can some one help me with this exam .i will attach all the notes that you need to answer the questions.

“Strong responsible unions are essential to industrial fair play. Without them the labor bargain is wholly one-sided.”

Louis D. Brandeis

I. Teacher to Teacher Dialogue

Depending on where your school is located, student sentiment is usually decidedly pro-union or anti-union. It is unfortunate that so many are so greatly polarized on this issue, because students often have failed to understand the actual roles that unions have played in shaping employment and antitrust laws in our nation. Without the influence of unions, many of the laws that have been passed protecting worker health and safety, child labor laws, overtime laws, and even anti-racketeering laws that protect our citizens might never have come into existence. The history of unions in the United States is colorful and is overshadowed with violence; the rights that have been won come from not only the sweat of workers, but their blood. Unions are not perfect, but failure to give all workers basic dignity and rights is not myopic, it is self-defeating. A dysfunctional employer-employee relationship is simply bad news for all concerned. As an instructor, you should stress the roles that the union played in bringing about the passage of important social and economic laws, pointing out situations in which they still serve a very useful function today. Certainly, it is simpler and more effective to employ collective bargaining in many organizations today, rather than have management sit down and negotiate every employee’s contract on a person-by-person basis.

This chapter is designed to introduce the student to our nation’s sometimes-controversial history with regard to the development of public policies towards organized labor. Organized labor has suffered from a long and steady decline in membership, power, and influence over the past forty years. Much of this slide has been of its own doing, traceable to poor union management, a fat cat image, and sometimes-silly work rules that have no economic justification in the face of changed technology. In spite of all this bad news for unions, consider the working conditions that existed before them. It is a hallmark of advanced industrialized economies that the work force is highly organized and has a strong bargaining power over its affairs. The immediate post-Civil War era of industrialization saw the possibilities to abuse the work force not only become reality, but also a tragedy, when it came to workers’ safety. Most modern social legislation, ranging from the minimum wage, to child labor laws, to workplace and antidiscrimination statutes are traceable not to the largesse of employers but rather to hard-fought collective bargaining agreements. It is no accident that union representation is low in areas of the world still noted for the exploitation of their labor force. Corollaries of low wages are low levels of worker protection, environmental callousness, and an overall diminished standard of living.

The basic employer-employee relationship is a contractual one. As with any contract, both parties are expected to enter into the relationship with their own best interests at heart. The quaint notion of a paternalistic employer who cares for his workers over and above his own interests is simply unrealistic in today’s age of cutthroat economic competition. What is realistic is enlightened self-interest. Each side of the labor-management relationship still looks out for itself. But in looking out for number one, both must appreciate their mutual interdependence on each other. Labor must realize that it cannot sustain its own survival on the backs of failed companies brought down by union-imposed inefficiencies. Labor must adjust to “Real World 101” and make concessions to both the technological and economic realities of trying to compete in a global economy. Management, in turn, cannot forever continue to erode our economic consumer base at home by running overseas at every opportunity for lower wages and less restrictive hospitalities for doing business. Unions cannot hope to use the threat of strikes to force higher and higher wages on organizations that are trying to become more efficient and competitive in today’s global markets. In order to escape the economic inequities forced upon them by some union contracts, we have seen corporations resort to Chapter 13 bankruptcy reorganization, knowing that if the unions do not take voluntary pay cuts, the court will order them to accept new contracts at lower pay rates (an example would be United Air Lines). Management is also showing a willingness to use a lockout to cut losses during a strike, as employed by the NHL owners during the 2004-2005 season.

Our industrial base was built on a working partnership between management and labor. Like any marriage this partnership was not always easy to live with. But it did thrive on a mutual respect for the other’s role in the larger scheme of things. Unfortunately, over the last few decades, we have seen a willingness on the part of both sides to forgo the long-term societal benefits that can inure from good faith bargaining. The end result is that our economy is in danger of not only being nonunion, but also more noncompetitive, nonproductive, and non-growth than ever.

I like to give each student an index card with the name of one of the less famous early unions, their organizers, or one of the more violent incidents and ask that they write a short paper on the topic. I have discovered that their research on these topics helps them better understand the causes and effects of the U.S. labor movement.

