Essays on Labor Unions

Trade unions, as well as industrial actions, can be dated back to the industrial revolution in the eighteenth century. Notably, labor unions are organizations that have been set up by workers in particular professions to enable them to achieve common goals. Several issues are usually addressed by the groups, including protection of the rights of the workers, improving working conditions for the workers, increasing the remuneration and benefits of the employees, and enhancing welfare among many other issues (Heckscher & Carré, 2006). In other words, trade unions exist for the sake of the workers. Members use the unions to discuss ...

Gebelhoff (2016) points out that around 10% of U.S. workers were union members in 2013. Thus, only a small fraction of employees discuss their wages with employers. Gebelhoff (2016) notes that there were 35% of labor unions in America in 1945, however nowadays the number is a tiny one, and the Europe significantly differs in this aspect. Unionized labor is not prevalent, since the manufacturing sector is not popular anymore. The lack of labor unions in the United Stated of America is related to the growth of economic and political inequality as well as lack of progress in terms ...

Introduction

The unionization of the work force can be observed as early as the 1800s, during the time when the industrial revolution was spreading quickly across Europe and the United States. These labor unions, however, are not permanently established organizations. Rather, these are employees who temporarily group themselves when employment issues arise in order to gain leverage in bargaining with their employers (Murray, n.d., p. 2). Among the major issues that bring employees together according to scholars are improvement of working conditions, wages and job security; issues that are still relevant in the contemporary labor setting across all industries (Cengage ...

Schools of thought have different views regarding labor unions. The mainstream economics school of thought view on labor unions can be said to be negative. It takes unions as a collective with other interventions in the market such as government intervention. It perceives unions to influencing the supply of labor negatively. This is because its views competitive markets as being perfect thus unions hinder the supply of labor. Additionally, its provisions reveal that the relationship between the employees and the organizations is perfect. This means that unsatisfied employees can leave or the employer can allow the employees to go ...

The advancement into globalization raises a controversial discussion about political and economic systems. By its nature, globalization implies setting a singular standard in various aspects of society, like politics, economics, technology, regulations, employment, etc. (Tregakis and Brewster, 2006). While convergence towards a common political and economic system is encouraged by structures such as European Union, which weakens trade barriers, the cultural patterns, the timing of industrialization, the nature of the dominant industries, the density of population or the disparity between rich and poor count as factors of divergence (Ashraf and Galor, 2007). As a result, two most common economic ...

Question/Problem Definition

In a global and competitive world of corporation, each organization aims to acquire a significant share of market and earn lucrative profits from loyal customers. On the contrary, the customers want products and services from organizations that ensure their quality at least possible price. In order to produce and deliver a quality product and/or service to the customers, it is important to have an in-depth customer orientation and standardization in production processes. The two aspects need a strong synchronization with the organizational culture and strategic decision-making. Organizations need to sustain a strong compliance with quality guidelines and factors that ...

Introduction/Problem Statement

Despite much hullabaloo on women's equality and empowerment, it is not yet ascertained that the fairer sex is considered as equal when it comes to employment. Four decades after the enactment of Equal Pay Act, research finds that the salary of female bosses runs 35 percent short of their male colleagues. Statistics galore revealing the wage differential across occupations and industries. By contrast, critics on the 'right' opine that the pay gap is just a 'myth' as women deserve to get paid less because they work in less demanding jobs than male counterparts. Obviously, the issue carries much heft ...

Introduction

Business organization has a central goal of profit maximization and increase in their productivity at the least possible cost. As a result, employers oftentimes tend to do everything it takes to get what they want. This includes subjecting employees to undue work pressure and probably denying them of certain benefits. Too often than not, this creates an unrest and conflict in the workplace which in turn affects the productivity of the employees. This is where labor unions, also known as trade unions come in the workplace environment. The sole purpose of labor unions is to act as a middleman ...

