Chapter 14 - Collective Bargaining and Labor Relations

Brief Description

A union is an organization formed for the purpose of representing its members in resolving conflicts with employers. Unions are associated with higher compensation and productivity but with lower profits. They can reduce a business's flexibility and economic performance. Today's unions are mostly filled with commie bastards who just want to spread their socialistic views. Just seeing if your paying attention. Management and unions have apposing goals of achieving organizations profits and employee compensation. The National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) supports collective bargaining and sets out the rights of employees to form unions. Later amendments to NLRA came by the Taft-Hartley Act of 1947 and the Landrum-Griffin Act of 1959 which put some restrictions on what unions can do.

Emotional Hook

I remember working for a grocery store Safeway in Washington state that had a union. If you wanted to work for Safeway you had to join the union in order to get the job. I thought that was the biggest load of crap ever. You had to pay $90 just to join the union, then they took $30 a month out in union fees. For a high school kid getting paid $5 an hour, that's a lot of money. And the union didn't do anything at all since it was a good company to work for. I definitely believe in having the option to choose if you want to join a union or not.

Key points to elicit in discussion

Unions obviously formed out of legitimate need. If companies hadn't have tried to screw their employees so bad back in the past, unions never would have been formed in the first place. But are unions really needed anymore? I talked to allot of people in upper management in their companies, and most companies that don't have unions, have union-like run human resources.

Facilitative Question

If everyone would abide by good ethics, would unions be necessary? Are all unions ethically sound also?