II. Chapter Objectives

1. Describe how a union is organized.

2. Explain the consequences of an employer’s illegal interference with a union election.

3. Describe the process of collective bargaining.

4. Describe employees’ right to strike and picket.

5. Explain labor’s bill of rights.

III. Key Question Checklist

• What are the main labor law statutes in effect today?

• How is a union formed?

• Identify collective bargaining issues.

• If there is a dispute between labor and management, what actions may each side take?

• Identify internal union affairs issues.

1. Text Materials

Prior to the Industrial Revolution, employees and employers had somewhat equal bargaining power. Beginning in the 1930s, federal legislation was enacted that gave employees the right to form and join labor unions. Through collective bargaining with employers, labor unions obtained better working conditions, higher wages, and greater benefits for their members. Labor unions have the right to strike and to engage in picketing in support of their positions.

Today, about 10 percent of American workers in both the private and public sectors are represented by unions. One of the largest international unions is the AFL-CIO, formed from the 1955 merger of Samuel Gompers’s American Federation of Labor and John L. Lewis’s Congress of Industrial Organizations.

Prior to the Great Depression, labor laws were typically pro-management, but later swung towards the union before settling somewhere near middle, like a pendulum. For example, the Sherman Antitrust laws were used to break up fledgling unions in early years. A number of statutes have been enacted giving workers protection and the right to collectively bargain. These laws included the Norris-LaGuardia Act (1932), which made it legal for workers to organize, and the National Labor Relations Act of 1935, which established the right of workers to organize and bargain collectively. Power again swung when Congress enacted the Taft-Hartley Act (Labor-Management Relations Act) in 1947, which expanded the activities that unions could employ, while protecting employers’ rights to engage in free speech during union elections. Even more important, it gave the president the right to intercede and seek an injunction if a strike would threaten national security. In 1959, due to corruption and graft that seemed to overwhelm some unions, Congress enacted the Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act (Landrum-Griffin Act), known as the union “Bill of Rights.” This established the rights of union members and required significant reporting of union affairs to the federal government, requiring them to file a copy of their books each year.

National Labor Relations Board – This administrative body oversees union elections and prevents both unions and employers from engaging in unfair labor practices.

The NLRA gives employees the right to join together as an appropriate bargaining unit and form a union. Managers and professional employees may not join unions formed by the employees whom they supervise. Once a bargaining unit is defined, the union may petition the NLRB to hold an election.

Types of Union Elections – If 30 percent of the employees comprising a bargaining unit are interested in joining a union, the union can petition the NLRB to set an election date. An election contested by the employer must be supervised by the NLRB. A simple majority vote at the election will win the election. If management does not contest the union, a consent vote may be held without NLRB oversight. Finally, if employees no longer wish to be represented by the union, a decertification election will be supervised by the NLRB.

Union Solicitation on Company Property – Employers may restrict union activities on the organization’s property to employees’ free time and to nonworking areas, even barring off-duty employees and nonemployees. Violation of these rules is grounds for termination. The only exception to this is if the inaccessibility exception applies, where the location of the business and living space of the employees place them beyond the reach of reasonable union effort.

Case 32.1 Organizing a Labor Union: Lechmere, Inc. v. National Labor Relations Board

502 U.S. 527, 112 S.Ct. 841, 1992 U.S. Lexis 555, Supreme Court of the United States

Facts: The National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) guarantees employees “the right to self-organization, to form, join, or assist labor organizations,” and makes it an unfair labor practice for an employer “to interfere with, restrain, or coerce employees” in the exercise of their Sec.7 rights. Petitioner Lechmere, Inc., owns and operates a retail store located in a shopping plaza in a large metropolitan area. Lechmere is also part owner of the plaza’s parking lot, which is separated from a public highway by a 46-foot-wide grassy strip, almost all of which is public property. In a campaign to organize Lechmere employees, nonemployee union organizers placed handbills on the windshields of cars parked in the employees’ part of the parking lot. After Lechmere denied the organizers access to the lot, they distributed handbills and picketed from the grassy strip. In addition, they were able to contact directly some 20 percent of the employees. The union filed an unfair labor practice charge with respondent National Labor Relations Board (Board), alleging that Lechmere had violated the NLRA by barring the organizers from its property. An administrative law judge ruled in the union’s favor, recommending that Lechmere be ordered to cease and desist from barring the organizers from the parking lot. The Board affirmed, relying on its ruling in Jean Country, that in all access cases the Board should balance (1) the degree of impairment of the Sec.7 right if access is denied, against (2) the degree of impairment of the private property right if access is granted, taking into consideration (3) the availability of reasonably effective alternative means of exercising the Sec.7 right. The Court of Appeals enforced the Board’s order.

