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Labor Laws Unions Choose Organization Familiar Unionized. Essay

Labor Laws Unions Choose organization familiar unionized. Outline organization chosen including: • Provide background information chosen organization. • Identify legal issues obstacles organization encounter. One of the best known unions in the world, in terms of the union power and capacity to exert influence in the organization, is the union structure at General Motors. General Motors employees 209,000 people, sells around 6.5 million annually and is considered to be one of the largest companies in the automotive industry

Although the company's competitiveness has been challenged in the mid-2000s, the organization proved sufficiently versatile to penetrate new markets, such as the Chinese market, offering new opportunities.

Historically, the United Automobile Workers (UAW), one of the main unions that groups workers from the automotive industry, has been able to bargain privileged working conditions with the three big producers in the United States, including with General Motors. These ranged from job security guarantees to pension and health care benefits

. Some have accused...

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As a consequence, they would be able to impose preferred conditions, threatening to strike instead. The large number of unionized workers meant that the actual impact on the GM earnings and profits would be devastating, negatively impacting, in the end, the stock market performance of GM shares as well. As a consequence, GM management preferred to offer an increased number of privileges in exchange for the absence of social unrest and a reasonable level of work productivity.
Bargaining power goes even beyond the simple threat of strike. The unions can affect the productivity of workers and can motivate the employees towards an increased productivity, if the conditions they have imposed to management have been met. Overall, the influence of the unions is translated in the communities from which the workers are part…

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1. General Motors website at www.gm.com. Last retrieved on August 21, 2011

2. Muller, Joanna. 2008. If GM collapses, don't blame the union. Forbes.com. On the Internet at http://www.forbes.com/2008/12/04/detroit-labor-uaw-biz-manufacturing-cz_jm_1205union.html. Last retrieved on August 21, 2011

3. Vlasic, Bill. 2009. Union Talks Seen as Key as GM Makes Case for Funds. The New York Times. On the Internet at http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/17/business/economy/17auto.html. Last retrieved on August 21, 2011

General Motors website at ?
http://www.gm.com
Muller, Joanna. 2008. If GM collapses, don't blame the union. Forbes.com. On the Internet at http://www.forbes.com/2008/12/04/detroit-labor-uaw-biz-manufacturing-cz_jm_1205union.html. Last retrieved on August 21, 2011
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