Unions_and_Labor_Laws

Labor Laws and Unions The legend of the Kroger Company started with Barney Kroger in 1883 when the first store opened at 66 Pearl Street in downtown Cincinnati, Ohio. Over the last 120+ years Kroger has built a brand of trust and quality among their many loyal customers. The success the company experiences today relates back to the early days when “Mr. Kroger, always pursuing quality as the key ingredient for profit, recognized that if he baked his bread, he could reduce the price for his customers and still make money. So he became the first grocer in the country to establish his own bakeries.” (The Kroger Company, 2013, History of Kroger, para. 3) This manufacturing genius blossomed into today as one of the largest food manufacturing business in America. Currently Kroger owns and operates 40 food processing facilities producing “corporate brands” resulting in 26% of the grocery dollar sales and strategic advantage over their competition. Throughout the years Kroger has employed thousands of good quality employees making it one of the largest companies in America. At the end of fiscal year 2010, Kroger had 338,000 employees split into two unions. The primary union, United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) and Teamsters. One benefit organizations gain from joining a union is legal issues within labor laws and wages. Kroger is known as a low priced grocery store. To keep expenses down they must hire people at low wages. Labor law litigation can be costly for organization and can expose them publicly if law suit arise, it is in the best interest for organizations, such as Kroger to have unions. Unions can help Kroger maintain fair labor laws, wages, and stabilize employee turnover. With the union in place, the union can negotiate fair wages for union employee so Kroger can mitigate possible litigation. Unions can stabilize employee turnover in an organization. Organizations that experience high turn over can benefit from unions. Within the right internal and external cultural unions can become the stabilizing force between the organization and employee. The unionization process at Kroger and other organizations begins when union organizers solicit employees of an organization and solicit authorization cards. The authorization cards allow the union to represent the signer in dealing with the particular organization on wages, benefits, hours, and work conditions. The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) requires a minimum of 30% of the employees fill out the authorization cards before an election is conducted. A card check occurs when 50% of the targeted organization employees sign authorization cards, union representatives ask management for the right for exclusive representation allowing to deflect management to influence election results. Once the NLRB receives confirmation for an election the “NLRB conducts a hearing to determine the appropriate bargaining unit, which are a group of employees eligible to vote in the election to unionize.” (Cascio, 2010, pg. 518, para. 2) The election campaign has restrictions when trying to solicit employees. Union representatives are not allowed to solicit on targeted organization premise, or solicit employees during work hours. On the other hand, employers of targeted organizations can use company hours and premise to hold meetings to discuss advantages in staying nonunion. Once the company representative and the union agree on a bargaining unit an election date is set, the NLRB conducts a secret-ballet election. If the majority of the ballots are in favor to unionize the union becomes an exclusive bargaining representative of all employees in the unit. After the representation election, no further elections are held for one year. Within the Kroger organization the bargaining negotiation between the elected union representative and the organization takes place to determine conditions of employment, which can be wages, working hours, benefits, holidays, health care, retirement benefits, and many more. In 1926 Congress established a collective bargaining right with the Railway Labor Act. The law was modified in 1935 with the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) making it illegal for employers to deny unions representing their employees the right to engage in collective bargaining. When conflict arises between the organization and the union, negotiations is the most effective way to resolve the conflict. It is in the best interest of both parties to bargain to come to an agreement. Within bargaining there are two positions parties involved could assume, distributive bargaining, that is a win-lose situation which the goals of both parties are irreconcilable. The main core within this dispute is the belief that both parties want to win and want more than half of what is negotiated. This type of posturing projects a stern tough image, over states demands and could withhold information. Another consideration within the distributive bargaining is that both parties must negotiate with one another at a later date. It is in both parties best interest to work together on behalf of the employees of the organization. “One aspect of labor-management negotiations that is different from many other types of bargaining interactions involves the on-going relationship between the parties. After collective discussions are completed, the parties must continue to deal with each other.” (Craver, 2013,Collective Bargaining Interactions, para. 4) The other type of bargaining is win-win or integrative bargaining which occurs when both parties achieve their objectives and goals are met. Integrative bargaining works when both parties first identify the problem and work together to resolves issues. One issue within collective bargaining is that often a situation arises when there is integrative and distributive bargaining at the same time. One side may be considering integrative when the other side maybe moving toward distributive. When this happens usually negotiations fall apart and nothing constructive is accomplished. The effects bargaining has on the organization determines to cultural of the organization. If there is integrative bargaining and both parties can agree on set goals the culture within the organization is pleasant and productivity is up, which in turn translated in happy employee and increase organizational profits. On the other hand, when there is distributive bargaining the cultural within the organization is affected and employees are unhappy. When negotiations fail because parties not willing to come to agreements, unions may strike, or management may perform a lockout. Historically unions have protected the rights of workers and have helped workers win equal pay and benefits, along with safe working conditions. Even with todays dwindling union member participants unions serve certain industry sectors. What started as a one-store operation in 1883 the Kroger organization and the UFCW has served both parties well allowing each side to prosper and flourish. References Cascio, W. (2010). Managing Human Resources. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill/Irwin. Craver, C (2013) Collective Bargaining Interactions. Retrieved May 1, 2013 from http://www.negotiations.com/articles/collective-bargaining The Kroger Company, Retrieved from http://the krogercompnay.com/about-kroger/history-of-kroger