Issue: May a store owner prohibit nonemployee union organizers from distributing leaflets in a shopping mall parking lot owned by the store?

Decision: Lechmere did not commit an unfair labor practice.

Reason: By its plain terms, the NLRA confers rights only on employees, not on unions or their nonemployee organizers. Thus, as a rule, an employer cannot be compelled to allow nonemployee organizers onto his property.

At least as applied to nonemployee union organizers, Jean Country is inconsistent with past interpretation of Sec.7. Sec.7 simply does not protect nonemployee union organizers except in the rare case where “the inaccessibility of employees makes ineffective the reasonable attempts by nonemployees to communicate with them through the usual channels.” It is only when reasonable access to employees is not feasible that it becomes appropriate to balance Sec.7 and private property rights.

The facts in this case do not justify application of the inaccessibility exception. Because Lechmere’s employees do not reside on its property, they are presumptively not “beyond the reach” of the union’s message. Nor does the fact that they live in a large metropolitan area render them “inaccessible.” Because the union failed to establish the existence of any “unique obstacles” that frustrated access to Lechmere’s employees, the Board erred in concluding that Lechmere committed an unfair labor practice by barring the nonemployee organizers from its property.

Ethics Questions: Yes. The U.S. believes that ownership of property, both real and personal, is among the most important right that is granted us under the Constitution. It is ethical to deny access, provided that the employees are accessible elsewhere (It is not a mining camp or oil rig). It is unethical to demand this when meetings can be held elsewhere. It may be wrongly used to imply tacit approval from the company.

Illegal Interference with an Election – If an employer interferes with their employees’ rights to join a union, it is deemed to be an unfair labor practice. Similarly, unions are barred from engaging in unfair labor practices that would interfere with the election process.

Case 32.2 Unfair Labor Practice: NLRB v. Starbucks Corporation

679 F.3d 70, 2012 U.S. App. Lexis 9537 (2012), United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit

Facts: The IWW engaged in a campaign to organize four Starbucks in Manhattan. Certain employees started wearing large, pro-union buttons to work. Starbucks instituted a policy stating that buttons on uniforms should be a reasonable size and limited to one.

Issue: Is the button policy at Starbucks an unfair labor practice?

Decision: The policy is a fair practice by Starbucks management.

Ethics Questions: These answers are fairly self-evident.

Collective Bargaining

Collective bargaining occurs when employees elect a group to negotiate labor contracts on their behalf. Wages, hours, and employee benefits like health plans, retirement plans, and fringe benefits are compulsory subjects that must be included in the negotiations. Topics like closed shops and discrimination are illegal, and cannot be included. The size and composition of the supervisory force, location of plants, and corporate reorganization may be included as permissive subjects.

Union Security Agreements – The two types of security agreements are the closed shop, which requires an employee to join a union within a certain time period from their hire date, and an agency shop, where employees pay an agency fee to the union to cover the expenses of collective bargaining, but do not have to join the union.

Contemporary Environment: State Right-to-Work Laws

This statute represents a litmus test of a state’s loyalty to or opposition to unionization within its borders. These types of laws, along with tax breaks and loose incorporation requirements, have sometimes been called “the competition of laxity” by commentators. That is to say, there is a perception that the less a state does to control the activities of business entities within its borders, the more likely will business choose to move there. If a state enacts right-to-work laws, individual employees cannot be forced to join a union or to pay agency fees.

Critical Legal Thinking – Right to work laws limit closed shops and a requirement that a worker join a union in order to work in a particular facility. The consequences for an employer are that the employer is less likely to be unionized and can limit a monopolization of the work force by a union in a facility.

