Labor Relations 12th Edition by John Fossum

Exercise 1

Case: Material Handling Equipment Association Bargaining Group
GMFC is a charter member of the Material Handling Equipment Association (MHEA). The organization was started in the late 1940s and now includes 30 members producing over 95 percent of all domestic material handling equipment. Presently, these manufacturers produce 70 percent of the material handling equipment sold in the United States. About 80 percent of the association's total production is for the domestic market. Primary foreign markets are in Europe and Latin America, with increasing marketing emphasis in Eastern Europe.
All members are unionized, to some extent, with the proportions of production jobs organized ranging from 25 to 100 percent. GMFC is 80 percent unionized. Most companies bargain with the Steelworkers, the Auto Workers, or the Machinists. Some variations exist between contracts within employers and across employers in the association.
Unions have been particularly interested in negotiating relatively similar contracts across employers and national-level agreements within employers.
The MHEA industrial relations executives recently studied the possibility of industrywide bargaining. Coincidentally, since they were proposing a merger, the major unions representing MHEA employees explored potential coalition bargaining arrangements.
Taking either a management or a union role, formulate arguments for or against (1) industrywide bargaining with each separate union, (2) industrywide bargaining with coalition bargaining representing employees, (3) bargaining at the local level on all issues with the union that happens to represent the employees.