Why does management resist unions

From this perspective, employees hope that full-time work will satisfy at least the two lowest-level needs: they want to be paid wages that are sufficient for them to feed, house, and clothe themselves and their families, and they expect safe working conditions and hope for some degree of job security.

Organizations also have needs: they need to earn profits that will satisfy their owners. They need to keep other stakeholders satisfied as well, which can cost money. Consider a metal-plating business that uses dangerous chemicals in its manufacturing processes; wastewater treatment is essential — and expensive.

Sometimes, the needs of employees and employers are consistent: the organization can pay decent wages and provide workers with safe working conditions and job security while still making a satisfactory profit. At other times, there is a conflict—real, perceived, or a little bit of both—between the needs of employees and those of employers.

The following chart demonstrates that there has been an overall decrease in the percentage of workers in Canada who are union members from to It is interesting to note that this trend is not true for women in the workforce, where the participation rate has been fairly steady over that same 30 year period. The overall decrease is due to a number of factors. First, there has been a shift away from traditional manufacturing industries towards service industries, which are not as likely to be unionized.

Some large multinational corporations have a strong anti-union stance, making it more difficult for employees to form unions in those companies. Unions have a pyramidal structure much like that of large corporations. At the bottom are locals that serve workers in a particular geographical area. Certain members are designated as stewards to serve as go-betweens in disputes between workers and supervisors.

Locals are usually organized into national unions that assist with local contract negotiations, organize new locals, negotiate contracts for entire industries, and lobby government bodies on issues of importance to organized labour.

In turn, national unions may be linked by a labour federation , such as the Canadian Labour Congress CLC , which provides assistance to member unions and serves as a principal political organ for organized labour. In a non-union environment, the employer makes largely unilateral, i. Typically, employees are in no position to bargain for better deals.

At the same time, however, employers have a vested interest in treating workers fairly. As we saw in Chapter 11, a reputation for treating employees well, for example, is a key factor in attracting talented people. Most employers want to avoid the costs involved in managing a unionized workforce; as a result, many offer generous pay and benefit packages in the hopes of keeping their workers happy — and un-unionized.

The process of setting pay and benefit levels is a lot different in a unionized environment. The unions have the power to hinder the ability of a company to compete and flourish. A company might be in intense trouble, yet the union might be reluctant to compromise in order to help the company endure. The companies start to feel inflexible as they have union contracts to abide by.

In the meantime, if a union manages to negotiate high salaries for employees of the company, it can cause the company to charge higher for its services, which will turn it less competitive against its rivals. However, they are to advance within the limits outlined in union contracts. Employers will have the trouble to filter out inefficient workers if they are belonging to unions.

The employees that excel and outshine others will lose their drive as go-getters due to lack of incentive. It will be worse for the employees if the union has hassled to not go the extra mile. The main purpose of unions being developed is to provide justice and the rights of the employee.

If the company management treats their employees in the right way, then there will be no need for any unions. Employees joining the unions will also be having many other benefits. Unions are not easy to deal with. Usually, employers do not like unions as much as employees like. Unions behave as second in command in the organization and sometimes forces the employers to imply the decisions in their favour.

It is one of the major disadvantages of employees unionizing. The rise in labour costs of unionized employees causes their non-unionized counterparts to earn less than what they do. It ultimately leads to higher production costs for the companies.

Another ugly disadvantage that employers have to face is employee strikes. If the employers do not acquiesce to the salaries, benefits or workplace policies requested by the union, the union workers can officially strike. More than the loss of money due to lost production, there are other troubles too.

The commercial customers, as well as vendors, may end their relations with this company, thinking that the employer may be not able to pay the bills or deliver their purchase. One plant sent some of its disbelieving supervisors to sister plants that had institutionalized employee involvement. Seeing it in action helped convert several hard-liners. By itself, however, the usual kinds of classroom training proved relatively ineffective. Instead, successful responses focused primarily on providing employee involvement for foremen and giving them recognition similar to that given workers.

One plant had supervisors make presentations about team activities to upper management. Another found that a QWL team for foremen was a good way to regain their support for its program. A third began annual off-site meetings for supervisors as one reward for their participation. In plants with semiautonomous work teams, the crucial action was to delineate clearly the duties and managerial expectations of supervisors—in part by asking them what they perceived their job to be and what they believed it should be see Exhibit III.