Strikes

The union may call a strike if a collective bargaining agreement cannot be reached.

Cooling-Off Period – Unions must give a 60-day notice of their intent to strike.

Illegal Strikes – Illegal strikes include violent strikes, sit-down strikes because the strikers continue to occupy the employer’s premises, partial or intermittent strikes because they interfere with an employer’s right to operate at full power, wildcat strikes because they are unauthorized by the union, strikes that occur during the 60-day cooling-off period after a strike vote has been made, and any strikes in violation of a no-strike clause.

No-Strike Clause – It is illegal to strike if the union contract includes a negotiated no-strike clause.

Crossover and Replacement Workers – Union members that choose not to strike or return to work after striking for a time are crossover workers. Replacement workers are those hired by management to replace striking workers. Permanent hire replacement workers cannot be dismissed if the strike is settled.

Employer Lockout – When an employer reasonably anticipates a strike, he may prevent those employees from entering the premises.

Picketing

Picketing in support of a strike is legal unless it is accompanied by violence, or if it obstructs customers, deliveries and pickups, or non-striking employees from entering or leaving the employer’s place of business.

Secondary Boycott Picketing – Secondary boycott picketing is legal only if the picketing is against the struck employer’s product, and not against a neutral employer.

Critical Legal Thinking Case: Labor Union Picketing

The AFL-CIO had a dispute with Massey Metals, Inc. and a temporary firm, which provided non-union workers to Massey during a strike. Massey provided construction materials to a hospital. The union held a mock funeral in front of the hospital to frighten prospective clients of the hospital. They attempted to intimidate people trying to enter the building by implying that the hospital offered less than acceptable care and that many died there. The court held that it was an expression of free speech. This seems like unethical behavior since the hospital was not the direct target for the union. This seems like an example of unlawful secondary boycotting.

Internal Union Affairs

The Landrum-Griffin Act gave each union member equal rights and voting power. It also granted members the right to sue or to initiate actions through government agencies.

Ethics: WARN Act Requires Employer’s to Notify Employees of Impending Plant Closures and Layoffs

In 1988, Congress passed the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act which covers employers of 100 or more employees, requires employers to notify workers or their union 60 days before a plant closing that would result in the loss of 50 or more employees within a 30-day period or if there will be a mass reduction of 33 percent of their workers, unless the closing or layoff is caused strictly by unforeseeable business circumstances. WARN is designed to give employees notice before intended closing, perhaps preventing some of the devastating effects of the same.

V. Key Terms and Concepts

• AFL-CIO—The 1955 combination of the AFL and the CIO.

• Agency shop—A workplace in which an employee does not have to join the union but must pay an agency fee to the union.

• American Federation of Labor—The American Federation of Labor (AFL) was formed in 1886, under the leadership of Samuel Gompers.

• Appropriate bargaining unit—The group that a union seeks to represent.

• Closed shop—Under a closed shop agreement, an employer agrees to hire only employees who are already members of a union.

• Collective bargaining—The act of negotiating contract terms between an employer and the members of a union.

• Collective bargaining agreement—The resulting contract from a collective bargaining procedure.

• Compulsory subject of collective bargaining—Wages, hours, and other terms and conditions of employment.

• Congress of Industrial Organizations—The CIO permitted semiskilled and unskilled workers to become members.

• Consent Cards—A union distributes cards to workers and must get 30% or more of the workforce to agree that it wants to have an election to determine whether to vote in a union.

• Consent election—If management does not contest an election, a consent election may be held without NLRB supervision.

• Contested election—An election for a union that an employer’s management contests.

• Cooling-off period—Requires a union to give an employer at least 60 days’ notice before a strike can commence.

• Crossover worker—A person who does not honor a strike who either (1) chooses not to strike or (2) returns to work after joining the strikers for a time.

• Decertification election—If employees no longer want to be represented by a union, a decertification election will be held.

• Dues checkoff—Upon proper notification by the union, union and agency shop employers are required to deduct union dues and agency fees from employees’ wages and forward these dues to the union. This is called dues checkoff.

• Employer lockout—Act of the employer to prevent employees from entering the work premises when the employer reasonably anticipates a strike.

