Evaluating the Roles HR Human Resources Management

¶ … Roles Human Resources Management In the United States, the role of human resources management is to serve worker's interest. However, the external agents such as labor unions and governments have also served as the external representatives of workers by advocating for workers interest. While the government intervenes in the workers' interests by passing different laws and regulations, the labor unions fight for workers interests through a collective bargaining.

The objective of this study is to evaluate the roles of HR management, labor unions and the government in protecting the workers' interests in the United States. Roles of HR Management, Unions, and Government interventions in enhancing workers' Safety and Rights. A labor union is defined as a group of people who collectively organize themselves using their strength to voice their opinion in the workplace. The action of the labor union has assisted in influencing wages, benefits, hours, job training, health and other work related issues of workers.

The U.S. law allows workers of all ages to join a union because a support from the union assists workers to enjoy fairness within a workplace. In the United States, many protection and benefits that workers enjoy presently are from organized labor movement, which includes the social security payments, minimum wage, and overtime pay. The union has been able to address the right of workers by preventing the employer of labor from exploiting workers.

It is essential to realize that without a union, employers would have exploited workers in the United States by asking them to do overtime without an extra pay. Walters, & Mishel, (2003) argue that the unions have a great impact on compensation and lives of both non-unionized and unionized workers. For example, unions have assisted in raising workers compensations by 28%. Moreover, unions have assisted in reducing wage inequality because they fight for a wage increase of low and middle-wage income earners than high-income earners.

The most sweeping benefit of the union is their fight to increase the fringe benefits. Through the union, approximately 28% of unionized workers are enjoying the employer-health insurance. Moreover, up to 54% of unionized workers are provided employer health plan. In the United States, 26% of unionized workers enjoy a vacation. The unions also play a critical role in enhancing workers' rights that include medical/family leave, safety and health rights.

The unions also assist in enforcing the workers' right Apart from the unions' activities that assist in improving the workers' safety and rights, the U.S. government has also intervened in improving worker's health conditions. For example, the federal government passed the OSHA ("The Occupational Safety and Health Act") of 1970 (Department of Labor, 2014 p1) to enhance labor rights. The law requires all employers of labor to provide a safe workplace for their workers. Under the OSH Act, it is the responsibility of employers to protect workers from job hazards.

The federal government also prohibits certain work conditions that represent high risks for workers. The OSHA also enforces a law that allows state agencies to implement certain provisions to enforce the law. The federal government also promulgated the FLSA ("Fair Labor Standard Act") (Department of Labor, 2015 p 1) to ensure that American workers are entitled to minimum ages. Since 2009, the law mandates all the public and private employers to pay at least $7.25 per hour for workers for the service rendered.

The FLSA also mandates all employers to pay overtime for workers who work more than the require working hours. Moreover, the law protects minors and limit the numbers of hours that children aged 16 can work. The law also prohibits children under 18 from performing the certain high-risk job. Additionally, the federal government passed the ACT (Affordable Care Act) in 2010 to promote the health of workers through the provision of the health insurance. To qualify for the ACT, a worker must work for at least 30 hours a week.

In 1935, President Roosevelt signed the SSA (Social Security Act) into law providing disable and retired Americans with financial supports. At present, over 59 million people are entitled to the SSA benefits where retired people or people having disabilities to receive an average of $1,294 monthly. Similarly, human resources personnel plays a critical role in enhancing employee health and safety.

The role of human resources professionals within an organization is to ensure that the workplace environment meets OSHA standard and establish the effective protocol to make the organization meeting the health and safe working environment. It is also the responsibility of the human resources professionals to prevent work-related injuries within a work environment by encouraging employees to report unsafe practice. The HR personnel is also responsible for implementing training, recruiting and performance appraisal for employees. Human resource professional also assists in reducing losses from absenteeism injuries.

The HR professionals also coordinate first aid training and provide first aid for employees. Moreover "HR plays a critical role in knowledge creation, retention, sharing and innovation inside the organizations. The influence of KM on HRM: owners of the organizations attempt to facilitate the implementation of HR practices by applying information technology and KM in their organizations." (Lapi a, Maur ne, & Stari-eca, 2013 p 584). Evaluation of the Unique Role of HRM and Unions and areas of Overlapping The role of a labor union and HR department is different.

The goal of HR is to ensure that an organization delivers higher productivity at low costs through employee training and productivity. However, unions are to safeguard the workers' interests. Moreover, HR department performs both operative and managerial functions. Their operative functions include hiring and implementing employees' training. HR department also ensures a smooth relationship with a labor union. The managerial function is to plan, organize, control, and direct employee to achieve the organizational effectiveness.

However, the role of the unions and HR department overlap because their roles are to work towards the interest of workers. Both human resources department and unions assist in improving the working environment using the interest-based bargaining. (Lapi-a, I.