Labor Laws Unions Choose Organization Familiar Unionized.

Labor Laws Unions Choose organization familiar unionized. Outline organization chosen including: • Provide background information chosen organization. • Identify legal issues obstacles organization encounter.

One of the best known unions in the world, in terms of the union power and capacity to exert influence in the organization, is the union structure at General Motors. General Motors employees 209,000 people, sells around 6.5 million annually and is considered to be one of the largest companies in the automotive industry

Although the company's competitiveness has been challenged in the mid-2000s, the organization proved sufficiently versatile to penetrate new markets, such as the Chinese market, offering new opportunities.

Historically, the United Automobile Workers (UAW), one of the main unions that groups workers from the automotive industry, has been able to bargain privileged working conditions with the three big producers in the United States, including with General Motors. These ranged from job security guarantees to pension and health care benefits

. Some have accused the GM unions that because of their bargaining power, the company lost the battle with Japanese producers on the international market and even in the United States.

The bargaining power came primarily from the fact that a large number of the GM workers were part of either UAW or another union. As a consequence, they would be able to impose preferred conditions, threatening to strike instead. The large number of unionized workers meant that the actual impact on the GM earnings and profits would be devastating, negatively impacting, in the end, the stock market performance of GM shares as well. As a consequence, GM management preferred to offer an increased number of privileges in exchange for the absence of social unrest and a reasonable level of work productivity.

Bargaining power goes even beyond the simple threat of strike. The unions can affect the productivity of workers and can motivate the employees towards an increased productivity, if the conditions they have imposed to management have been met. Overall, the influence of the unions is translated in the communities from which the workers are part of and where relations are usually strong between the members. As a consequence, a good relationship with workers' union will also translate in a good relationship of the management with the communities the workers are part of.

Strangely enough, despite the overall general impression on the union's bargaining power, the wages for American workers in the automobile industry were still far from the wages that Japanese workers earned, especially after the concessions that had to be negotiated in 2008. At the same time, the difference in the average labor cost between a Japanese company and a U.S. automobile producer is significant, as much as $71 to $47 at Toyota

. This shows that, despite a difference in wage in favor of the Japanese producers, additional benefits, such as healthcare and retirement benefits eventually drive the labor cost higher for U.S. producers.