Necessity of Labor Unions

LABOR UNIONS ARE NECESSARY: A POSITION PAPER

This research develops a position on the necessity of labor unions. The argument developed in this essay is that labor unions are necessary.

In the United States, labor law is, essentially, a federal matter, and the government arbiter between management and labor is the National labor Relations Board, generally referred to as the NLRB (Calvert 19). One result of this approach is a uniform application across the country of rules governing labor-management relations. The states are able to exercise little original jurisdiction in labor-management relations (the most notable example of state jurisdiction are the so-called right to work laws, which effectively outlaw the closed shop in some states).

Labor unions gain the right to represent workers employed by specific firms through the process of certification. Certification is the formal declaration by a government labor relations board that a specific labor union is the recognized bargaining agent for a specific group of workers at a specific employing firm. This formal certification is typically made following the conduct of a certification election, which is supervised by the appropriate labor relations board.

Labor union membership in the United States has been on the decline for the better part of three decades, with unionized workers accounting for only approximately 12.4 percent of the private sector workforce and 16.5 perc

Related Essays

Organized Labor & US Labor Movement .... of World War II, and again, the resulting necessity for many labor intensive activities .... nevertheless, was the way management and unions dealt effectively .... (2835 11 )

Organized Labor .... of World War II and,again, the resulting necessity for many labor intensive activities .... nevertheless, was the way management and unions dealt effectively .... (3300 13 )

Deveopment of US Labor Movement This research derives a .... that an agreement or disagreement with Marx would, of necessity, require either .... The struggles of American labor unions in the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s expanded .... (2653 11 )

Globalization: Collective Bargaining .... Companies that skirt the necessity for collective bargaining .... more like oppression and slave labor than an .... In the last analysis, without unions and collective .... (1443 6 )

Los Angeles Political Development: 1870-1939 .... and population, its unionists of necessity still looked .... multi-racial formation dominated by large industrial unions. During the period, organized labor had won .... (2708 11 )

ocess of bargaining collectively with the employers of their members (Walters and Langdon 585). When the collective bargaining process does not result in a mutually agreed upon contract, workers may (collectively) strike in order to enforce their demands. Collective bargaining by labor unions is concerned with factors other than wages. It is also concerned with issues of union security, and working conditions. Through the collective bargaining process, labor unions have played major roles in the United States in the pursuit of economically related social goals, such as the elimination of racial discrimination in employment hiring, firing, and promotion, and pay equity between the sexes and between ethnic and racial groups. To be sure, some unions have been guilty of similar discriminatory practices, although the organized labor movement has actively promoted such social goals. Supporters of labor unions claim that it is only through the actions of the labor unions that the workers of the country� union and non-union�are able to obtain their just share of the economic benefits of society. The labor unions claim that they alter the shares of national income between the workers (the owners of labor) and the companies (the owne

Category: Business - N