Given the current criticisms against detailed, legalistic employment contracts between union members and their employers, how did these contracts develop and why have they persisted for so many years? Begin your response by describing the features of a typical union contract.

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

The typical union contract has a life of three years and may be small, pocket-book size, a
bound booklet, or multivolume documents. Most union contracts are detailed, legalistic
documents that are legally enforceable given that they are voluntarily signed by the duly
elected union representatives and their management counterparts. Some contracts include a
"reopener clause" which allows the parties to reopen negotiations during the life of the contract
to negotiation specific adjustments such as changes to wages or benefits. Union contracts
detail management rights (e.g., hiring/firing decisions, technological innovations, production
standards, and business location); employee rights (e.g., just cause discipline, seniority rights,
fair compensation); union rights (access to the workplace, shop stewards, union security and
dues checkoff); and job rights (e.g., wage rates assigned to jobs, job tasks).
These contracts developed in part because they met the needs of all parties: management,
unions, and employees. Management was looking for a way to increase stability and
predictability of the workplace and the contracts created a clear structure that reduced
decision-making ambiguity and ambiguity about worker treatment. Workers used the contracts
as a way to introduce concepts related to workplace justice into the employment relationship
and to reduce the arbitrary and capricious nature of management decisions. Unions were
looking for stability as well, in particular, the reduction of workplace strikes and militancy that
threatened to undermine their leadership. The contracts were a nice complement to the mass
production, scientific management, work structure that relied on routinization, stability, and
efficiency. Thus, since everyone was getting what they needed from the contracts, they
persisted and became institutionalized or entrenched in the American labor relations system.
Though some would argue these contracts have outlived their useful purpose and a new
approach is needed, the stability these contracts provide is still highly valued and this makes it
difficult to conceptualize new forms of contracts that might better serve the needs of all parties.