Strategies that Unions Use During a Contract Negotiation
Labor relations are changeable interactions between the unions and the employers that define their specific and common interests. At the same time, in the process of this interaction, both sides elaborate mechanisms that are targeted to clarify, mitigate, manage and resolve conflicts that may occur due to inconsistencies in specific interests that affect this or that side (Fossum, 2015). At the same time, labor relations and the way they should be conducted are regulated by the federal and state laws that identify the responsibilities and rights of the employers and the unions.
These regulations prevent the occurrence of violations and protect the rights of both parties, so that their relations would result in mutually beneficial outcomes. In this view, in order to make labor relations legal
and protected, the basic form of their practice is a negotiated contract.
Unions Strategies
As a matter of fact, the unions serve as political and economic organizations “that control the supply of labor to the employers in order to improve the economic returns for their members” (Fossum, 2015. p. 4). In this view, when unions come up to the contract negotiations, they use various strategies. First of all, before the negotiations are expected to occur both the employers and unions spent a great deal of time preparing
for the upcoming negotiations (Ajalat, 2004). The parties consider both financial and non-financial issues that may be negotiated during the bargaining process and count the costs that various outcomes may turn into.
Union officers take necessary steps to learn as much as possible about the target company, its representatives, and internal and external pressures that may be used during the contract negotiations.
The strategies that unions use during the contract negotiations may target various aspects of the labor relationships. These strategies are based on the specific approach that a union officer takes during the
negotiations. The all or nothing approach may be used by the unions, which requires that all of the points of interest should be met to move forward through the negotiating process. The unions may be quite reluctant to move forward in negotiations when employees do not build good relations with the union leaders, which results in constraints and long costly strikes (Ajalat, 2004). In this view, the unions may employ strikes and all or
nothing approach to force employers to fulfill their interests.
Another strategy that the unions may use is to break the negotiation process into several parts. This approach suggests that every topic of interest should be discussed separately, which will lead to specific decisions for this topic of interest. When the opposing side is reluctant to move forward, the unions may use this strategy to facilitate progress in negotiations. The unions may use this strategy to motivate management to make decisions on every single aspect. One of the cases (Bernstein, 2003) indicates that every section may be negotiated, but only when the …
