Rationale of Union Avoidance

Essay by blackleatherroseUniversity, Bachelor'sA-, November 2004

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This essay will explore in great depth some reasons for employer resistance of unions and the strategies they use for resisting unions. There are several tactics used by employers to prevent union success. Some of these include but are not limited to: "union fee" employment environment. The main goal is to prevent union success and organization within a company.

Union resistance and employer cooperation is greatest and most successful in areas that do not have skilled workers or where employers mostly controlled entry into a job position. In the past, organizations gave a huge amount of power to persons who held foreman/supervisor positions in regard to discipline and control or employee behavior issues. In some cases, in order for an employee to retain a job and possibly prevent the current job conditions from lessening, the employee had to please the supervisor or foreman. This is known as the "drive system".

It held power in most manufacturing industries for the better part of one third of the twentieth century.

During the 1940s through the 1970s employers and unions went through a time period in which unions were somewhat permanent in the work place. Most laws and regulations were in favor of collective bargaining as a means of dealing with work place disputes. Collective bargaining is defined as "The collective aspect of collective bargaining is the exclusive representation by the union of the collection of people in a bargaining unit. Bargaining represents the negotiation of labor agreements and their administration during the period in which they are in effect". In other words, the people (union) or their leaders discuss with the employer what is acceptable, what needs to be changed and what issues are currently of concern and the company decides which of these demands will be met and which will not...