We left them out of the process and forgot to give them any special training. Production managers held meetings with all the operators, and the supervisors would just have to go along for the ride.

The production managers held all the control. Today, we try to get the supervisors involved. This started about two years ago in an off-site meeting with the plant manager for new supervisors.

This is now a one-day session done yearly. This study uncovered at most plants a Band-Aid approach to the concerns of supervisors and not a coordinated strategy to make supervisors an integral part of the change process. What might such a strategy look like?

Surely, it must include:. Support-based training. Training is an indispensable first step in defining the common language and tactics necessary for change, but classroom or seminar-based training is not enough. Accordingly, managers should explain why employee involvement is different from other programs that may have come and gone. Another possibility, albeit risky, is to ask supervisors what it would take to convince them that management is truly committed and supportive, for if managers can meet this challenge, they can erase much lingering skepticism.

Supervisory involvement. First-line supervisors seek two types of involvement. The first includes them in the design and implementation of employee-oriented programs; the second gives them a say in decisions that affect their own jobs, as with supervisory QWL programs, for example.

Executives can help ease opposition from supervisors by getting them involved early in the definition of employee programs as well as in the definition of their own role. There is, of course, substantial risk for superiors, a potential loss of power, in sharing these decisions with supervisors, but it is much the same kind of risk that supervisors face with the introduction of employee involvement programs.

Responsibility with authority. The perceived loss of power is quite real to those supervisors excluded from overall decision making when employees take over many day-to-day decisions. Thus, it is important that managers delegate increased responsibility along with appropriate authority and not merely give supervisors additional administrative tasks, such as the paperwork associated with quality circles. Supervisors will need to regain their self-respect and the prestige they once enjoyed in the eyes of subordinates.

Only through enhanced decision-making authority can they do so constructively. With such authority, they can act on employee requests and provide necessary support without having to function as a go-between among employees, support groups, and upper management.

Supervisory networks. Supervisors must begin to recognize the potential benefits that employee involvement programs hold for them. A useful alternative is to encourage peer networking among supervisors through such support group mechanisms as periodic dinners with no high-level managers present.

Peer assistance of this sort can help resisters see the value of employee involvement programs. An organization can provide awareness or behavior-modification training, but it is questionable whether the values that individuals hold once they reach maturity can be altered by a short-term structural change in their work environment. Unfortunately, some supervisors will just not accept the concept of employee involvement.

When all else fails, their bosses may have to replace them, but replacement need not mean demotion or termination if the only problem is resistance to employee involvement. Even supervisors who are genuinely supportive of the notions behind these programs may turn against them if, for example, they perceive a threat to their own job security or that of their peers. Resistance by first-line supervisors is real, as this study verifies, but much of it is understandable and even justifiable. Supervisors do not as a rule undermine change because they are obstinate.

Designed to boost productivity by increasing the participation of workers, these programs have rarely had the interests and concerns of supervisors in mind. The outcome was predictable: seeing nothing in the programs for themselves, most supervisors resent the loss of power and control and, in one way or another, fall into a pattern of resistance.

That pattern can be broken, however. When their interests are taken seriously, supervisors will indeed give the programs a chance and often find them of real value. Listen to some of their comments:. Two additional problems came to light in the course of this study. Find part one here. Many employers will resist a union organizing effort, using a variety of approaches.

As your labor counsel will tell you, your response should always be legal and protective of employee rights — while exercising your own. Opposing any union is a difficult process because of their intimidation practices and willingness to take legal measures.

Typical employer responses often include one of these four strategies:. Unions focus on a variety of issues because different issues will resonate with different employees. They include:. The union is likely to present a laundry list of complaints about the employer. This issues are combined with the materials prepared in advance to create a customized response.

The employer response during the campaign must framed with a pro-employee focus. Promoting the benefits of working for the company is much more effective than criticizing the union, especially when millennials and Gen Z make up a large percent of the workforce. This is typical opposing forces characteristic of a union campaign. Another point to keep in mind is that younger generations of employees are concerned with employer behaviors in communities and their markets of operation.

Corporate social responsibility is integrated with management decision-making and ethics.