Union Organizing Issues
What are the differences from the employer's viewpoint, in operating a union-free environment vs. A unionized environment?
Eric Dontigney, writing in the Houston Chronicle for Demand Media, explains that while unions do provide certain benefits to employees, including legal representation and pensions, unions do not "necessarily represent a panacea to all the woes of working life" (Dontigney, 2015). Non-unionized workplaces also provide advantages to business owners as well as employees, and in fact business owners operating in non-unionized workplaces enjoy what Dontigney calls "…considerably more freedom in the dismissal process."
When there is a union, there can be long-drawn-out formal processes involved in dismissing (firing) an employee. But without a union, Dontigney explains that business owners "avoid" those long drawn-out dismissal proceedings, and business owners can "…dismiss employees for contract violations" and owners can simply decide not to renew a worker's contract or "…simply end employment without specific reason" (p. 1). Because management can move "easily" to fire employees that have failed to be productive, or employees that are "disruptive" in the workplace, having a non-union workplace has its advantages for management and business owners.
Maintaining what Dontigney calls a "congenial work environment" is always important in terms of productivity and profitability for a business, and when there is no union this atmosphere is easier to create (p. 1). Moreover, a business owner in a non-union workplace doesn't have to deal with pre-determined raises and promotions...
The union thus acts as an advocate for worker's legal rights, including their right not to be subject to drug tests as well (although this issue is far more contentious, given that Xanitos also argues that testing is required from the point-of-view of patient safety. A more controversial drug testing issue is prohibiting all workers from using tobacco, a controversial practice that has become increasingly common amongst healthcare establishments. "More
Various suggestions have been made as to how to correct for these losses, such as job retraining for more technical jobs. As more and more union jobs are outsourced to foreign workers, more union workers in the United States are unemployed, with little recourse except to retrain and to target another type of work. When they do so, they may not be as eager to join a union given that
From this perspective, right-to-work laws are passed in states in which public opinion is anti- union and the labor movement is politically ineffective; in such states, employees are less attracted to unions, and it is this public opinion climate, rather than the legislation itself, that harms union growth (Abraham & Voost 2000). The National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation; Bureau of National Affairs (2002), reports that New Jersey does
Senior Management MEMO to Senior Management: What are the differences in operating a union-free workplace vs. A unionized workplace? Here is some background on the issue. A view that many observers express is that unions tend to raise "non-union wages" (Waschik, et al., 2010). The way the argument goes is that when there is a union shop, wages go up. Hence, non-union companies raise their salaries as well to complete with union
Unions have been dropping members at an incredible rate. The trouble can't be resolved by individual unions dealing with great, monopolistic, international companies. Unions must stick together and work in the political ring to elect government officials who understand that the nation is here for the citizens, and not for business (the Decline of Unions -- Why, 2007). In 2000 the Union Network Federation (UNI) was fashioned with the purpose
Labor unions are associations of workers for the purpose of improving the economic status and working conditions of the employees through collective bargaining with employers (Union pp). The two general types of unions are the horizontal, or craft, union, which is composed of members who are skilled in a particular craft, such as the International Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America, and the vertical, or industrial, union, which includes
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