Union Management and Organization

Union and Management Organization

Introduction

Labor unions have been an integral part of a number of organizations in the United States and are also considered and legally recognized as representatives of the employees working in numerous organizations and industries. The core activities and functions of these unions include collective bargaining over the benefits, wages, working conditions and the representation of their members in the disputes with the management over violations of the provisions of the contract. It is also observed that larger unions involve in lobbying activities and election activities at the federal and state level (Bennett, 2007). The discussion on the union and management relations is a very important subject and bears great importance, so the core aim of this paper is to provide a clear discussion about some of the most important aspects of union and management relations and organization.

Discussion

The following is a discussion based on the historical framework of the unions in the American system along with some important aspects that relate to the union and management organization.

Historical and Legal Framework Providing the Foundations of the American System of Labor/ Management Relations

It was observed during the 1950s that an organized management and labor are involved in sharing at a particular moment a large amount of power and income. This observation gave a brief idea of the concept that this is basically a power game. Some important questions were answered on the basis of this power like who will be getting the biggest share of the economy pie, what the conditions will be on the working site, which will be making decisions regarding production and wages of employees and other benefits of employees. In addition to this, there have also been some conflicting interests in the history of the labor/ management relations. A number of unions arose against the industrial factory system. The emergence of the unions was an alarming sign for the management of organizations as the key principle these unions was solidarity and collective action. On the other hand, businesses or management of organizations opposed the unions because they considered unions to be threats to economic efficiency and individual freedom.

Over the course of the nineteenth century, the size of the organizations grew and the relationship between employees and their employers became less personal, so the individual employees seem to lose their power. There was very little power left with an employee to insist an industrial business management to provide him his complete rights according to what he deserves. If an employee wanted to take any action for his legal rights, then he would have a chance of getting fired and treated harshly. On the other hand, the managers viewed solidarity as little more than mob rule and believed that they had the right to make proper decisions in order to operate a business efficiently and effectively. It is also obvious that the management of businesses opposed the emergence of unions within industries and it should not be surprising top know that the American labor history ...