The industrial revolution changed the face of American society in a multitude of ways, not least of which was the role of the government in the relationship between businesses and workers. The emancipation of slaves in the aftermath of the Civil War irrevocably altered the way aspects of the economy operated—especially that of the Southern states and of the agricultural sector. From that point clear through to the present, the relationship between employer and employee has been in constant question and flux, with labor unions and government regulations having significant impacts on the overall state of workers’ rights ...

1) To what extent aspects of labor relations in other countries should be adopted in the United States? Labor relations have always concerned issues of negotiations, formation of different types of organizations of workers and employees and development of rules for their activities. In France, control over the daily management of a company is performed by the management. Its activity is regulated by the Supervisory Board. Labor relations in France also provide for the presence of the observer who is assigned to the categories of employees responsible for the payroll of the company's employees and collective agreements. This category ...

(Comparative Analysis on Canadian Market and US Market)

Introduction 2

Analysis 2 Communism and Capitalism Approaches 2 Corporate Governance 3 The Trade Union and Political Alignment 4 Collective Bargaining Approach 5 The Gini Coefficient Impact 5 Job Exportation Effect 6 Union Contribution Effect 6 Transparency in Union Operations 8 Conclusion 8 Recommendation 9

References 10

Introduction Are unions still relevant today in Canadian labor market? This is one of the fundamental questions at the heart of the Canadian workforce. Apparently, it has been highly speculated that the Canadian workforce, especially among the young workers, does not see the need for strong trade unions. ...

Abstract:

Strikes are one of the ways in which conflicts between employers and employees become known. Although they are rare, the effects of strikes are usually major and can affect the involved parties and public for a long time. Usually, strikes are usually a last resort measure when trying to solve conflicts and are considered the most damaging to employers. Employers will therefore try to avoid strikes as much as possible opting for alternative conflict resolution measures that are less damaging to their interests such as mediation and conciliation (Gennard, Judge, Tony, & Richard, 2016). This paper will discuss conflicts in ...

The Role of Labor Unions, HR Management and the Government in the U.S.

Abstract

This paper talks about the roles of the three major players in the American labor landscape. First, the paper discusses the role of labor unions and how it changed the labor settings in the United States. Moreover, it also discusses the role of human resource management in promoting good employer-employee relationship, which has become a major issue that brought about the formation of labor unions in the first place. Lastly, the paper also discusses the role of the American government in maintaining the power balance between ...

Mini Case page 147. "Is body language protected activity?"

1a) & b) The following could be the possible reasons why the three nurses were fired: The nurses had expressed their dissatisfaction with the manner in which the Heartland Hospital was being managed Yes, the right to free speech is protected by section 7 of the Wagner Act and thus, punishing these nurses merely based on expressing their views on conditions of work is against the provisions of this Act. The Hospital’s management under Barbara Young failed to listen to the nurses’ concerns about the shortage of staff aides and the quality of healthcare services rendered to residents Yes, ...

US Elections 2016

Abstract The U.S. presidential campaign of 2016 is raging on and on. With the November approaching, and the campaign being on the rise, political issues of the U.S. are becoming more interesting to the world society. Till the beginning of May the number of candidates was still pretty sufficient to make any projections. Under Clinton’s presidency the relations between the U.S. and China may turn into a complete mess. According to her position, the U.S. should observe its national interests, and if China is an obstacle to their achievement, the relations between them should be at a minimum ...

Stakeholders in Organizational Health and Safety

The primary directive of the OHS is illness and accident prevention. The discipline realizes that employees have the fundamental right to have a job environment that does not harm their well-being and ruin their medical outcomes. The field of occupational health and safety has various essential stakeholders who are expected to carry out the practices and ensure that the business follows the security regulations. Each active stakeholder has a crucial role to execute. Some of the stakeholders mentioned in the slides include workers, employers, and the government. Industry owners must ensure that the safety regulations are known by everyone ...

