View all slides | Contents of this slide

Lecture Notes

Two final features of what unions do or dominant features of what unions do in the collective bargaining relationship and the labor management relationship, unions ensure almost by definition that they'll be collective negotiations. As I will say a future presentation, one of the hallmarks of a collective bargaining relationship and what makes it different from the nonunion managerial relationship with employees is that management is required, is bound to bargain over certain terms and conditions in the workplace and so as will be noted on a future slide, the relationship in the nonunion setting is unilateral, management can do whatever it wants as long as it is within the boundaries of the law and that unilateral power or authority that management has is exchanged or is replaced with a bilateral process by which terms and working conditions like wages, benefits and such are decided in the workplace. This is fundamental difference. There is a really important difference between the union setting, which is the focus of this class and the nonunion setting and finally, something that also goes to the heart of the labor management relationship or to the union setting and contracts to the nonunion setting is the existence of grievance procedures by which employees and the union can grieve over activities that management has engaged in often are mostly disciplinary related matters. It is important to note two things. First, management can also use the grievance process if they believe that the union is in violation of the collective bargaining agreement and second, that it has become increasingly common for nonunion employment settings, for nonunion organizations to also have grievance procedures or conflict management procedures, although as noted on the second bullet for this feature, for this factor, few nonunion employment settings, few nonunion organizations have the same level of due process protection and representation that unionized grievance procedures have and so this is another important feature associated with the union system, is an internal institution mechanism by which employees and their unions get to adjudicate, get to deliberate around decisions made by management that are said to be, that are claimed to be in violation of the collective bargaining agreement.