a group of workers who join together to influence the nature of their employment

• many labor unions today appear to be large, bureaucratic organizations
• usually seeking improved wages and benefits, or protection against arbitrary treatment and discharge, or a greater voice 

1. Efficiency
2. Equity
3. Voice

the productive, profit-maximizing use of labor to promote economic prosperity

• standard of economic or business performance
• sharpest conflicts are typically between efficiency and voice
• profitability; productivity; competitiveness; economic prosperity (chart page 6)

fairness in the distribution of economic rewards, the administration of employment policies, and the provision of employee security

• standard of fair treatment for employees
• equitable treatment might reduce flexibility and therefore efficiency
• unions can sometimes centralize power to better achieve equity while at the same time become less responsive to the employee's voice 
• not neccessarily that employees should receive the same treatment in terms of economic rewards, employment policies, and employee security.
• living wages; workplace safety; nondiscrimination; health and retirement security (chart page 6)
• goes along with the basic ideals of democracy with free and equal citizens

the ability of employees to have meaningful input into workplace decisions

• a standard of emplyee participation
• voice might make decision making more cumberson and therefore less efficient
• sharpest conflicts come between efficiency and voice
• consultation; labor unions; self-determination; employee free speech (chart page 6)
• employee voice ranges from moral, religious, and psychological beliefs about importance of human self-determination to politcal views of liberty and democracy
• 63% want more influence in company, people would enjoy their job more and it would be more comptetive if they had greater voice

to encourage the practice and procedure of collective bargaining and to protect workers' rights to join together for negotiating terms and conditions of their employment and for other mutual aid or protection

• not to tolerate collective bargaining but to encourage it
• to protect workers' rights to act together for mutual aid and protection in the workplace and to promote collective bargaining as a way to resolve workplace conflict.

captures the belief that workers in a democratic society are entitled to the same democratic principles of participation in the workplace

• political democracy should extend to the workplace
• thus labor unions seek not only material gains in wages and benefits but also dignity, voice, and freedom.

conflicts between emploers and emplyees are seen as conflicts between the property rights of employers and the workers' rights of the employees

• most labor relations systems are based on compromise position: a pluralist perspective that sees the employment relationship as analogous to a pluralist political society in which multiple parties have legitmate but sometimes conlicting interest and rights
• property rights and workers' rights should be balanced

if the majority of workers in a particular workplace want union representation, their employer is required by U.S. law to negotiate with them over wages, hours, and working conditions.

• workers cannot be fired or discriminated against because of their support for a union
• employers cannot threaten employees or undertake other actions for the sole purpose of preventing unionization

representatives of the employer and the employees negotiate the terms and conditions of employment that will apply to the employees

Major Subjects

1. compensation
2. personnel policies and precedures
3. employee rights and responsibilities
4. employer rights and responsibilities
5. union rights and responsibilities
6. dispute resolution and ongoing decision making

• crucial feature of collective bargaining is that management's traditional authority to unilaterally establish terms and conditions of employment is replaced by bilateral negotiations
• In nonunion environments, management has unilateral control over when and how employees are allowed to express their voice.

a legally binding document that describes the terms of employment (e.g., wages hours, working conditions).

It does not encourage ongoing communication and problem-solving between labor and management

the percentage of workers who are union members

• 2008: 16.1 million union members and 1.7 million workers coverd by unions
• 2008: overall union density was 12.4%
• public sector density has been on the rise while private sector continues to decline in union density. This has happened for one of three reasons:
• employment has declined in traditionally unionized industries like manufacturing and increased in nonunion industries like service
• demand for union services has declined
• employer resistance or opposition

employees say they want more representation in the workplace than they have

• younger workers are siginificantly less likely than older workers to be union members 

• media reports on issues from a consumer rather than a worker perspective while emphasizing accomplishments of business leaders and entrepreneurs
• even through strikes are rare, they aer the most frequent union news story in the media
• Many TV sitcoms and movies portray strikes and other union activities, typically putting the union in a bad light

characterized by long hours, low wages, unsafe working conditions and job insecurity stemming from management's ability to exploit and oppress workers.

• "workers as machines"
• not limited to private sector

1. Mainstream Economics School
2. Human Resource Management School
3. Industrial Relations School
4. Critical Industrial Relations School

focuses on the economic activity of self-interested agents, such as firms and workers, who interact in competitive markets

• efficiency, equity, and voice are achieved through free-market competition
• the conditions of the labor problem are not seen as exploitation if there is sufficient labor market competition.
• Outcomes are value-free, so there may be a labor situation (which simply describes the outcomes) but not a labor problem (which implies that the outcomes are undesirable)
• unions are seen as labor market monopolies that restrict the supply of labor and interfere with the invisible hand of free-market competition 
• the role of the government is not to establish labor standards - only to promote competition
• As long as competition exists in a market, the mainstream economics school of thought would suggest that there is no "labor problem" even if wages are low, work hours are long, etc.
• employees exercise voice in the employment relationship by exiting and entering into employment arrangements

believe that the labor problem stems for poor management

• formerly called personnel management school
• solution to the labor problem is better management
• to create motivated and efficient workers, firms should design and implement better supervisory methods, selection procedures, training methods, compensation systems, and evaluation and promotion mechanisms
• equity will be achieved only if employers become responsive to employee needs
• independent unions are seen as adversarial and inimical to cooperation
• independent unions are unneccessary "third parties" that prevent employers and employees from getting "closer together"
• labor problems are best solved with effective management practices
• the problem with today's labor unions is not that they interfere with competition in the market, but rather that they interfere with the development of a healthy working relationship between management and employees.

