There is no use denying the fact that the issue of labor relations could be taken as one of the most important for the functioning of our coherent society. The thing is that all relations that exist within the society are based on money and labor. That is why, it is extremely vital to create remedies that could regulate this sort of bond.
Collective bargaining is one of these remedies. Nowadays, it is taken as a certain type of negotiations between the group of employees, which is given the right to represent the rest of workers, and a group of employers, which also has certain authorities, in order to determine the main conditions under which people will work. It could be taken as a very powerful remedy that helps workers to struggle for their rights and control the functioning of a company.
It should also be said that there are four components of collective bargaining, which are compensation wages, personnel policies and procedures, workers and employers rights and arbitration (Ales 95). It is obvious, that all these components are very important for the functioning of any company, however, it is possible to assume that the aspects that regulate rights of the staff and arbitration could be taken as vital. The thing is that these aspects guarantee a certain level of independence and security for workers and officials at the same time. Schelzig, it his article devoted to the protest of the workers of Volkswagen group, underlines the fact that due to the main concepts of collective bargaining and the issue of arbitration, the staff managed to protect its rights and guarantee certain advantages (para. 2). With this in mind, it is possible to assume that the issue of collective bargaining has a great impact on the sphere of relations between employees and employers.
It is obvious that to be powerful and have a great impact on employees and their relations with workers, collective bargaining should be supported by certain laws. That is why, the government managed to create the acts which describe labor relations and collective bargaining. With this in mind, the following three documents could be mentioned: The Labor Management Relations Act of 1947, National Labor Relations Act (NLRA)of 1935 and the Labor Management Reporting and Disclosure Act of 1959 (Townsend and Wilkinson 112). These documents could be taken as the very important remedies that control the functioning of the sphere of labor relations and guarantee protection both of the rights of employers and employees.
However, it should be said that some employers still try to follow some unfair practices in order to increase the level of incomes at the same time infringing the rights of workers. There are several unfair practices that are used by employers more often. First of all, they can dominate the labor union. Another variant is the initial refusal to find a compromise with the help of collective bargaining. Finally, they might punish an employer because of this active participation in the Labor Board or the workers turning to the law (McCammon 141).
McCammon, in her article, discusses these last two cases of unfair relations, underlining the fact that nowadays the practice of strikes becomes less popular, while more and more workers prefer to go to the court (143). However, this very issue is given little attention by sociology and various institutions and very often employers manage to use their unfair practices in order to achieve some benefits and make employees work under poor conditions.
Thus, taking into account great importance of the issue of collective bargaining and its impact on the sphere of labor relations, it is possible to say that creation of a bargaining unit is a very important process which helps demands great level of responsibility, A bargaining unit is a group of workers performing the same kind of activity that helps another workers to struggle for their rights and that acts on behalf of the rest of employers (Townsend and Wilkinson 110). That is why, the process of creation of this very unit should be organized in accordance with certain laws. First of all, the workers of a company should have an organized union that is connected with their industry. According to Townsend and Wilkinson, this fact is very important for the whole process as only formed and legal union can suggest the creation of a bargaining group (115). Thus, only in terms of existence of a union, creation of a unit could be analyzed by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). First of all, NLRB should take into account several criteria, such as working conditions, wages, training protocols and the number of hours in the week and worker groups history (Townsend and Wilkinson 111). However, after the NLRBs examination the group still does not have the official status. The chosen group must register with the Federal Labor Relations Authority which is the department of the NLRB. This organization should take into account all factors and determine whether to give the certificate to a group or not. Townsend and Wilkinson state that all these conditions are needed to provide official status for a bargaining unit and, as a result, give it more authority (117).
With this in mind, it is possible to state the fact that collective bargaining deals with the various spheres of activity of a company and helps all participants to obtain the needed solution. Resting on these facts, one could say that the process of administering a collective bargaining agreement (CBA) becomes very important for the functioning of the whole company or organization. First of all, according to Ales, CBA is the negotiated contract between an employer and a certain union. This contract deals with the wages, vacations and a great number of other conditions important for the functioning of workers (97). That is why, being a very important process that creates the basis for the functioning of a certain company, it should be controlled and well organized. Ales also outlines several stages of the process of administering of CBA. The thing is that usually, this process contains the grievance procedure. That is why, it is very important to be able to find the competent supervisor who that will be able to control the process. Moreover, depending on the flow of the process and claims, some outside organization might be chosen as the arbitrator (“A Practical Guide to Grievance Arbitration” 4). This arbitrator could be given a great level of authority in order to be able to find a good solution to the existing problem. Additionally, in the article Ales states that this role or the arbitrator is very important as it has a great impact on the whole process and determines the way in which solution could be found (99).
Works Cited
A Practical Guide to Grievance Arbitration. n.d. Web.
Ales, Edorado. “Transnational collective bargaining: Another (problematic) fragment of the European multi-level industrial relations system” European Journal of Industrial Relations. 18. 2(2012): 95-105. Web.
Schelzig, Erik. “UAW Taking ‘Micro’ Approach to Unionizing Volkswagen Plant”. abcNews. 2015. Web.
Townsend, Keith and Adrian Wilkinson. ” Is Enterprise Bargaining Still a Better Way of Working?”. Industrial Relations & Labor, 2013. 55.1(2013): 100-117. Web.