Financial Statements

The Coca-Cola Company's fiscal year begins on 1st January every calendar year and ends on 31st December every calendar year. Since the 2016 fiscal year is not yet over or even half way through, this assignment assumes the 2015 fiscal year as the current one and uses data for the fiscal year ended 2015. The net income from the 2015 fiscal year is $7,351 billion. This is up from 2014’s net income of $7,098 billion. The net income, therefore, increased by $253 million which represents a 3.56% increase in net income ("The Coca-Cola Company", 2016). Net ...

On February 9, 1950 unknown senator from the State of Wisconsin Joseph McCarthy, shaking by a sheet of paper, stated thaat he have declared on meeting in Wheeling (West Virginia) that he has a list of 205 persons who are known to the state secretary as members of communist party and who, however, continue to work and formulate policy of State Department. (Caughey, 68) He has made similar statements also in other cities of the country. The right-wing press and other mass media have picked up these charges. The name of senator soon became a banner of political reaction ...

What is the significance of the RLA and the Norris-Laguardia Act and how do they modify the NLRA?

The right of the employees in the industry of railroad (in terms of collective organization and bargain through representatives, chosen by them), was guaranteed by the Railway Labor Act of 1926 (RLA). The major limitation of the law was the fact of its application to the railway labor only. In 1964, the extension of this law has taken its place to the individuals, employed in the sector of the air transportation. In 1932, the contacts between the employees and workers were outlawed by the Norris-LaGuardia Act. The core purpose of this act was to prevent the exercise of rights ...

Many Latinos from South America, Central America, and Mexico have made decisions to either legally or illegally to immigrate into the United States of America over the past decades. Similarly, many Asian populations have migrated into the United States of America either legally or illegally. For decades, film makers have been capturing the experiences and stories of the immigrants in the United States of America. The exponential increase in the number of the immigrants over the past decades has led to the surge of high-quality documentaries, like Crossing Arizona, produced in the year 2006. In this film, varying degrees ...

Introduction

There are diverse elements that influence the nature of the job and salary level of an individual. For example, the level of education can have a diverse impact on the nature of work and the earnings of an employee. Moreover, the relationship between workers and their jobs change due to several factors such as economic and policy changes. Accordingly, the factors that impacted employment can also have an impact on what are the type of jobs and the people that are likely to unionize. It is to be noted that people join unions in order to have a say ...

The Australian Worker’s Union is the oldest and largest trade union of the country. The Australian Trade Union was founded in the year 1886 due the revolution of the Australian Mining Industry. It is estimated that the Union has around 100,000 members all across the country. The trade union works as a mediator between the employees and employers to solve all problems related to employment. Another function of the Australian Worker’s Union is to maintain a healthy relationship between the employers and staffs. The Australian Trade Union grew with the popularity that becomes a regulating body, ...

1.Explain the role of unions in today’s workplace. With the Passing of national Labor Relations Act, unions have been in existence from 1935.The main role of a union is to safe guard the rights of the employees. They secure and improve the working conditions of the employees. They play an important role to check the unfair practices on the employees by the power of management .They represent collectively to get fair treatment, equality and, economic security for the employees. They help the workers to get their benefits and also help the management to solve workplace problems. Other key ...

Labor Unions

A labor union is an organization of workers who have come together with a common goal to improve basically or maintain the conditions of their employment in their organization. By collective action, employees can promote and protect their interest through collective bargaining of trade unions. Organizations have embraced the positive and negative images of collective bargaining to improve and maintain conducive working conditions of their employees as indicated by Hirsch (1991). In the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in Article 23, subsection 4 has provided the right to join labor unions. Labor unions serve two important fundamental roles in ...