labor problem is believed to stem from unequal bargaining power between corperations and individual workers

• formerly called institutional labor economics school
• unequal bargaining power is the primary cause of the labor problem
• labor market is characterized not by competition but by bargaining
• the solution is to ncrease workers' bargaining power by forming independent labor unions  and pursuing collective bargaining
• labor market outcomes are determined by the relative bargaining strength of parties to the employment relationship
• the intellectual foundations of the US system of labor relations come from the industrial relations school of thought

capitalist institutions do not simply exist but are created by society; focus on how dominant goups design and control insitutions to serve their own interests, albeit imperfectly due to resistence from competing groups

• traditionally labeled "Marxist industrial relations"
• radical perspective
• critical of existing societal institutions and social orderings
• employers are similarly seen as structuring the organization of work and human resource management practices to serve their interests at the expense of labor
• the primary aim of labor unions should be to replace capitalism with socialism

• conflict is not seen as an adherent or a permanent feature of the employment relationship
• conflict is seen as a manifestation of poor human resource management policies or interpersonal clashes such as personality conflicts
• Human Resource Management School View

• Industrial relations school view
• some of the interest are shared but for other issues there is an inherent conflict of interest between employers and employees
• Not all workplace issues can be thought of and resolved through a focus on shared interests between employers and employees
• some issues are conflictual and some involve mutual interest
• see government laws and labor unions as balancing this conflict

conflict is not limited to higher wages or better benefits; it is a social conflict of unequal power relations

• pluralist limitation of the concept of "power" to bargaining power, rather than greater social relations, is superficial
• critical industrial relations school view

Workplace governance under the mainstream economics model should include government intervention in the form of laws and rules that protect the rights of individuals to enter contracts

• competitive labor markets
• competitive markets promote efficiency and provide protections against abuse 
• HR management
• HR policies and employee participation in decision making can align the interests of employers and employees and promote efficiency, equity, and voice
• worker control
• workers' interests are served by having them in control
• independent employee representation
• collective bargaining c equalize power between employees and employers while involving both sides in decisions making
• government regulation
• laws can establish uniform standards for all that are not dependent on the vagaries of markets, managers, or worker power

The Great Uprising of 1877 was primarily a conflict between capital owners and workers in many industries and locations

• demonstrates the shared concerns of workers and is frequently used to define the beginning of the modern era in US labor relations-one in which capital and labor are often sharply at odds
• laid the foundation for future labor-management conflict, not cooperation
• "social earthquake"
• a lot of voilent strikes

• uplift unionism: a philosophy in which a union "aspires chiefly to elevate the moral, intellectual, and social life of the worker."
• primary concern was the moral worth, not just the material wealth, of a person
• The central conflict for the Knights of Labor was not with business owners, but rather with those who were perceived as controlling wealth, without actually producing it.
• the served "the divine nature of man"
• emphasized cooperation and education
• ultimate goal was replacing capitalism with a system of producer cooperatives in which producers would own and control businesses
• top leadership opposed strikes and boycotts
• Greatly affected by the Haymarket Tragedy

• formed in response to failure of Knights of Labor
• AFL was a unio federation not a labor union per se
• support organization for independent unions
• initiated organizing drives with the goal to create new national unions
• The AFL concept of exclusive jurisdiction held that workers of a particular craft (or trade) should be represented by just one union and that union should only represent that one craft (or trade)

• emphasized improvements in basic emplyment conditions: wages, hours,working conditions
• accepts capitalism and the need for employers to make a rofit, but seeks to win labor's fair share of the profit througb collective bargaining backed up by the threat of striking

• unions were divided along craft lines - by occupation or trade
• focused on unique concerns of workers in single occupation
• most AFL unions wholeheartedly endorsed this

born out of frustration with the tactics of the AFL which seemed to accept repression of worker efforts to improve wages, hours, and working conditions by judges, armed forces, and business leaders.

• refrred to as the "Wobblies"
• explicitly inclusive and radical
• emphasized the need for worker control f economics and political institutions
• syndicalism
• greatest activity between 1905 and 1925

Revolutionary unionism tries to create working class solidarity rather than solidarity by occupation or industry.

• class based employment relationship conflict
• seeks to overthrow capitalism

A workplace that is open only to workers who belong to the union, and the union controls who can become a member

create and maintain union-free workplaces

• portrayed idiology of individual freedom
• sometimes characterized by open warfare

Management systems that emphasize orderly hiring and firing procedures, wage incentives, protective insurance, positive work culture, and employee voice.

• CIO formed as a result of differences with the AFL over unionization by industry, rather than by craft.
• encouraged workers not to challenge traditional gender relationships as much as ethnic and racial ones.
• relied heavily on aggresive wokplace tactics such as sit-down strikes

created during WWI and WWII, was intended to resolve labor disputes that arose during the wars

body of laws based on customs, traditions, and judicial precedent rather than on legislative statute.

• conspiracy - common law makes it a crime for 2 or more individuals