• Illegal strike—The majority of strikes are lawful strikes. However, several types of strikes have been held to be illegal and are not protected by federal labor law.

• Illegal subjects of collective bargaining—Certain topics are illegal subjects of collective bargaining and therefore cannot be subjects of negotiation or agreement.

• Inaccessibility exception—A rule that permits employees and union officials to engage in union solicitation on company property if the employees are beyond reach of reasonable union efforts to communicate with them.

• Internal union rules—A union may adopt internal union rules to regulate the operation of the union, acquire and maintain union membership, and the like.

• Labor law—The major federal statutes that regulate the labor-management relationship, the rules and regulations adopted pursuant to these statutes, and court decisions interpreting and applying the statutes and rules and regulations are collectively referred to as labor law.

• Labor Management Relations Act—This act (1) expands the activities that labor unions can engage in, (2) gives employers the right to engage in free-speech efforts against unions prior to a union election, and (3) gives the President of the United States the right to seek an injunction (for up to eighty days) against a strike that would create a national emergency.

• Labor Management Reporting and Disclosure Act—This act regulates internal union affairs and establishes the rights of union members.

• Mass layoff—A mass layoff is a reduction of 33 percent of the employees or at least fifty employees during any thirty-day period.

• National Labor Relations Act—A federal statute enacted in 1935 that establishes the right of employees to form and join labor organizations.

• National Labor Relations Board (NLRB)—A federal administrative agency that oversees union elections, prevents employers and unions from engaging in illegal and unfair labor practices, and enforces and interprets certain federal labor laws.

• Norris-LaGuardia Act—Enacted in 1932, the Norris-LaGuardia Act stipulates that it is legal for employees to organize.

• No-strike clause—A clause in a collective bargaining agreement whereby a union agrees it will not strike during an agreed-upon period of time.

• Partial strike—In partial strikes, or intermittent strikes, employees strike part of the day or workweek and work the other part.

• Permissive subjects of collective bargaining—Subjects that are not compulsory or illegal are permissive subjects of collective bargaining.

• Picketing—The action of strikers walking in front of the employer’s premises carrying signs announcing their strike.

• Plant closing—A plant closing is a permanent or temporary shutdown of a single site that results in a loss of employment for fifty or more employees during any thirty-day period.

• Railway Labor Act—The Railway Labor Act of 1926, as amended in 1934, covers employees of railroad and airline carriers.

• Replacement worker—Workers who are hired to take the place of striking workers. They can be hired on either a temporary or permanent basis.

• Right-to-work laws—Right-to-work laws are often enacted by states to attract new businesses to a nonunion and low-wage environment.

• Secondary boycott picketing—A type of picketing where unions try to bring pressure against an employer by picketing his or her suppliers or customers.

• Section 7 of the NLRA—A law that gives employees the right to join together and form a union.

• Section 8 (a) of the NLRA—A law that makes it an unfair labor practice for an employer to interfere with, coerce, or restrain employees from exercising their statutory right to form and join unions.

• Section 8(b) of the NLRA—A law that prohibits unions from engaging in unfair labor practices that interfere with a union election.

• Sit-down strike—In sit-down strikes, striking employees continue to occupy the employer’s premises.

• Strike—A cessation of work by union members in order to obtain economic benefits or correct an unfair labor practice.

• Title 1 of the Landrum-Griffin Act—Referred to as labor’s “bill of rights” that gives each union member equal rights and privileges to nominate candidates for union office, vote in elections, and participate in membership meetings.

• Unfair labor practice—Section 8(a) of the NLRA makes it an unfair labor practice for an employer to interfere with, coerce, or restrain employees from exercising their statutory right to form and join unions.

• Union security agreement—To obtain the greatest power possible, elected unions sometimes try to install a union security agreement.

• Union shop—A workplace in which an employee must join the union within a certain number of days after being hired.

• Violent strike—In violent strikes, striking employees cause substantial damage to property of the employer or a third party.

• Wildcat strike—In wildcat strikes, individual union members go on strike without proper authorization from the union.

• Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act—A federal act that requires employers with one hundred or more employees to give their employees sixty days’ notice before engaging in certain plant closings or layoffs.