Chapter 13

Collective bargaining

the process that labor unions and employers use to reach agreement about wages, benefits, hours worked, and other terms about conditions of employment.

Craft Unions

unions organized to represent the interests of members with specialized craft skills.

Industrial unions

unions that have traditionally represented semiskilled and unskilled owrkers in a particular industry

Unfair Labor Practices

violations of the NLRA that deny rights and benefits to employees and can be the result of employer or union activity.

Collective Bargaining

when the employer and union negotiate in good faith on wages, benefits, work hours, and other employments terms and conditions.

Conciliation

a type of facilitation used when an impasse occurs in a collective bargaining session so that both parties keep working toward an agreement until they can resolve the issue at hand.

Good faith bargaining

the process that requires parties to meet at a reasonable time and come to the bargaining table ready to reach a collective bargaining agreement.

Impasse

the situation in which both parties have made their final offer and are not willing to make further concessions.

Mandatory bargaining topics

topics that must be negotiated, including compensation and benefits, hours of employment, and other conditions of employment.

Open Shop

does not discriminate based on union membership.

Norris-LaGuardia Act of 1932

Made it easier for employees to engage in union-organizing activities.

National Labor Relations Act of 1935

Protects rights of employees and employers. Encourage parties to engage in collective bargaining. Control activities so economy wouldn't be adversely affected by their actions.

Labor Unions

are groups of at least two employees who band together as a single entity to address pay, hours and working conditions with their employers.

Grievance

a charge by one or more employees that management has violated their contractual rights.

Card checks

a process whereby a company recognizes a union once the union has produced evidence that the majority of workers have signed the authorization cards indicating that they want the union to represent them.

National Emergency Strike

a strike or lockout prevented by the government because it affects an entire industry, or a substantial part of it, and/or national health and safety are imperiled.

Union Steward

a union member that serves as a liaison between the rest of the employees and the leadership of a union.

Labor Management Relations Act of 1947

amend to the Wagner act to clarify what is considered unfair labor practices by unions and employees.

Neutrality agreements

an arrangement in which a company agrees that it will not express its views about unionization during the time when signatures are collected.

Interest-based bargaining

an extension of integrative bargaining in which each party looks for common goals in order to meet the interests of the other party.

Decertification

the process of terminating union representation resulting in union no longer representing the employees engaging in collective bargaining on their behalf.

Bad faith bargaining

entering into a collective bargaining situation with no intention of reaching an agreement or in some other way violating the protocol for appropriate collective bargaining.

International Unions

federations of local unions. Local unions pay dues to the federation in order to provide services that are difficult or costly to do by themselves(such as lobbying for legislations and organizing conventions).

Grievance Process

formal steps that must be followed to settle disputes between labor and management.

Surface bargaining

going through the motions of negotiations with no intent of reaching an agreement.

Integrative bargaining

negotiation strategy in which each party cooperates and works to reach a win-win outcome

Distributive Bargaining

negotiation strategy used when the goals of one party are in direct conflict with the goals of the other party and results in a winner and a loser.

Permissive Topics

non-mandatory issues such as employee rights, managerial control, and benefits for retired union members, that are often part of the collective bargaining negotiations and agreement.

Collective bargaining agreement

occurs when the employer and union negotiate in good faith on employment terms and conditions to generate a written contract.

Employee Associations

professional employees (healthcare workers, clerical workers, and teachers).

Railway Labor Act of 1926

provides a peaceful way for railroads and their employees to resolve their disputes; also applies to common carrier rail service and commercial airline employees.

Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service

provides both unions and employers free mediation, conciliation and voluntary arbitration for resolving disputes.

Union Shop

requires all workers except managers in an organizations to become members in the union within a certain period of time after being hired.

Agency shop

requires nonunion workers to pay an agency fee for its services in negotiating contracts.

Closed Shop

requires workers to join a union before they can be hired and requires employers to go to the union first to hire new employees.

Hard Bargaining

taking a strong position on an issue.

Protected Concerted Activity

when two or more non-union employees act together to try to improve working conditions, or when a single employee approaches management after conferring with other employees on their behalf, or is action on behalf of other employees, their actions are covered by NLRA