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MGMT 329
LABOR RELATIONS
UNION ACTIONS AND
IMPACTS
UNION ACTIONS
Unions rely on three primary methods:
mutual insurance, collective bargaining,
legal enactment
 Mutual insurance

 Help
workers over periods of unemployment
 Top-ups for EI payments
Collective bargaining involves a number of
items
 Unions emphasize laws for everyone

UNION ACTIONS (continued)

Collective bargaining
 Addresses broad range of issues
 Continues to be adversarial
 Growing proportion more problemsolving or “win-win” or principled
 Principled bargaining entails significant
shift in attitude
UNION ACTIONS (continued)

Joint union-management ventures at
workplace
 Gainsharing
 Joint government arrangements
 Requires union members and officials to
learn new skills
 Can be controversial
UNION ACTIONS (continued)

Joint participation outside workplace
 Sectoral councils
 Labour-management-government
initiatives
 Work on a range of issues from training,
economic restructuring, trade policy to
employment assistance for changes in
industrial mix
UNION ACTIONS (continued)

Political action
 Ability to achieve objectives depends on
type of legislation and governing party
 Most Turkish unions committed to social
unionism
 Labour movement tends to favor leftwing parties but some tensions
beginning to arise
UNION ACTIONS (continued)

Publicity campaigns and member
communications
 Unions have to spend more time and
energy communicating
 Newsletters
to members
 Special bulletins
UNION ACTIONS (continued)

Publicity campaigns and member
communications (continued)
 Union publicity serves variety of
purposes
 Informs
general public on certain issue
 Builds coalitions with other stakeholders
 Establishes boycotts of certain goods or
services
 Use full range of media
UNION ACTIONS

Education
 Union-sponsored
courses focus on issues of
immediate concern
 Offer training in public speaking and leaderhip
 Courses on contemporary political and
economic issues of special relevance to
members
UNION IMPACTS

Broad range of impacts
 Members’
wages and working conditions
 Productivity
 Overall performance of firms
 Turkish economy
 Turkish society
UNION IMPACTS (continued)

Wage impacts
 Direct
wage impact is premium a worker
receives for union membership
 Unionized firms tend to attract more highly
qualified people
 Size of direct wage impact is declining
 Direct wage impact not the same for every
worker or in every industry
UNION IMPACTS (continued)

Wage impacts (continued)
 Fringe
benefits
 Portion
of total compensation
 Union establishments tend to pay greater portion
of of total compensation in fringe benefits
 Unionized firms tend to favour pensions and other
forms of deferred compensation
UNION IMPACTS (continued)

Wage impacts (continued)
 Indirect
 Are
union wage impacts
effects on non-unionized workers
 Difficult to determine but seem to be modest
 “Crowding” effect typically applies to lower-skilled
workers
 “Threat” effect applies in situations where nonunionized employers increase their employees’ pay
to forestall unionization
UNION IMPACTS (continued)

How unions achieve wage goals
 Collective
bargaining is major method
 Some unions seek to restrict entry into trade
or profession
 Some seek to change environment
UNION IMPACTS (continued)

Union impact on productivity
 Considerable
disagreement
 Neoclassicists argue that unions reduce
productivity
 Institutionalists argue that unions have
positive effects on productivity
 Labour-management relationship may be the
most important factor
UNION IMPACTS (continued)

Impacts on management of organization
 Impacts
are substantial
 Detailed collective agreements regulate many
aspects of workplace behaviour
 Unionization constitutes significant limitation
on management’s freedom
 Biggest impact comes through grievance
processes, work rules, and joint participation
with management on various committees
UNION IMPACTS (continued)

Impacts on society
 Within
workplace unions can have both
positive and negative effects
 Within social and political spheres, impacts
are almost entirely positive
 Publicly-funded
medical care
 Unemployment insurance
 Public pensions
UNION IMPACTS (continued)

Impacts on society (continued)
 Raised
profile of health and safety issues
 Participation in unions have help members in
personal development and understanding of
society
 Union activities have applied skills into other
areas such as school boards and hospital
boards
ARE UNIONS STILL NEEDED?
Free trade unions advance their members’
interests and usually those of the country’s
working people
 Without unions, Turkish employees would enjoy
less protection against arbitrary actions
 Trend toward less secure work and more parttime, temporary and contract work would likely
accelerate
 Working people would lose political
representation
