HRM textbook

498 PART 5 EMPLOYEE RELATIONS
4. Preferential shop. Union members get preference in hiring, but the employer can
still hire nonunion members.
5. Maintenance of membership arrangement. Employees do not have to belong
to the union. However, union members employed by the firm must maintain
membership in the union for the contract period. These account for about 4%
of union agreements.
Not all states give unions the right to require union membership as a condition
of employment. Right to work is a term used to describe state statutory or constitutional
provisions banning the requirement of union membership as a condition
of employment. 19 Right-to-work laws don t outlaw unions. They do outlaw (within
those states) any form of union security. This understandably inhibits union formation
in those states. There are 23 right-to-work states. 20 Several years ago, Oklahoma
became the 22nd state to pass right-to-work legislation. Some believe that this
combined with a loss of manufacturing jobs explains why Oklahoma s union
membership dropped dramatically in the next 3 years. 21
IMPROVED WAGES, HOURS, AND BENEFITS Once the union ensures its
security at the employer, it fights to improve its members wages, hours, and working
conditions. The typical labor agreement also gives the union a role in other human
resource activities, including recruiting, selecting, compensating, promoting, training,
and discharging employees.
The AFL-CIO and the SEIU
The American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations
(AFL-CIO) is a voluntary federation of about 56 national and international labor
unions in the United States. The separate AFL and CIO merged in 1955. For many
people in the United States, the AFL-CIO is synonymous with the word union.
There are three layers in the structure of the AFL-CIO and most other U.S.
unions. The worker joins the local union, to which he or she pays dues. The local is in
turn a single chapter in the national union. For example, if you were a teacher in
Detroit, you would belong to the local union there, which is one of hundreds of local
chapters of the American Federation of Teachers, their national union (most unions
actually call themselves international unions). The third layer in the structure is the
national federation, in this case, the AFL-CIO.
The Service Employees International Union (SEIU) is a fast-growing federation
of more than 2.2 million members. It includes the largest healthcare union, with more
than 1.1 million members in the field, including nurses, LPNs, and doctors, and the
second largest public employees union, with more than 1 million local and state
government workers. 22
Union federation membership is in flux. Several years ago, the SEIU, the International
Brotherhood of Teamsters, and UNITE HERE left the AFL-CIO and established their
own federation, called the Change to Win Coalition. Together, the departing unions
represented over one-quarter of the AFL-CIO s membership and budget. Change to Win
plans to be more aggressive about organizing workers than they say the AFL-CIO was. 23
Then the UNITE HERE union left Change to Win and rejoined the AFL-CIO, possibly
slowing Change to Wins momentum.
Some people think of the federation (such as the AFL-CIO or SEIU) as the most
important part of the labor movement, but it is not. Thus the president of the teachers
union wields more power in that capacity than in his capacity as a vice president of the
AFL-CIO. Yet as a practical matter, the presidents of the AFL-CIO or SEIU do have
political influence in excess of a figurehead president.
UNIONS AND THE LAW
As noted, the history of the American labor movement has been one of alternate expansion
and contraction, in response to public policy changes. Until about 1930, there were
no special labor laws. Employers were not required to engage in collective bargaining