Union and Employer Organization Structure

1
Union and Employer Organization Structure

• Organizations tend to be structured in ways that
  reflect their Purpose, Goals, Philosophy, and
  Mission.
• They must also be responsive to the dynamics of
  their environment and the vicissitudes of the
  market place.

2
Union and Employer Organization Structure

• Unions and businesses face similar challenges but
  separate perspectives.
• While management must stay focused on the
  competitive challenges of the marketplace it is
  the unions role to represent the interests of
  their members.

3
Union Structure

• Craft Unions
• Represent a group of workers who have as a common
  bond the same set o skills, the same occupation.
• Plumbers - Carpenters - Electricians

4
Union Structure

• Industrial Unions
• Represent workers with a variety of different
  skills who tend to be located in the same
  industry of industrial site.
• Primarily confined today to site specific unions

5
Union Structure

• Amalgamated Craft Unions
• Union combining several related crafts.
• International Brotherhood of Boilermakers, Iron
  Ship Builders, Blacksmiths, Forgers, and Helpers
  - ACTWU - ILGWU

6
Union Structure

• Multi-industrial Unions
• Unions combining several related industries.
• OCAW - UAW - URW - IBT - USA

7
Union Structure

• Pure craft and pure industrial unions are rare in
  the United States.
• Rather than following any rigid patterns, unions
  tend to organize in whatever direction or area
  that seems most likely to bring them members.

8
The Local Union

• Nearly all union structure in the U.S. is built
  on the basic local unit.
• Normally confined to a geographic area small
  enough for all members to attend a single
  meeting.
• Geography - Population - Industry

9
The Local Union

• A formally constituted Democratic Organization
  with ultimate power vested in it members.
• Operated under a set of by-laws that define the
  number, terms, duties, election, and salary (if
  any) of local officers.

10
The Local Union

• Sets procedural matters, such as calling and
  terminating strikes, ratifying contracts,
  selecting convention delegates, frequency of
  meetings, auditing, dues, fees and other details.

11
The Local Union

• Many locals elect or appoint Business Agents to
  do the detailed work.
• The President, Vice-president, and
  Secretary-Treasurer perform the duties normal to
  those offices and are elected by the members.

12
The Local Union

• Some local officials may serve as contract
  negotiators but this task is usually assigned to
  staff representatives from the national union or
  its appropriate district.

13
The Local Union

• Shop Stewards
• Normally elected and are responsible for
  consulting with employees who have or think they
  have a grievance against the employer.

14
The International Union

• The national or international union is the locus
  of power in the labor movement.
• Locals are bound to the national and operate
  under its constitution.

15
The International Union

• The local union pays dues to the national for
  each local member
• The national may be affiliated with the AFL/CIO
  but retains sovereignty over its operations.

16
The International Union

• Legislative power in national unions is vested in
  the convention and Landrum-Griffin requires that
  conventions be held at least every five years and
  most unions hold them more often.

17
The International Union

• National officers are usually elected by the
  convention or by referendum.
• (President, VPs, Secretary-Treasurer)
• They serve on a full-time basis with hired staff.

18
Election of Union Officers

• Every national or international labor
  organization shall elect its officers not less
  often than once every five years.
• Local organizations not less often than once
  every three years.
• Officers of intermediate bodies (general
  committees, system boards, joint boards, or joint
  councils), not less often than once every four
  years.

19
The Whole Union

• The totality of the national or international
  office, state or regional offices, if any, plus
  all the locals.
• Industries operating on a national scale usually
  look to the national officers for most of the
  important negotiation.

20
The Whole Union

• Negotiations in building trades, transit
  companies, bakeries, and laundries are normally
  conducted at the local level by the local union.

21
The Whole Union

• Creation of new local unions is the principle
  purpose of organizing activities, which are
  relatively expensive.
• Workers in some industrial nations take
  unionization for granted and do not wait to be
  recruited, American workers usually do not form a
  union until they feel an explicit need for one.

22
The AFL-CIO

• Any national union accepting the principles and
  objectives of the federation can apply for and
  presumably obtain membership.
• A local may affiliate directly with the
  federation if there is no national union in its
  field. This is know as a federal union.

23
The AFL-CIO

• The AFL-CIO is not a union. Its function is to
  bring about organized cooperation of the
  constituent unions on behalf of labor as a whole.
• The federation receives income from a per capita
  tax on the affiliated unions.

24
The AFL-CIO

• The officers consist of a president, executive
  vice president, secretary-treasurer, and 51 vice
  presidents.
• Jointly they constitute the Executive Council
• The General Board consist of the Executive
  Council and the principle officers of each
  affiliated union.

25
The AFL-CIO

• The major functions of the federation include
• Legislation, civil rights, political education,
  international affairs, social security, economic
  policy, community services, housing, research,
  public relations, safety and occupational health,
  and organization and field services.

26
The AFL-CIO

• The federation also has subdivisions called
  departments which coordinate groups of unions
  having related problems.
• Building Trades - Food Trades - Metal Trades
• Industrial Unions - Maritime Trades
• Transportation Trades - Professional Employees
• Public Employees - Union Label

27
The AFL-CIO

• Three areas in which the Federation has sought
  increased influence are
• Jurisdictional Disputes - Civil Rights
• Corruption and Communism

28
The AFL-CIO

• The sole disciplinary power of the Federation is
  limited to suspension or expulsion.
• A fair number of local unions have never
  affiliated with either a national union or a
  federation. These unions are usually confined to
  a single establishment, employer, or locality.

