considering implementing a Healthy Workplace law to control workplace bullying to safeguard all the employees. In return, this boosts the confidence of the union in the working relationship and consequently prevents them from exerting undue pressure on the employer.
Likewise, managers and worker association should encourage cooperation. The businesses and associations can cooperate as groups as an approach to enhance their working connections. The businesses and associations at last wish to cooperate to guarantee persistent enhancements of both the business and economical superior. An association is respected effective if develops and grow additional time while in the meantime offering better terms and conditions to its workers. The businesses and representatives association can cooperate to talk about issues influencing them and the association all in all. This empowers them to mutually settle on the systems they will adjust to reinforce the business in the short and long haul and concocting the best method to accomplish the interests of the gathering included.
Fostering mutual respect is another approach that can enable the management and employee unions to work better. This will be initiated if both have acknowledged that the other has a legitimate purpose. In this respect, the management controls the work environment and organization resources while the unions represent the employees in getting into the best terms as well as employment conditions. Mutual respects enable employees as well as employers to meet their goals by facilitating negotiations.
Collective bargaining is the negotiations between the organization and the representative of the union. The main goal of collective bargaining is for the management and union to reach a contract agreement for a particular period of time. Once the period of the contract is over, a new contract is negotiated (Hübler and Jirjahn, 2003). The interest-based bargaining format is one of the aggregate bartering understandings that have positive highlights for both the association and administration. This type of assertion gets rid of the utilization of a main representative and in addition methodical trading of formal composed proposition for the association individuals. It significantly depends on intrigue based critical thinking systems. This kind of process depends extensively on training the bargaining teams in problem-solving and listening techniques.
The interest-based bargaining has an open exploration of issues that may promote better relationships and understanding. The kind of agreement makes the union to widely appreciate the limitation and interests of the board. The process may also assist to build on the acrimonies that were found in the previous difficult negotiations (Kim, 2010). Regardless of the selected process, the preparation component is crucial for effective as well as successful negotiations. The training of the members is the first aspect to consider in the preparation for negotiation. Extra planning time is essential to guarantee that all colleagues comprehend the interests and issues behind them.
Some of the key areas to address in preparation for bargaining are finances and financial modeling, financial projections which assist employers to develop the contract parameters as well as establishing credibility with the union. A scattergram should also be created to reveal the current distribution of staff schedule and total cost of the same. Some of the topics that can be included in the bargaining process are the pay rate and structure, the health benefits, job classifications, incentive programs, the training process, the tools provided to employees, performance assessment procedure and the vacation time and sick leave. The job classification, process of new applicants and layoff procedures are also some of the topics to be discussed.
Unions are put in place to protect workers, give them fair wages and workplace safer. However, they also have some drawbacks and non-union employees complain that unions can be detrimental for development and many people abuse the benefits of being in a union. The health benefits are one of the pros of being in a union. Most workers in a union are entitled to extended health and medical benefits. This is a huge bonus to a person or everyone who has major health issues. The unions not only cover people over their career but also protect your job in case of an extended leave due to illness.
Secondly, the union makes individuals have job security. If you are not part of the union, there are high chances of being fired without no reason. The union makes it difficult for employees to get fired unless the matter is serious but the union gives individual chances to file grievances regarding the issue of job termination (Bettio, 2002). The union also gives people a chance to speak their mind if something goes wrong. The union support and further advice individual on which direction to take. The unions also promote seniority issue in some organizations. However, this differs between different unions. Seniority can be a factor to determine who gets the promotion or who can keep their job in case of layoffs.
As much as the union has some pros, some cons can also be experienced when in a union. Abusing the system is one of the drawbacks in a union. People are aware of all the loopholes and know that they cannot be fired unless they do something that is completely inappropriate to expectations. The union reward employees that do not deserve to be rewarded. The employees who put minimal efforts in their work do not get fired. This act demoralizes other works. Unions also hold individuals back. Seniority plays an enormous role in unionized environments making a suitable person be passed over because of lacking seniority. In this regard, the union can stunt a good employee professional development.
From the pros and cons of being in a union, it is evident that being in a union safeguards the career of employees at a large extent and can stunt employee’s productivity as well. It is paramount that employees should take advantage of the union without abusing the system. The chief labor counsel represents the employer to the union as well as union employee to the employer. As a chief labor counsel, it is your responsibility to argue on behalf of the employees to improve the working conditions as well as benefits within acceptable means. The chief labor counsel can also contract negotiations with the employer, serve in the best interests of the employees, have a vast knowledge of the state and federal labor law and work for the labor union or for particular resources. The chief labor counsel needs a lot of training and stationery in order to be aware of the processes of negotiation.
Conclusively, it is noted from the literature that unions have several benefits to the employees such as job security, health benefits and ensure that employees receive fair wages. However, there is some drawback that evidenced from the use of union such as abuse of the system and rewarding the employees in cases where they do not deserve. Therefore, the chief Labor counsel should ensure that employees receive all the advantages of the union without abusing the system.
References
Bettio, F. (2002). The pros and cons of occupational gender segregation in Europe. Canadian Public Policy/Analyse de Politiques , S65-S84.
Hübler, O., & Jirjahn, U. (2003). Works councils and collective bargaining in Germany: the impact on productivity and wages. Scottish Journal of Political Economy , 50 (4), 471-491.
Kim, J. (2010). The Role of Public-Sector Unions During Privatization.
Ostrowsky, J. (2005). Union-Management Cooperation: Can a Company Move from an Adversarial Relationship to a Cooperative Relationship and is Interest-Based Bargaining a Necessary Condition to Do So?
