Eo 10988

Executive Order can be defined as "A presidential policy directive that implements or interprets a federal statute, a constitutional provision or a treaty." (Vosloo, 1966) The Congress gives the president powers to issue such executive orders though congressional approval is not required therefore giving the president a chance to avoid public debate and opposition in setting policy. Executive orders have been associated with routine matters of administration and internal operations of federal agencies and have over time proved to be a very critical tool to presidents in relation to policy making.

It should also be noted that executive orders have the force and effect of law and their issuance are usually under particular statutory authority from the Congress (Vosloo, 1966). In the year 1962 President John F. Kennedy issued an executive order which was labeled Executive Order 10988 and whose main aim was to recognize federal employees' rights in bargaining with management. J.F.

Kennedy made this promise to workers in his campaign against Nixon and when he got into office the workers kept pressurizing for the same, he therefore issued it as a payoff for the workers' support in the election. It marked the first time ever in the establishment of a government-wide labor relations policy which was broad in nature. This executive order required that union representatives consulted or met management representative within the official time.

The determination of the amount of official time accorded was left to the discretion of agencies such as requiring negotiations to be conducted at a time when the union representatives were not on duty. In a case where the time required for negotiations proved to be burdensome then the management were required to direct the employee representatives to create their own time for such negotiations, internal union business was not allowed when representatives were on duty.

Impact in Hawaii The Executive Order 10988 opened door to the drastic rise in the unionization of the public workforce not only in Hawaii but in the many states and cities. The public employee unions immediately recorded a sharp growth in membership, notably however was the decline in private sector union membership compared to the growth in the public sector membership. This led to a competition between the public and private sector with each fighting to define the work in the region.

It soon became clear that the public sector unions had an upper hand in pushing forward their interest as compared to the private sector unions (Johnson and Libecap, 1994). The first advantage that they have is the ability to exert pressure and influence the government -- who is their member's employer -- than can the private sector unions, this they do by utilizing the political process.

Through the unions the workers elect politicians who then act as their "managers" when negotiating contracts, they therefore literally handpick those who will favor them in the bargaining table; this is not possible with the private unions. In fact, the public workers are viewed to have the power of electing their own boss and managers.

The growth of the public-sector unions made them to be politically significant and played a very relevant and crucial role during the political campaigns, this was reverse in the years before 1960s when the private-sector unions mad the largest contributions politically. It is important to note that the unions represent mostly state and local workers thus their direct involvement is in the federal elections, but since the federals contribute significantly to state budgets they greatly shape the spending at Washington (Johnson and Libecap, 1994).

The priorities and demands of the public-sector unions have been greatly influenced by this political dimension a situation that is not with the private-sector unions. The concentration of the private-sector unions has been on securing for their members better wages, working conditions, benefits and pensions. It was also not common for the private-sector unions to fight for more hiring since the private-sector works towards minimizing costs and hiring more employees would lead to control of the wages and benefits of the already existing workers.

On the other hand the public-sector unions fought for both better wages and more hiring (Vosloo, 1966). The public-sector unions also influenced both supply and demand by pushing for the expansion or establishment of facilities that would lead to demand of services thus creating jobs. In addition to the above advantage the public-sector unions are also free from market forces which greatly affect the private-sector counterparts. The market forces keep the demands of the private-sector unions in check but not the public-sector.