HRM textbook

516 PART 5 EMPLOYEE RELATIONS
OTHER WEAPONS Management and labor each have other weapons to break
an impasse and achieve their aims. The union, for example, may resort to a corporate
campaign. A corporate campaign is an organized effort by the union that exerts
pressure on the employer by pressuring the company s other unions, shareholders,
corporate directors, customers, creditors, and government agencies. 67 Thus, the
union might surprise individual members of the board of directors by picketing their
homes, and organizing a boycott of the company s banks. 68 The head of the United
Auto Workers recently said the union planned to begin a new campaign to organize
hourly factory workers at foreign-owned car plants in the United States. As part of its
campaign, the union began picketing the U.S. dealerships for Hyundai, Daimler,
Toyota, and Nissan. 69
Inside games are another union tactic. Inside games are union efforts to convince
employees to impede or to disrupt production for example, by slowing the work pace,
refusing to work overtime, filing mass charges with government agencies, refusing to do
work without receiving detailed instructions from supervisors, and engaging in other
disruptive activities such as sick-outs. 70 Inside games are basically strikes albeit
strikes in which the company continues to pay the employees. In one inside game
at Caterpillar s Aurora, Illinois, plant, United Auto Workers grievances rose from
22 to 336. The effect was to tie up workers and management in unproductive endeavors
on company time. 71
Improving Productivity through HRIS
Unions Go High-Tech
E-mail and the Internet means unions can send mass e-mail announcements
to collective-bargaining unit members and use e-mail to reach supporters and
government officials for their corporate campaigns. For example, the group trying
to organize Starbucks workers (the Starbucks Workers Union) set up their
own Web site (www. starbucksunion.org). It includes notes like Starbucks managers
monitored Internet chat rooms and eavesdropped on party conversations in a covert
campaign to identify employees agitating for union representation at the
coffee chain, internal emails reveal. 72
For their part, employers can try to break an impasse with lockouts. A lockout is
a refusal by the employer to provide opportunities to work. It (sometimes literally)
locks out employees and prohibits them from doing their jobs (and being paid). In
2011, the National Football League (NFL) locked out football players when the two
sides couldn t agree on a new contract. 73 The NLRB views lockouts as an unfair labor
practice only when the employer acts for a prohibited purpose. It is not a prohibited
purpose to try to bring about a settlement on terms favorable to the employer. Lockouts
are not widely used today; employers are usually reluctant to cease operations
when employees are willing to continue working.
Both employers and unions can seek a court injunction if they believe the other
side is taking actions that could cause irreparable harm to the other party. An
injunction is a court order compelling a party or parties either to resume or to desist
from a certain action. 74
The Contract Agreement
The actual contract agreement may be a 20- or 30-page document; it may be even
longer. It may contain just general declarations of policy, or detailed rules and
procedures. The tendency today is toward the longer, more detailed contract. This is
largely a result of the increased number of items the agreements have been covering.
The main sections of a typical contract cover subjects such as these: (1) management
rights; (2) union security and automatic payroll dues deduction; (3) grievance procedures;
(4) arbitration of grievances; (5) disciplinary procedures; (6) compensation rates;
(7) hours of work and overtime; (8) benefits: vacations, holidays, insurance, pensions;
(9) health and safety provisions; (10) employee security seniority provisions; and
(11) contract expiration date.