HRM textbook

524 PART 5 EMPLOYEE RELATIONS
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
1. Why do employees join unions? What are the advantages
and disadvantages of being a union member?
2. Discuss five sure ways to lose an NLRB election.
3. Describe important tactics you would expect the union
to use during the union drive and election.
4. Briefly illustrate how labor law has gone through a cycle
of repression and encouragement.
5. Explain in detail each step in a union drive and
election.
6. What is meant by good faith bargaining? Using examples,
explain when bargaining is not in good faith.
7. Define impasse, mediation, and strike, and explain the
techniques that are used to overcome an impasse.
INDIVIDUAL AND GROUP ACTIVITIES
1. You are the manager of a small manufacturing plant. The
union contract covering most of your employees is about
to expire. Working individually or in groups, discuss how
to prepare for union contract negotiations.
2. Working individually or in groups, use Internet resources
to find situations where company management and the
union reached an impasse at some point during their
negotiation process, but eventually resolved the impasse.
Describe the issues on both sides that led to the impasse.
How did they move past the impasse? What were the final
outcomes?
3. The HRCI Test Specifications Appendix (pages 633 640)
lists the knowledge someone studying for the HRCI certification
exam needs to have in each area of human resource
management (such as in Strategic Management, Workforce
Planning, and Human Resource Development).
In groups of four to five students, do four things: (1) review
that appendix now; (2) identify the material in this chapter
that relates to the required knowledge the appendix lists;
(3) write four multiple-choice exam questions on this
material that you believe would be suitable for inclusion in
the HRCI exam; and (4) if time permits, have someone
from your team post your teams questions in front of the
class, so the students in other teams can take each others
exam questions.
4. Several years ago, 8,000 Amtrak workers agreed not to
disrupt service by walking out, at least not until a court
hearing was held. Amtrak had asked the courts for a
temporary restraining order, and the Transport Workers
Union of America was actually pleased to postpone
its walkout. The workers were apparently not upset
at Amtrak, but at Congress, for failing to provide
enough funding for Amtrak. What, if anything, can an
employer do when employees threaten to go on strike,
not because of what the employer did, but what a third
party in this case, Congress has done or not done?
What laws would prevent the union from going on
strike in this case?
EXPERIENTIAL EXERCISE
The Union-Organizing Campaign at Pierce U.
Purpose: The purpose of this exercise is to give you practice
in dealing with some of the elements of a union-organizing
campaign. 91
Required Understanding: You should be familiar with the
material covered in this chapter, as well as the following
incident, An Organizing Question on Campus.
INCIDENT: An Organizing Question on Campus: Art Tipton
is human resource director of Pierce University, a private
university located in a large urban city. Ruth Zimmer, a
supervisor in the maintenance and housekeeping services
division of the university, has just come into Art s office
to discuss her situation. Zimmer s division is responsible for
maintaining and cleaning physical facilities of the university.
Zimmer is one of the department supervisors who supervise
employees who maintain and clean on-campus dormitories.
In the next several minutes, Zimmer proceeds to express
her concerns about a union-organizing campaign that has
begun among her employees. According to Zimmer, a representative
of the Service Workers Union has met with several of
her employees, urging them to sign union authorization
cards. She has observed several of her employees cornering
other employees to talk to them about joining the union and
to urge them to sign union authorization (or representation)
cards. Zimmer even observed this during working hours as
employees were going about their normal duties in the dormitories.
Zimmer reports that a number of her employees have
come to her asking for her opinions about the union. They
told her that several other supervisors in the department had
told their employees not to sign any union authorization
cards and not to talk about the union at any time while they
were on campus. Zimmer also reports that one of her fellow
supervisors told his employees that anyone who was caught
talking about the union or signing a union authorization card
would be disciplined and perhaps dismissed.
Zimmer says that her employees are very dissatisfied with
their wages and with the conditions that they have endured
from students, supervisors, and other staff people. She says that
several employees told her that they had signed union cards
because they believed that the only way university administration
would pay attention to their concerns was if the employees
had a union to represent them. Zimmer says that she made a
list of employees who she felt had joined or were interested in
the union, and she could share these with Tipton if he wanted
to deal with them personally. Zimmer closed her presentation
with the comment that she and other department supervisors
need to know what they should do in order to stomp out the
threat of unionization in their department.