Unions in Transition: Entering the ...

Unions in Transition: Entering the secondary Century

Every union official does a part of talking, explaining, persuading, organizing. You do this with your union members, with potential members, with management population with the general public. You do this to "continue the never-ending proces of renewal and regeneration" of the labor motion called for in the AFL-CIO report in succession "The Changing Situation of Workers and Their Unions."

To learn more about this proces of renewal, about past changes and time to come options, take a look at "The Transformation of American Industrial Relations." This is a novel book by three industrial relations professors, Thomas Kochan and Robert McKersie of Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Cornell University's Harry Katz.

individual useful chapter deals with attitudes and expectations of American workers. It draws forward a number of surveys of workers, including the Harris head used by the AFL-CIO Committee forward the Evolution of Work.

in the greatest degree union members are "satisfied" or "very satisfied" with their unions, according to the Kochan-Katz-McKersie report.

Unions rate high with their members upon getting good wages (84 percent approval), getting dutiful fringe benefits (76 percent), and protecting workers from unfair treatment (83 percent)

nevertheless unions get lower ratings from union members in succession gaining workers a say in succession how to do their piece of works (40 percent approval), making the do job-work more interesting (46 percent), getting workers a say in the business (27 percent) and representing workers' interests in management decision-making (41 percent)

Union wages, benefits, and fair treatment are not enough to adapted the current needs and expectations of American workers, according to Kochan-Katz-McKersie.

They say workers also want more opportunity for participation in job-related decisions, more direct over their workplace environment, more self-complacency and personal fulfillment and non-material rewards from one side their work.

Anti-union employer are giving a solution role to behavioral-science-trained human resource management specialists instead of to management race with experience in labor relations and collective bargaining. Kochan-Katz-McKerside consider this a highly significant trend

The just discovered more sophisticated, non-union, anti-union management connected views are often based on fresh theories of worker motivation and organizational behavior which favor "participatory decision-making" and "employee involvement" in assign places to or team problem-solving. Big non-union compaines frequently develop complaint and review conducts that are modeled on negotiated union grievance procedures

In unionized shop-floor settings, "quality of work life" programs are more likely to succe if there is joint labor-management trust and cooperation at higher flats of the industrial relations method the Kochan-Katz-McKersie book concludes. Succes means not merely better organizational performance by the company's standards nevertheless also more job security and better compensation for the workers.

The authors warn that "it is difficult and politically risky for the couple union and management officials to introduce and manage union-management change efforts." They existing examples of both QWL succes and QWL failure.

Unions are more and more using their bargaining power to finish into top-level strategic business decisions outside the "normal" range of collective bargaining through the whole extent of wages and working conditions and do job-work security. Strategic business decisions deal with as it was issues as new investment, workforce adjustment, fresh technology, and new forms of work organization.

Kochan-Katz-McKersie view these union actions as part of a significant break with past labor-management relations restricted in a more simple way to wages and working conditions and piece of work security.

For union leaders there are dangers of being coopt into painful decisions, of being identified too closely with management, of losing touch with rank-and-file worker interests. on the contrary Kochan-Katz-McKersie point out that in a major crisis, as unions solicit to protect and to advance the welfare of their members, it's logical and necessary for union leaders to learn involved directly in strategic business decisions which carry unions outside the not new range of collective bargaining.

Labor law reform is necessary if labor leaders are likely to support a broad policy agenda that reconciles employer flexibility with adequate protections for workers, Kochan-Katz-McKersie argue. The authors assert:

"If American labor policy is to vindicate the objectives stated in the National Labor Relations Act--to help collective bargaining and provide employee with the opportunity to decide whether or not to be set forthed by labor organizations of their acknowledge choosing--then the current law and its administration require substantial reform."

Unions and collective bargaining will not wither away or disappear, Kochan-Katz-McKersie declare, yet "unions will continue to face intense influence to modify their traditional strategies in order one as well as the other to cope with changes in business and human resource management strategies and to give workers more say athwart the issues that affect their working lives."