Employee Voice

Labor unions were established as a way for workers’ needs and grievances to be heard by management. According to Fossum (2012), “forming a union creates a collective voice to influence change at work” (p. 7). The collective voice of workers in a union holds much more power than any single employee’s voice. It can loudly draw attention to mistreatment or abuse of workers. The organized collective voice of workers demands to be treated in a fair way by its management in terms of wages, hours, benefits, and working conditions.

Employers within the private sector organizations in these provinces do not want First Contract Arbitration imposed on them, as this takes away their management rights and power. They have capitalistic mentalities and employees are a cog in the wheel of monetary gain. ()

This voice often refers to the ability to speak up and out about wages and working conditions without fear of reprisals. This voice is represented in the statement as follows:

I feel the labor relations system as currently constituted is effective for resolving disputes as long as both parties are committed to negotiating in good faith. Although, I feel the current system is effective a further explanation of the systems strengths and weaknesses will better explain the effectiveness of resolving disputes. It is in both the companies and the labor interest to negotiate with as little third party interaction to come up with an agreement. In times when there are disputes their different course of action that start from a least costly without giving up power in the decision to the possibility of becoming more costly to either party and give up the power in the decision. As discussed in the text when an organization and labor cannot come up with an agreement a third party may be asked to come in to negotiations to resolve a dispute which includes mediation, fact-finding, and interest arbitration.

The changes brought up labor unions in the United States over recent history has brought about a movement. This specific movement has shaped the way that employees and workers are treated in the workforce,and how they maintain their quality of life through this employment. Many people think that the labor unions’ influence has created a power struggle between management and union leaders. In many cases this can be considered true, as there have been countless feuds between management teams and labor unions, especially in recent history. In today’s times, on the one hand, some people believe the existence of unions are a necessity in order to ensure and promote employee freedom; while on the other hand some people view labor unions as just another problem in the line of employee success.

Furthermore, one of the most efficient recommendations is to improve human resource management strategies and management styles. The idea is to create a comfortable atmosphere in the working place fostering the desire to communicate openly and protecting the right to voice as one of the primary needs mentioned by the employees (Mayhew, n.d.). In addition, it is supposed that changing the format of the representative campaign to purely informative instead of the forced imposing of anti-union moods might have been a productive step because it might have enhanced trust to senior management due to providing relevant and accurate facts instead of trying to manipulate employees and create the environment and moods beneficial for the leaders of SGA Industries. All in all, the company might have found interest in studying the strategy deployed by the union because it has caught attention and gained support among employees. For example, switching to television and computerizing instead of distributing newsletters might hint at the modernization of the working environment in the future helping win

Efficiency, equity and voice are the three objectives of the employment relationship. The productive, profit-maximizing use of labor to promote economic prosperity is efficiency. Equity is fairness in the distribution of economic rewards, the administration of employment policies, and the provision of employee security. The ability of employees to have meaningful input into the workplace is known as voice. Employees’ value having the objectives met throughout employment within their organization. US labor unions and employers should have an understanding of each other’s processes and roles, as it is related to creating a winning employment relationship, with the gain contributing to a healthy sustainable growing economy. The advantage is increased

Employers initially resisted unions as they were seen as a ‘tool of worker power’, and some countries even banned the groups all together (Baoill 2011). Although these restraints have been lifted, restrictions and guidelines have been put in place by government bodies to govern union activity; and employees internationally have the right to form unions (Baoill 2011).

During 2011 employer associations in Australia conducted an active lobbying campaign to introduce legislative changes with respect to industrial relations. Predominantly they were seeking to diminish the power of collective bargaining and increase managerial control under the

Pros: provides employee voice without needing to go through the struggle of the NLRB representation election process; reduced scope for managerial opposition to the creation of a vehicle for employee voice; can make positive contributions to employee relations; can demonstrate the benefits of voice to workers and cause them to consider forming a union.

History shows that there has been conflict of power within the workforce between union and management. This essay will discuss if management should have the right to determine whether a union should operate within their workplace. It is necessary first to discuss the roles of unions and management in the workplace and discuss both points of view on the power distribution between unions and management in the workplace.

“Collective voice achieves what a lone voice could never do”. Collective representation is also the foundation of a partnership relationship between employers, employees and unions that bring positive benefits for the business (Prosser, 2001).

With globalization,many changes have been brought up in the workplaces that are leading towards more flexibility and enrollment of the employees (Tong Fay and Anil Verma,2002). “According to a survey -unionized workers across Canada earned$5- 28/hour more than non-union workers; Women with unions earned more too and got paid more fairly (Why unions? ,2015)”. Thus ,it gives us an idea what changes are being brought about by the unions in comparison to non-union when it comes to the wage sector. The union workplaces give a chance to the members to bargain for their benefits which includes not only social well being but also the say,the right to speak up about their own views therefore giving them the chance to talk about their problems. The union have been progressed to give a fair wage

Besides, power imbalance between employer and employee in the workplace seems to be unavoidable. As noted by Wilkinson et al. (2014), employees are citizens who have the right to be informed and consulted; therefore, the aim of employee voice is to communicate with management and express employees’ concerns about their work situation. Nevertheless, in recent years, decreasing union density has gradually shifted the form of voice in most organisations and countries from collective and unionized channels to direct and individualized mechanisms (Wilkinson et al., 2014).

David Brody argues that the rise of contractual or collective bargaining relationships during the post WWII era formalized the relationship between employers and unions. The use of collective bargaining agreements to resolve workplace disputes weakened unions and the power of workers. Other actions, such as using collection bargaining as a form of substitution for direct action and using it instead of the strike for grievance and arbitration procedure served , also has weakened the unions and the power of workers. The rise of contractual or collective bargaining relationships changed the dynamic of the workplace, shifting the power from the union side to towards the employers. The perspective could best be argued suing Weber’s theory and