Deck 7: Bargaining

Question 1

Creating a strike contingency plan is an important part of preparing for collective bargaining.

Answer 1

True

Question 2

Since the 1970's, the bargaining structure in the U.S. has become more centralized.

Answer 2

False

Question 3

To determine its priorities in negotiations, a labor union will usually conduct a survey of its members to identify common goals and concerns.

Answer 3

True

Question 4

Sixty days before the existing contract expires, the parties to a collective bargaining agreement must provide notification to the National Labor Relations Board that they intend to negotiate a new contract.

Question 5

The process of collective bargaining in U.S. labor relations has the goal of producing a legally binding, written contract that specifies wages and many other terms of employment.

Question 6

Unionization in the public sector must be treated differently than unionization in the private sector because public sector goods and services are often essential to public safety and health and are not traded in a competitive market.

Question 7

In the U.S., the typical duration of a collective bargaining agreement is 1 year.

Question 8

The fact that public sector goods and services are not bought and sold in a competitive labor market makes unionization ineffective.

Question 9

In the public sector, labor is often argued to be too powerful because as the sole provider of essential services it can exercise greater control over the market.

Question 10

Union bargaining committees are usually appointed by the national labor federation.

Question 11

When exchanging proposals for a new contract, labor always present its demands first.

Question 12

Because the bargaining process is often visible to outside parties (negotiators' constituents), some of what occurs at the bargaining table is more for show than necessary, or even healthy, for the parties to reach an agreement.

Question 13

Decentralized bargaining allows a union to be more responsive to the local needs of its constituents.

Question 14

When unions typically represent a limited group of employees in a single workplace, bargaining is said to be decentralized.

Question 15

Once negotiations begin, the parties will only meet together as a group. No individual side discussions between negotiators are allowed to occur.

Question 16

In the U.S., collective bargaining agreements are legally binding contracts.

Question 17

The research evidence supports the criticism that public sector unions have virtually unlimited bargaining power.

Question 18

Going out on strike is the most important way for unions to make it costly for an employer to disagree with him.

Question 19

Unions generally prefer more decentralized bargaining structures because this allows them to exercise greater power over the employer.

Question 20

Decentralized bargaining may make unions more responsive but it also can decrease labor's strike leverage.

Question 21

Direct dealing occurs when an employer tries to do an "end around" the union by talking to the employees and getting their input on issues related to negotiations without going through the union first.

Question 22

The only time an employer is required to show the union financial information is if it claims that it is unable to afford one of the union's bargaining proposals.

Question 23

During recent negotiations between Bosben Textiles and its employees, the employer asserts that he will not give a 3% pay increase because it would put him at a competitive disadvantage. When the union requests to see financial data backing this, Bosben must comply.

Question 24

While management must negotiate the effects on workers of a decision to close a plant, the decision to close the plant itself is not a mandatory bargaining issue.

Question 25

One of the roles of the NLRB is to determine whether a particular issue is mandatory or permissive for bargaining when the parties disagree as to whether they must negotiate it.

Question 26

The process of estimating the costs of proposals in negotiations is called contract costing.

Question 27

When it comes to mandatory bargaining issues, the employer can only make unilateral changes once it has fulfilled its duty to bargain with the union in good faith.

Question 28

If a union proposes changes to a permissive bargaining issue, the employer must show a good faith effort to consider the proposal.

Question 29

A union and employer can agree to terms that directly contradict existing legal requirements as long as they are both willing parties to the agreement.

Question 30

Employers are legally allowed to survey their employees about their opinions on collective bargaining issues during the negotiation period.

Question 31

One of the main goals of U.S. labor relations law is to give workers the freedom to negotiate individual contracts with their employers.

Question 32

As long as the employer has bargained in good faith, once an impasse in negotiations has been reached it is within its legal rights to make unilateral changes by implementing whatever terms it wants.

Question 33

Mainstream industrial relations views the employment relationship as one where the parties have a mixture of conflicting interests as well as common goals.

Question 34

The outcome of collective bargaining is a unilateral change in wages, hours and working conditions.

Question 35

Employers and unions can bargain over permissive items if they choose, but since they are outside the boundaries of the NLRA, the NLRB cannot order bargaining on these issues.

Question 36

Mandatory bargaining items include wages, hours and the terms and conditions of employment.

Question 37

Upon request, an employer has an obligation to provide information such as job evaluation data, health and safety statistics, and wage information to the union if it is necessary for representing the workers effectively.

Question 38

A zero-sum or constant-sum game is one in which the parties view conflict as a fixed pie - where one party wins, the other must lose.

Question 39

Distributive bargaining considers negotiations as zero-sum or constant-sum bargaining.

Question 40

Thibeaux Printing is in negotiations with its 59 press operators. Though Thibeaux is meeting regularly with the union, it eventually becomes clear that they have no interest in moving on their offer and are simply doing the bare minimum to appear as if serious bargaining is going on. This is an example of illegal bad faith bargaining.

Question 41

Parties are motivated to bargain when they believe that the BATNA or MLATNA will be better than any negotiated settlement might be.

Question 42

Attitudinal structuring produces a social contract between the parties while integrative and distributive bargaining produce a written contract.

Question 43

Pressure tactics in negotiations are designed to encourage the other party to make concessions and speed up the negotiating process.

Question 44

One of the challenges in adopting a distributive bargaining strategy is that there are strong social norms in place for the parties to act in an integrative way.

Question 45

When employees determine that they would prefer to walk away and find another job rather than accept a given set of terms from the employer, they have identified their BATNA (or MLATNA).