The prevailing wage law in West Virginia was originally enacted in 1933 and amended in 1961. The bill originated from the national Davis-Bacon Act that was established in 1936 amid the Great Depression to preserve jobs of federal projects for the unemployed regional workers. The law recommends the legal prevailing wage payment of at least two thousand dollars on all public construction contracts (Dean 6; and Kelsay 18). The Department of Labor in West Virginia State determines the hourly prevailing wage rates in all the counties for each occupation. Therefore, the prevailing wage can vary concerning occupation and county. ...

The great migration saw mass exodus of a whopping 7 million blacks from southern states in the US to the Midwest, Western and Northern states in America. This occurred between the periods of 1916 to 1970 (Arnesen 1). There was widespread practice of racism in the south with Whites enjoying the benefits of white collar jobs, goods schools for their children, conducive living environment, and political dominance. This pushed away the blacks who moved to the Northern, Midwest and Western states to seek employment into the industrial cities like Philadelphia, St. Louis, Baltimore and Chicago and other small cities. ...

1. Introduction Gall, Gregor, Adrian, and Richard (27) define Labor Unions as legal entities that represent the interest of workers in a country. These labor unions draw their members from employees of various industries that they serve like Teachers, Physicians, and Health Practitioners, Lawyers and business people etcetera in a country. Their primary objective is to bargain collectively for workers’ rights and privileges and be a watchdog over employers and ensure they adhere to the contracts with their respective employees. Durrenberger and Karaleah (56) add that in some countries like India and France, labor unions are political in nature ...

Introduction

Employment related practices are some of the current trending subjects in the Human Resources Management field. The modern HR manager is required to understand and oversee the implementation of various rights that employees are entitled to enjoy. The same applies to labor unions which have also been charged with the responsibility to uphold some of the employees’ rights. The topic on employees’ rights is of major concern at this moment especially due to the emerging trend amongst some corporations (Werhane, Radin and Bowie). Given the high levels of competition in the corporate world, organizations are devising strategies that will ...

NAFTA refers to a trade agreement that has been signed by Canada, Mexico, and the United States. This created a trilateral trade relationship between the three nations. The deal came to effect on January 1, 1994, and over passed the earlier Canada-United States Free Trade Agreement. The agreement was as a result of intense negotiations between the three countries, and later each country needed to get it approved and ratified by the respective parliament. The trade agreement shaped the business relationship between the three nations and positively impacted the lives of the respective residents. While NAFTA agreement targeted towards ...

Political culture is a component of the general culture, a cumulative indicator of political experience, a level of political knowledge and feelings, examples of behavior and functioning of political subjects, the integrated characteristic of a political way of life of the country, a class, the nation, social group of individuals. A feature of political culture is that it makes not policy or political process, but their understanding, an explanation. In the political sphere often the importance is gained not only by real actions and measures of the state but also, by the way they are estimated and perceived in ...

1. Introduction Labor relations deal with the fair, effective, and professional relationship between the management and the employees. The labor relations cover employees union, labor laws, labor history, collective bargaining, settlement, and the contract administration. The labor unions are organizations in which people’s works together to achieve common goals. The unions are democratic bodies of employees. They are legally recognized as representative bodies of workers in many countries. The purpose of these organizations is to maintain and control working conditions in a better way. There are certain goals to organize labor unions that include protection of the rights ...

National Labor Relations Board (NLRB)

The NLRB is a government agency with two major responsibilities which include conducting elections for the labor unions representation and conducting investigations and remedying unfair labor practices in the country. The body ensures the protection of the employees' rights by the employers through justice to the employees and also protecting and promoting the collective bargaining power through labor unions. The body was formed in 1935 at the heights of US industrialization where labor unions formed to protect the rights of the employees by the employers. Its mandate was primary to reduce the unfair labor practice and to strengthen the ...

Construction Law is a genre of law that is very detailed because its nexus operates on a concept in the United States that has been around since the age of Industrialization and that is relating to labor unions. Depending on where one travels within the United States to seek employment pertaining to construction work, they are potentially eligible to join a laborer’s union. What many of these labor unions do is to achieve a standard wage and benefits that construction employers pay construction worker within that specific state of geographic territory. Some of these unions have become quite ...

