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Unions In The Workplace: A Case Study

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Unions have been around since the early 1900’s and have always been a significant influence on the interest of their workers. From safeguarding the worker’s rights to dealing in the collective bargaining processes, Unions are there to protect what is right for a worker in a workplace. As Unions are usually formed by groups of workers, which in turn, essentially makes them more powerful when it comes down to conducting business strategies when negotiating with their respective companies or organizations. On the other hand, as a Human Resource manager, you are there to serve many purposes and perform many key functions. From implementing company laws and developing compensation and benefits packages, to the process of hiring and terminating employees, …show more content…
Back when Unions were first established as a result of the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), the purpose was to ultimately have government power in the backing of protecting the rights of workers. Which essentially was the purpose of Unions to begin with in regards to protecting workers from pay cuts, being laid off, and termination. Being that managers were opposed to Unions, which made things more difficult when it came down to Unions fighting for their workers the Unions sometimes overpowered the organizations when it came down to certain conflicts. One cannot debate or argue back and forth over something that workers have a right to nor something that prohibits a worker from obtaining. Although, it happens that in turn forces workers to start strikes and protests, something that all managers of organizations despise of. There will always be some sort of degree of conflict between Unions and HR managers as again they both have significant roles that basically conflict each other but also propels the …show more content…
Though HR managers hire and promote employees there does come a time when an employee feels like they deserve more what their role within the organization. So here lies a conflict of agreement. You have an employee who request that their pay increase as their position within the organization changes, but the HR manager deems it unnecessary as the employee just received an increase less than six months ago. The employer, if a part of a Union will most likely start to negotiate in the collective bargaining process. The employee’s argument will most likely be that they should receive equal pay as everyone else who holds the same position, although they have not been holding the position for the same amount of time. As an HR manager one can argue that since the employee just received a pay increase less than six months ago, and also since they just got promoted to the position there should be some sort of grace period in order for the newly promoted employee to received such compensation, benefits, and pay. As it may seem silly or unnecessary to do so, the employee may counteract with a strike if the organization is under terms of the Union. Doing so will ultimately lead to one or two things. Either the employee will receive what they are bargaining for

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