Organized Labor

1. Period 5 Organized Labor Andrea Gutierrez Brigitte Rabelo Luis Montejo

2. Key Terms • Strike: an organized work stoppage intended to force an employer to address union demands. • Right-to-work law: a measure that bans mandatory union membership. • Blue-Collar worker: someone who works in an industrial job, often in manufacturing, and who receives wages. • White-collar worker: someone in a professional or clerical job who usually earns a salary. • Collective bargaining: the process in which union and company representatives meet to negotiate a new labor contract. • Mediation: a settlement technique in which a neutral mediator meets with each side to try to find a solution that both sides will accept. • Arbitration: a settlement technique in which a third party reviews the case and imposes a decision that is legally binding for both sides.

3. Labor and Labor Unions • Wages are determined by the forces of supply and demand • Competition among firms keeps a workers wages close to his or her level of productivity. • Many economists, in fact, argue that it is a competitive labor market that helps prevent low pay and dangerous working conditions because workers will leave such firms to work elsewhere. • Today, only about one out of seven workers in the United States belongs to a labor union.

4. The Labor Movement Workers in the 1800s Continuation Men, women and children as young as 5 operated clattering machines so dangerous that many people lost their sight, their hearing, even fingers and limbs. Injured workers often lost their jobs Today, many firms emphasize that one of their major goals is to attract, hire, and retain the most highly skilled workers. • Labor unions arose largely in response to changes brought by the Industrial Revolution in the early and mid-1800s. • Manufacturing brought a new type of occupation to America: the factory job. • Laborer worked 12-16 hours a day (7 days a week) • Important: In 1869 the Knights of Labor were founded.

5. Goals of the Knights of Labor • Eight-hour workday. • Workers’ cooperatives. • Worker-owned factories. • Abolition of child and prison labor. • Increased circulation of greenbacks. • Equal pay for men and women. • Safety codes in the workplace. • Prohibition of contract foreign labor. • Abolition of the National Bank.

6. Employer Resistance Unions Take Hold Viewing strikers as threats to free enterprise and social order, companies identified and fired union organizers. They forced workers to sign so-called yellow-dog contracts, agreements in which workers promised not to join a union. (Yellow slang for coward) Companies also used injunctions to order striking employees back to work. Companies also went as far as to hired their own militias. • As early as the 1970s, whispers of workers discontent grew into organized protests. • Skilled workers such as shoemakers and carpenters began to for unions. • The tools of unions was the strike. • Initially, the courts regarded unions was illegal. • The man who truly started the United States labor movement was Samuel Gompers. • The young cigar maker in New York City rose within union ranks, focusing on three workplace reforms: higher wages, shorter hours, safer work environment. • In 1886, he founded the American Federation of Labor (AFL).

7. Congressional Protections The nation struggle through the effects of the Great Depression. The expansion of workers rights in the 1930s contributed to a new rise in the union strength. Membership peaked in the 1940s at about 35% of the nations non-farm work force. Unions became a dominant force in many industries. Unions amassed billion of dollars in union dues, due to the organization, making political donation, and providing aid to striking workers.

8. Decline of Labor Movement • Unions began to abuse their new power. Sometimes unions even negotiated to preserve job positions that were unnecessary. It was the “Right to work” to keep more union members employed. • Today, the most Right-to-Work states are in the South. Why? They have a lower level of unionism than other regions. • Loss of traditional strongholds • -The decline of unions, and Structural U.S. economy have reduced union membership. For example, • 1. Union is the strongest manufacturing sector • 2. Manufacturing companies employed large numbers of union workers. • 3. The rising proportion of women in the labor force, less likely for joining unions, less in Blue collar, more in White collar jobs. • 4. Seeking to reduce their production costs, Northeast to Midwest South, because of the decreased uni

9. Labor and Management Collective Bargaining If a union member is discharge for reasons that the union believes to be in violation of the contract, the union might file a grievance, or formal complaint. Handling grievances, usually involves hearing by a committee of union and company representatives. • Unions contracts generally last two to five years and can cover hundreds of issues. • Generally the union comes to the bargaining table with certain goals that set the agenda for collective bargaining talks. • Goals • Wages and Benefits • Working Condition • Job Security

10. Strikes and Settlements A long strike can be devastating to workers, since they do not get paid while they are not working. Some unions provide financial aid to their members during long strikes, payments are smaller then what they really get paid. To avoid the economic losses of a strike both to workers and management, a third party is sometimes called in to settle a dispute. A mediator often can help each side understand the others concerns, leading to an agreement. However, the decisions reached by the mediator is nonbinding The collective bargaining process usually goes smoothly,. With few strikes. In 2002, there were 19 major strikes, involving 46,000 workers. • When a contract is about to expire, or when the union is negotiating its first agreement with a company, the negotiators can wind up in tough late-night bargaining sessions. • A strike is the unions ultimate weapon. • A strike, particularly a lengthy one, can cripple a company. • Some can continue to function by using managers to perform key tasks, or by hiring nonunion “Strikebreakers.” • If a company can withstand a strike, it is in a good bargaining position.