Deck 15: Bargaining

Question 1

If government employees were to be given a limited right to strike, which occupations should be prohibited from striking, and under what conditions should the prohibition be enforced?

Answer 1

Strike means the employees stop attending the work or offering their services to their employer. Employees go for strike to fulfil their demands or when the negotiations with employer are unsuccessful.
Some states prohibit strikes and unauthorized strikes by the public sector are penalized or subjected to disciplinary actions:
The following are the employee groups, under the state labor laws which have limited right to strike:
• Teachers: Teachers are prohibited from strikes. The bargaining process includes fact finding and mediation. When the school districts are not interested in bargaining, the teachers can go for strike. The wage premiums and less worktime are different from state to state in the states which permit strike.
• Police: Collective bargaining and union recognition are permitted in most of the states. When there is disagreement or when there is no possible progress in bargaining, fact finding and mediation are used. Arbitration is also allowed in case of failure to agreement.
• Fire fighter: Firefighter are granted with bargaining rights and use arbitration, mediation and Fact finding in case of disagreement. Strikes are prohibited for fire fighters.
• State employees: The bargaining rights and formal procedures in case of disagreement of General state employees are less when compared to the occupational groups. Some states allow the employees when both the parties fail to reach agreement.
• Local employees: The bargaining rights and procedures to resolve the impasse are less for the local employees. However, the right to strike is more for tis employee group.
The strikes in the public sector should be permitted when they are related to legal and employment issues. Strikes are also used when the bargaining procedures fail.

Question 2

Since arbitrators are not responsible to the electorate, should they be allowed to make binding rulings on economic issues?

Answer 2

Arbitration:
Arbitration is a resolution method used when the negotiating parties fail to reach a decision. This process facilitates the parties to reach a common agreement with the help of third party. Some state permit arbitration when the bargaining is in impasse.
Following are some of the reasons for why the arbitrators are not allowed to make binding rulings on economic issues:
• The criteria used by the arbitrators may have some negative impact on the parties
• The negotiator qualifications may impact the process. For example, the awards of a lawyer differs from the awards of an economist
• There is no accurate information on how the arbitration influences the bargaining results
• It is not possible to identify the exact point of dispute when there is an involvement of third party in the process.
Arbitration may not result in a win-win situation for the parties. Due to these drawbacks, arbitrators are not allowed to make binding rules on economic issues

Question 3

Should public employee unions be barred from making political contributions in jurisdictions in which they represent employees?

Answer 3

Students should come to their own conclusion. The substantial gains made by Republicans in winning state gubernatorial and/or legislative elections in 2010 has led to initiatives, to reduce public sector unions' abilities to use member dues to finance political action and/or restrict or eliminate collective bargaining for public sector employees. Unions are not always representative of union members' political views and many object the use of union dues to support candidates whom individual union members may not support. On the contrary, recent court rulings have supported the idea, that corporations have a right to freedom of speech and an argument can be made that unions also have the same right.

Question 4

Civil service rules provide many public employees with a large measure of protection from arbitrary action, so why should public employees be allowed to organize?

Question 5

Because fact-finding publicizes the major areas in dispute and a proposed settlement, why has it not been more successful, given the public's stake in the outcome?