¶ … Right to Contract Out
The notion that by raising the janitor job from $13.89 to $14.38 the Company would cease "to be successful" says enough about the "good faith" of the Company to know that it is dubious at best. Yet this 80 cent raise was maintained as the reason for denial of the grievance (Schwartz 516). Moreover, during the job evaluation, the Company "tipped its hand" by announcing that it did not really want to evaluate the job because after a wage survey it had found that the "janitors were the highest paid in the area" (p. 518). At the same time, the Company broke with its traditional or normative manner of evaluating by not requesting for a lowering of points, as it had in the past, when pay was an issue. Instead, the Company showed its hand again when one representative stated, "These jobs are probably gone" (Schwartz 518). In reality, it was the Company's intention to give the appearance of "evaluating" by meeting with the Union representatives while secretly negotiating with outsiders to outsource the janitor jobs at lower cost. When the Union realized this and noted it, the Company attempted to backtrack and say that there was already a contract made to outsource -- which was not the case at all. By tipping its hand, the Company was essentially testing the waters to see if the Union would object. It did, citing Article 19 and Article 29 of the contract.
The Company responded by citing the "very broad management rights clause" of the contract -- essentially a loophole, or what it deemed as such. The reason for this loophole seeking is also clear: by outsourcing the janitor jobs, the Company could save nearly $400,000 a year.
In this situation, the union has the burden of proof since it is the one filing the grievance and the matter is related to a contract interpretation ("Five Common Grievance Issues"). The case is, however, both a matter...
The union, as the filer and continued impetus behind the grievance, has the burden of proving that the company in some way violated its labor contract in so doing. The level of proof needed is fairly basic; the contract can be carefully read by the arbitrator, and any actions that were illegal according to the terms of the contract could be identified. The burden of proof must lie with
But when it just recently occurred in 2004 at a store in Jonquiere, British Columbia, the reader must appreciate that a real battle had been won. The original efforts of that particular store for example had the local labor Commission reject certification by a margin of 74 to 65. When the union announced that it won the coveted certification at Quebec, it was quite a blow to the retailer.
2. How would you suggest that unions and employers improve their ability to correctly interpret the collective agreement? From the perspective of employees, one of the principal benefits of collective bargaining and union representation is assuring a reasonable balance of power between labor and management in workplace decision-making. Many collective bargaining agreements attempt to achieve such a balance by, among other things, giving employees the right to participate in certain decisions about
As a result, financial planners need to advise clients who receive these payments and make large cash investments to do so as soon as possible. The study concluded that dollar-cost averaging would be unlikely to topple the superior results of lump-sum investing at this time (Williams and Bacon). Profit-sharing allows employees to earn bonuses according to company performance (GoSmallBiz 2008). A certain percentage is set aside by the firm and
Labor Relations & Globalization Argue for or against the use of the "school voucher program." Which do you believe is right? Explain your answer. Both the National Education Association (NEA) and the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) identify school voucher programs as a threat to public employees (Carrell & Heavrin, 2007). Critics say that school vouchers provide families with public funds that can be used for private schools with private agendas. Advocates
(Secord, 2003) All these 'Best Practice' strategies are allocated and implemented by the management with the help of the workers Union because the Unions negotiates with the management during the establishments of code-of-conduct or rule-of-working. The effects of unions on the organizations can be summarized as improvement innovations, quality of work, reduction of production costs and increase in productivity, improvement in opportunities for investors, improvement of workers training facilities and
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