Following the guidelines of the course ID guidelinesStudent’s NameUniversity

A labor union is an organization ascertained for and by the workforce to follow collective goals at the workplace. The goals include wages, work rules, benefits and power of the employees. For more than a century, the labor union played a dominating role in shaping the life and work of the Americans. The unions have waned and waxed during a long struggle to control the workplace in America. In the early 20th century, the labor unions were the dominating body that worked on behalf of the workers to bring justice to the life of Americans (Cohen & Cohen, 2008). Several ...

The New Deal was a relief for many Americans because it brought many changes both socially, politically, and economically. Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal had tremendous positive and adverse effects on the lives of women. On the downside, the New Deal permitted unequal wages and job opportunities for women as men were given the available employment opportunities. Moreover, most relief programs during this time only targeted the men leaving the women out. On the positive side, after some time, many women were able to get jobs and appointed to take on employment in the government. In addition, they were ...

1850-1890: Industrializing Canada: Essay Proposal

1850-1890: Industrializing Canada: Essay Proposal

Thesis:

Between 1850 and 1890, the Canadian labor force experienced numerous changes including the formation of unions. Labor unions were formed for different reasons and between 1850 and 1890, different competing unions were formed to perform different purposes. Child labor also had a great influence on the Canadian industrial economy during the last half of the nineteenth century.

Regulate the work process by bargaining on the number of hours craftspeople should work Negotiate on issues of wages. Negotiate on the better working conditions and environment. Knights of Labor Growth (Kealey, 2015; Rouillard, 2014) Membership was ...

History

The Great Depression of 1930s has played a very important role in changing views of Americans regarding labor and unions. There were many people employed, but after elections of the year 1932, the focus of government and courts shifted towards pleasing the labor. In the year 1935, National labor Act was passed. This act is also known as Wagner Act, which justified the rights of labor or workers for changing their representatives in democratic manner and gives right of bargaining collectively with employees. This act has ensured protection of labors from injury and interruptions by removing unrest from the ...

Introduction

A labor relationship between parties is regulated by the contract. Any disputes regarding the terms of the contract may be settled in the Court. The Courts established common law rules determining the rights and duties of the employer and employee. Nevertheless, the employment conditions were often unsafe and harmful, hours of work long and wages low. The government started passing laws to combat exploitation of employees by employers. In 1900s government started establishing minimum employment standards, which became the basis for modern labor standards legislation. While the government was taking legislative actions, employees started forming trade associations to increase ...

The history of Chinese immigration in the United States has always been complicated. As the USA used to be very attractive country for immigration, Chinese immigrants’ influx reached a high number by the middle of the XIX century. Despite the growing number of immigrants of different ethnicities, racial issue was still critical in the relations between white Americans and Asian immigrants. Racial intolerance often fueled by economic and social problems in the country led to violent actions and tragic consequences. One of such events, named later as the Rock Springs massacre of 1885, has become the result of both ...

Introduction

There are many differences in the way that children are made to perform work in different parts of the ways and in different ways. Some of these works may have high difficulty level and may have high demand while the others appear to be full of hazards and even morally incorrect. There are many activities that the children need to be performed and at different levels. The definition of child labor is diverse. All the activities performed by children cannot be put under child labor and need not be put under jurisdiction for purposes of elimination (What is child ...

The Decline and Fall of Apartheid: National, Regional, and Global Factors

Introduction The struggle for independence in the Republic of South Africa was weakened by certain policies and directives that were passed on by the then ruling Afrikaans. Apartheid was the biggest obstacle that these freedom fighters were to face. It was characterized by racial segregation that gave preference to the white people while the black people were not viewed as equals. Racial segregation was seen in many other areas such as health care facilities, schools and places of work such as mines where the black people were forced to work. The Apartheid regime came to an end and allowed ...