Question 46

The BATNA or MLATNA can be thought of as a party's resistance point or the point at which they would prefer to walk away from negotiations rather than take the terms the other party is offering.

Question 47

The tendency to assume that negotiations involve only conflicts of interest, it can be characterized as a mythical fixed-pie bias.

Question 48

The need for intraorganizational bargaining results from the presence of diverse interests within the constituency of a negotiator.

Question 49

Attitudinal structuring refers only to the intentional, planned actions by parties to manage their relationship.

Question 50

Using the Affinity Method of Collaborative Economic Bargaining, parties identify bargaining issues, determine a costing methodology, and brainstorm options and solutions before making any proposals.

Question 51

Modified integrative bargaining is a strategy in which the parties begin with integrative bargaining and then turn to distributive bargaining for any issues where they were not able to find common ground.

Question 52

Because collective bargaining is a mixed motive conflict, it is recommended that the parties engage first in distributive bargaining to see what they can win and then followed this by integrative bargaining for those issues that they are not likely to win.

Question 53

Integrative bargaining is sometimes referred to as a win-lose bargaining strategy.

Question 54

Unions are under no legal obligation to provide an employer with information that is relevant to negotiations.

Question 55

The parties' attempts to manage their relationship in negotiations by focusing on building trust and respect for one another is characteristic of attitudinal structuring.

Question 56

A social contract is an unwritten contract between parties that describes their mutual expectations for the attitudes and behaviors of each other.

Question 57

The tendency to assume collective bargaining is a zero-sum or constant-sum game is deeply engrained in U.S. labor relations.

Question 58

The philosophy of integrative bargaining is that both parties will be better off if they can capitalize on their common interests in reaching an agreement, rather than focusing on their differences.

Question 59

Intraorganizational bargaining is generally not seen in unions because the members and union officials are very good at hiding their different agendas.

Question 60

Hardball negotiation tactics run the risk of doing more harm than good and may be considered unethical.

Question 61

Fractional bargaining is a term used to describe the bargaining that occurs on a daily basis between management and employees over conflicts that arise in the workplace.

Question 62

Management negotiators are not usually given the authority to agree to a contract settlement in negotiations.

Question 63

Relative bargaining power is closely related to:

A) The parties' resistance points.
B) Management's strike leverage.
C) The union's strike leverage.
D) The parties' willingness to compromise.

Question 64

It can be difficult to change the culture of negotiations from distributive to integrative bargaining because of the strong traditions of adversarial bargaining that exists in the U.S.

Question 65

When determining the right bargaining structure for a given set of negotiations, labor and management negotiators face a tradeoff between:

A) Equity and efficiency
B) Responsiveness and employee voice
C) Power and political influence
D) Power and responsiveness to local needs

Question 66

Collective bargaining agreements made between labor's negotiators and the employer's negotiators are tentative and subject to rank and file approval.

Question 67

Since the 1980s the use of pattern bargaining has:

A) Increased.
B) Decreased.
C) Remained stable.
D) Become obsolete.

Question 68

When unions negotiate contracts with one company at a time, each modeling their settlements after prior contracts negotiated in the same industry or covering similar jobs, it is known as:

A) Contract modeling
B) Pattern bargaining
C) Concession bargaining
D) Hardball tactics

Question 69

The process of producing a legally binding, written contract that specifies wages, benefits, layoff policies, grievance procedures, etc. is called:

A) Authorization campaigning
B) Attitudinal structuring
C) Direct dealing
D) Collective bargaining

Question 70

Which of the following is not a consequence of bargaining centralization?

A) An increase in the number of issues brought to the bargaining table
B) Separation between the negotiators and their constituents (the people they represent)
C) Improved ability to tailor contracts to local conditions
D) Decreased level of whipsawing

Question 71

Which of the following is not a part of the time line of the bargaining (negotiation) process?

A) Exchange proposals
B) Rights arbitration in case of impasse
C) Conduct benchmarking
D) Assign a bargaining team

Question 72

One key difference in collective bargaining occurring in the public sector as compared to the private sector is that the management structure of public sector agencies are more hierarchical than in the private sector.

Question 73

Public sector bargaining laws are uniformly determined at the federal level .

Question 74

Which of the following is not a critical piece of information for the bargaining or negotiation process?

A) The BATNA or MLATNA
B) Benchmarking information
C) Knowledge of the opponent's interests
Rules of evidentiary procedure
D)Rules of evidentiary procedure

Question 75

Bargaining power can best be described as:

A) The ability to secure another's agreement on your own terms.
B) The ability of an arbitrator to dictate the final terms of a bargaining contract.
C) The NLRB's ability to require parties to bargain in good faith.
D) The ability of employees to decertify a union if they are dissatisfied with its performance.

Question 76

Concession bargaining, while common in the 1980's, rarely occurs today.

Question 77

The sequential bargaining process used in pattern bargaining is an attempt to:

A) Decentralize bargaining.
B) Undermine bargaining.
C) Centralize bargaining.
D) Redefine bargaining units.

Question 78

The main reason for the trend toward decentralization of bargaining in the U.S. is:

A) Employers have been able to use their superior bargaining leverage to force decentralization.
B) Unions' preferences for more control and rigidity in the bargaining process.
C) Employee desires for less demanding work.
D) Employee desires for less responsibility associated with employee involvement.

Question 79

Training programs have proven to be ineffective in changing the bargaining behavior of management and unions.

Question 80

When it comes to collective bargaining laws, states vary widely in the degree of protection they provide to workers.