29
Democracy In Unions

• Democracy in its ideal state involves the active
  participation of all its members.
• Unions,not unlike other democratic institutions,
  tend to operate with a high degree of
  indifference and complacency among its members.

30
Democracy In Unions

• Employees are essentially concerned with the
  state of affairs of their work environment.
• Rules - Regulations - Working Conditions
• Compensation
• If the union and management create a good plant
  environment the members tend to care little about
  how the union is run.

31
Democracy In Unions

• Businessmen tend to be critical of unions who
  lack democratic practices
• While on the other hand
• These same businessmen tend to complain that
  unions with strong democratic orientations are
  obstacles to effective labor management relations.

32
Democracy In Unions

• Effective union leaders are relatively scarce.
• This is one reason the union leader is normally
  returned election after election. (most
  especially at the national level)
• Turnover at the local level is often quite high.

33
The Employer Organizational Structure

• Although there is wide disagreement as to whether
  any particular employer needs such a thing as a
  union, no one - not even the union - seriously
  questions the need for management.

34
The Employer Organizational Structure

• The Private Profit Economy
• Over time, the management of a firm must ensure
  that its income equals or exceeds it
  expenditures.
• and

35
The Private Profit Economy

• In the United States both sides in a collective
  bargaining operate under a limited contractual
  relationship.

36
The Private Profit Economy

• The employer usually does not assume
  responsibility for the economic welfare of the
  employee or the employees family beyond payment
  of the contracted wage and related fringe
  benefits for as long as the employee continues to
  perform satisfactorily and is needed by the
  employer.

37
The Private Profit Economy

• On the other hand, the employee has no
  responsibility for the economic welfare of the
  employer beyond the satisfactory performance of
  specified tasks.

38
The Private Profit Economy

• Overall, neither the laws nor the customs of our
  country obligate an employer to retain unneeded
  employees.

39
The Labor Component

• An employer has a particular labor structure,
  which is defined by the numbers and ratios of
  different types of employees.
• Labor and Capital intense industries
• Simple and Complex job structures
• Simple and Complex pay systems

40
The Labor Component

• The employer with only a few types of labor has a
  simple wage structure, making it easy to compare
  wages with competing employers.

41
The Labor Component

• The large firm with a variety of workers may find
  it more important to maintain proper
  differentials among the jobs within its own
  organization than pay the same as other
  employers.

42
The Labor Component

• Both strategically and practically, employers in
  mass production industries generally find it
  preferable to deal with a single union(of the
  industrial type) for all employees rather than
  with a separate union for each group.

43
The Labor Component

• Beyond the single employer and the conventional
  work environment there is a substantial mix of
  complex circumstances and varied conditions of
  employment that demand unconventional bargaining
  solutions.

44
The Labor Component

• Despite objections to some specific actions of
  the union, an employer in a highly competitive
  labor-intense industry will often recognize that
  a strong union covering all of his competitors
  may benefit him as well as his employees.

45
The Labor Component

• Where industries consist of many comparatively
  small employers, it is common for them to form an
  employer association and engage in multi-employer
  bargaining.

46
Some Internal Aspect of the Firm

• The firm is a complex arrangement of people,
  machines, materials, and money.
• and
• Management, at least in the larger firms, has
  access to a large body of expertise about the
  effective use of its human resource assets.

47
Some Internal Aspect of the Firm

• The problem is that while management seeks expand
  it freedom to act with respect to human resource
  utilization..
• The union does not always agree and intervenes by
  exercising its right to question managements
  motives.

48
Some Internal Aspect of the Firm

• Some researchers view managerial structure with
  respect to industrial relations as having three
  tiers
• Strategic - Functional - Shop Floor

49
Some Internal Aspect of the Firm

• Strategic Level
• Where most fundamental business decision are
  made, such as what business to be in, where
  organizational expansion and contraction should
  take place, and what corporate values are.

50
Some Internal Aspect of the Firm

• Functional Level
• Where collective bargaining takes place.

51
Some Internal Aspect of the Firm

• Shop Floor Level
• Where the day-to-day interaction between the
  workers and their supervisors actually take
  place. Much of the implementation of the
  agreement takes place at this level.

52
Some Internal Aspect of the Firm

• The attitude of each of these three levels of
  management toward unions need not be and indeed
  frequently is not the same.

53
Management Attitudes Toward Unions

• The Small Individual Enterprise
• To many such employers the idea that the
  employees should form a union to bargain, or even
  strike, and ask to participate in the making of
  decisions about which he or she knows so much
  more that they can ever know is utterly
  shattering.

54
Management Attitudes Toward Unions

• The Large Corporation
• The outlook and philosophy in its relations to
  unions is different.
• Since the corporate officers are themselves
  employees, they have an important psychological
  bond with the rank and file.

55
Management Attitudes Toward Unions

• The Large Corporation
• They see the union as just one more pressure to
  which they must adapt and in the process create a
  new entity to deal with it creating in its
  wake an internal force with a vested interest in
  the continuance of the union.

56
Management Attitudes Toward Unions

• The Intermediate Types
• Some managements view unions as a challenge and
  an interference.
• Others see unionization as a reasonable
  expression of workers desire for representation
  and take the union in stride.

57
Complex Organizational Structures

• Conglomerates, Mergers, Multinationals , and the
  current passion for Restructuring has presented a
  new set of problems to the collective bargaining
  process.