Tripartite Relationship

More than seventy-five years after the enactment of the National Labor Relations Act, is there still a place for unions? The solution may lay in the definition of labor itself.

Despite much of efforts in an attempt to regain political power, labor continues to have a deep frustration and stagnation. Thus, the future political possibilities of the labor movement are in question, and the need for critical evaluation is important. Understanding how and why the workers were able to have a collective power in the postwar time, how they lost it, and how they could restore it is the topic of Rethinking Labor Politics in Canada.

The election of the Liberal Coalition Government saw the end of the Accords, centralised wage determination, and a lessening of the role of institutions (IRC, ACTU) in the wage determination processes. This new system lessened the power of unions by making it easier for workers to form enterprise unions. It deregulated the labour market by reducing the awards on working conditions to 20 allowable matters. This made non-union contracts more attractive. It introduced AWA’s for the first time.

Today, millions of American workers are denied their rights to consider forming a union since the process of voting on union formation has been corrupted. This has become an urgent crisis and a barrier to workers’ rights because they are frequently intimidated, harassed and even fired by their companies, which is blocking their freedoms and abilities to bargain for a better future. Therefore, the Organized Labour has made the Employee Free Choice Act, which helps workers remedy those problems from their employers. For further detail, a brief review of what the Employee Free Choice Act is and why it is important for workers’ rights follows.

Currently, unions are able to deny workers of the “right to represent themselves”, and force workers to pay fees for representation even if the worker does not want to. The National Right to Work Act is a bill that is attempting to change this by giving workers the right to figure out whether it is or not they wish to join the labor union and pay its fees (“National Right to Work Act”). It would be beneficial for those that do not wish to support the unions with their own money and have such a right to refuse to. When unions go on strike, they may be getting more benefits for their members, but they are also harming nonunion workers, because of the law of demands, when the wages for union workers goes up, the amount of employees will go down as the employers will not be willing to pay as many workers at that rate (Reynolds). Because of this, nonunion workers will be the first to go as they “are considered “at-will” employees and can be fired at any time for almost any reason” (“Union Plus”). Unions have actually also railroaded the “economic advance of blacks, women, and other minorities”. This is due to the fact that once they raise the wages, there is a limited amount of jobs available so the union can discriminate based off of “blood relationships or skin color” rather than giving the jobs to the most qualified applicants

The implementation of the Fair Work Act 2009 which came into force on January 1st 2010, was to create a national workplace relations system for the purpose of setting wages and conditions of employment. This legislation is overlooked by the Fair Work Commission and ombudsman, whose role is to maintain a safety net of minimum wages and conditions and ensure compliance with the Fair Work Act. The creation of the Fair Work Act (2009) is to regulate business cooperation’s for the purpose of providing safety nets for minimum wages and entitlements, flexible working arrangements and ensure fairness at the workplace. Under the Fair Work Act 2009, ten National Employment Standards

towards having working standards more suitable for the people’s matters. Therefore, the roles of labor

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).

State Department of Labor as a direct result of pressure from organized labor (MacLaury). Shortly after the creation of the Department of Labor, the Great Recession hit the nation. With the depression came an increased unemployment and lesser wages however significant legislation was also created during that time that impacted union membership. The most significant law was the Fair Labor Standards Act. Following shortly after this FLSA, the United States amended the Equal Pay Act and the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Occupations Health and Safety Act of 1970. Although these acts were supported by the power of unions, these acts in particular impact union membership which will be discussed later in the paper. It was at this time in the nation’s history that unions began to see a decline in membership. Unions today cast a wide umbrella of membership and consist of trade unions such as the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers and the Laborers International Union of North America to service unions such as the United Food and Commercial Workers. Although their membership has declined, unions that were once affiliated with a defined group skilled labor employees now can be found in almost any industry representing any group of employees.

Firstly, employment tribunals and the courts have interpreted the concept of ‘workers’ too narrowly, by limiting the common law interpretation of ‘workers’ under section 230(3) of the ERA 1996 and rights conferred on workers. Under section 230(3) ERA 1996, ‘worker’ is defined as “an individual who has entered into work: under a contract of employment, or any other contract express or implied… to do

Labour law in the Caribbean and Jamaica in particularly has traditionally been shaped by social, economic and political influences Goolsaran (2005). Over the past 100 years, its major challenge has been its response to social and political demands

The labor movement began during the industrial revolution and exists because of worker-employer relationships and working conditions, thus providing the landscape for labor power (Mahutga). Labor power can be broken down into associational power and structural bargaining power. Mahutga’s Lecture on Globalization and Labor builds on Beverly Sliver 's argument on the Forces of Labor and Tamara Kay 's argument on Labor Transnationalism and Global Governance about what Labor market power and Labor Transnationalism mean as regards labor on a global scale (Mahutga, Kay). Is it creating better standards for the working and living conditions of workers? Associational power results in collective workers ' ability to unionize and organize to present one opposing voice. Structural bargaining power results from the workers ' place in the economic system,

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

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

Marxism and Labour Theory - The Conflicts between Employee and Employer 1. Introduction 1.1 Overview on the essay topic To organisations, employees (labours) are wonderful resources, because they are compact and multi-purpose, capable of simple manual tasks or dealing with complicated machines, most importantly, they are the profit maker for their employers. However, there is always a problem between employees and employer. Any attempt to manager in a humane way, by consensus, is doomed to failure because of the irresolvable conflict between employees and their employers.