Unit 1 overview and foundational concepts

¶ … collective bargaining" refers to a process in which employers and employees (or their representatives, like trade unions, etc.) come together and voluntarily negotiate working conditions. Typically, these discussions come up at the end of a contractual period and focus on things like wages, work hours, benefits, safety of the workplace, overtime procedures, grievance and mediation procedures, and the level at which owners and management will allow workers to participate in the operation and strategic mission of the company. This is a particularly touchy subject in the world of contemporary education when teachers are being called on for more and more accountability and feeling more pressure than ever on executing school standards.

Of course, each situation bnetwen labor and management is different. However, in general, the four issues that are potential components of a collective bargaining agreement are:

Compensation -- which includes base wages, any benefits, vactions, holiday time, over time, etc. -- anything dealing with the montary side of the labor issues.

Peronnel Policies -- Procedures that govern layoffs, promotions, transfers, vacation rules, sick-leave rule.

Employee Rights and Responsibilitiews -- Senotiryt, jiob standards, workplace rules.

Employer Rights and Responsibilities -- Managerial hiring, jobs, discilpine for just cause and firing procedures, subctontracting, workplace safety issues.

In many ways, the ideas of unions and unionizing issues have fallen by the wayside as companies modernized, civil and labor practices improved, and more attention has been given to working conditions for all Americans. In fact, one of the more interesting things about these initial chapters is the evolution of collective bargaining and changing of "reform" unionism. In other words, the contemporary environment and push towards accontability and increased test scores has ensured that labor-management relations must also imrove. While unions must perform the function they were engendered -- to promote the best interests of the teachers whom they represent. Therein, though, lies a conundrum -- with greater transparency between administrators and teachers is essential in modern times, and both sides need a broader social and political process if anything is going to be done, the simple fact remains -- the reason for the school system is the education of our future leaders. Fairness must exist on all ends -- and often times it does seem like the teacher contingent is asked to give up more than the administrative side.