Labor Relations Paper

The changes brought up labor unions in the United States over recent history has brought about a movement. This specific movement has shaped the way that employees and workers are treated in the workforce,and how they maintain their quality of life through this employment. Many people think that the labor unions’ influence has created a power struggle between management and union leaders. In many cases this can be considered true, as there have been countless feuds between management teams and labor unions, especially in recent history. In today’s times, on the one hand, some people believe the existence of unions are a necessity in order to ensure and promote employee freedom; while on the other hand some people view labor unions as just another problem in the line of employee success.

In any organization, unions act as binding agreements between employees and management. In this case, a group of persons are responsible for conducting negotiations with the management for the purpose of enhancing the welfare of workers. Unions originate from the period of American depression when workers faced various work challenges including low remuneration, and unfavorable working conditions. The purpose of this essay is to explore the pros and cons of unions in America in the current times.

Labor Unions have had an effect of American history as well as world-wide history from the time they became popular. Following WWII Americans were predominantly pro-labor, however, as time went on union’s credibility fell short of perfect. Union strikes proved to be bothersome to both the general public and company. Unions were also suppressing to employees through fraud and lack of worker rights (in earlier years, before Acts were passed). Although Union labor had its shortcomings, this type of labor is noted to be the most productive and economically beneficial. With both sides shown, I feel Unions will again thrive in the future with a few key adjustments made.

The role of unions and their importance has changed over the years. A mixture of poor wages, high unemployment, non-existent benefits and insignificant professional stability amongst the more youthful era makes a ready demographic for restoration. The younger era is the slightest unionized section of our general public today by a long shot. Unions are important in today’s society because checks and balances are necessary entities in business and government, so if CEOs are just focusing on themselves and profits, unions are a necessary check to all that corporate power. Today and in the future, labor unions will continue to play an important role in our country 's work force and the quality of life for working families.

     Many unions are at battle with their respected employers. Some of these fights are better known than other fights. United Airlines is trying to renegotiate contracts to save their company money. This has been a long battle for United,

While the public opinion towards unions has softened in the recent years, unions still face a monumental task in trying to regain, or even maintain membership levels. In order to maintain their current proportion of the workforce, unions must organize 300,000 workers a year. In order to even begin to approach the

The history of unions in the US is based on a time line that represents workers struggling to organize unions. In the United States, the history of unions played an important part in the independence process

The fact that many US employers look down on, discourage, and blatantly combat unionization is not a recent occurrence as successful organization thereof can result in decreased profits and inflated personnel costs. Fossum (2012) argues that ‘employers have long resisted attempts to unionize” (p. 215) and implemented various strategies to remain union free and greedily persist in their efforts toward heightened profitability through utilization of unfair labor practices.

To understand the worth of today’s unions, we must first understand the history and purpose of these organizations. Simply put, a union is an organization of employees formed to bargain with the employer. There are many types of unions. For instance, a craft union is one whose members do one type of work, often using specialized skills and training. An industrial union is one that includes many persons working in the same industry or company, regardless of jobs held. A federation is a group of autonomous national and international unions (Mathis 529). The main purpose of all these organizations is to secure benefits and rights in the workplace. The history of unions in the United States dates

According to Voos, “there is now a substantial body of research evidence on the economic impact of U.S. unions” (2009). Unions are not outdated; they continue to make progress by enforcing better wages by reducing the income unfairness between men, women, different racial or ethnic groups, and different age groups. Income inequality has a major impact on today’s economy. “The growth of income inequality in the U.S. and the related decline of the middle class are critical factors in the current economic crisis: the collapse in the housing market, the crisis of inadequate capital in the nation’s banking institutions, the decline in the stock market, the free-fall in consumer spending, declining employment and other aspects of the recession that are worsening daily” (Voos, 2009). A declining or

Human Resources practices have also impacted on unions as managers within a workplace are encouraged to now work directly with their employees, rather then including a third party such as a trade union ( Balnave et al, 2007, pg 169). Because of this, trade union members will continue to decline

There have been changes since the 1980’s with the United States Industrials relations. However, there was a significant demand for labor unions before the 80’s era. There were changes in the environment among labor environment, management, and the government due to the fact of the market and management control. The issue was that the employer or firm had a set of regulation and obligations towards the organization's employees and following through with obligations that the firm promises the workers. Problems start to occur with staff and the demand for labor unions begin to decrease.

Workers in certain occupations and industries find it advantageous to organize into unions and sell collectively their labor services instead of competing for jobs individually. Labor unions through their collective negotiation powers, they uphold workers' rights and effectively communicate worker grievances. In fact, labor unions have higher negotiating power in contrast to individual workers. There are several strategies that labor unions

Unions have played a big role in protecting employees, but we have come a long way from the lessons we have learned of the past situations. In the 19th century the US became a new world for immigrants to produce a new life, working conditions required hard work, fighting, long hours for little pay, but most importantly, the unsafe conditions and manual labor that was bestowed upon these workers. This created labors to start a union, but there have been some major issues that ended badly such as the Haymarket riot, the homestead strike, and the Pullman strike, but it took these problems to form a better working conditions for the labor’s. We have learned from the past that employers try to get away with such acts, that laws

In 1999 the National Institute for Labor Relations Research (NILRR) published a essay entitled; Union Corruption: Why It Happens, How to Combat It. The writing was drawn primarily from magazines and newspapers as well as government reports and described the various patterns of union corruption. The essay outlined vast embezzlement, extortion, and in some cases even murder. The conclusion being a discussion of potential ways unions could overcome corruption and uphold legal conduct. Since then unions have indeed made progress in eliminating the prevalence of their criminal behaviors. However, the reality is that union officials are under such extreme pressure from the government that they have no real choice but to clean up their operations.