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Labor Relations Paper

Decent Essays

A union is an organization of workers who join together in order to have a voice in improving their jobs and the quality of work within the organization. In many occasions, unions help employees of an organization negotiate pay, benefits, flexible hours and other work conditions that may arise. Unions have a role because some degree of conflict is inevitable between workers and management (Noe, 2003). In this paper, I will be discussing the impact of unions and labor relations within an organization. Labor Unions Labor unions represent workers interests and the collective bargaining process provides a way to manage the conflict (Noe, …show more content…

A union steward is actually an employee of the organization that is elected by the union members to represent them and investigate complaints and help them file grievances if an employee feels that his/her union contract was violated in any way. Union stewards will fight to avoid disciplinary action for the employee's behavior. Union officials and union stewards are voted in by the union members. One disadvantage of being part of a union is that the employee must pay to be represented by the union. Different unions have different pay rates. At Kaiser Permanente employees need to contribute 2% percent of his/her annual pay to the union. Union fees are usually withdrawn from the employee's paycheck on a bi-weekly basis. Labor Relations Labor relations purpose is to minimize costly employee and organization conflicts and try to always find a "win-win" solution to issues that arise. Labor relations strategies, negotiating contracts and administering contracts are the three levels of decision that are involved within labor relations. Kaiser Permanente is an organization that is successful in dealing with labor relations. In today's challenging

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