Workers Today and Unions

Explain how unions, human resources management personnel, and government interventions (such as laws and regulations) serve to address worker rights and worker safety.
Labor unions, human resources management personnel, and government interventions serve to address worker rights and worker safety in a variety of different ways. The confluence of all of these entities helps to create an environment for workers which is conducive to health and, ideally, to long term propagation of the ability of the laborer to continue to work. However, each of the aforementioned mechanisms is able to facilitate these ends from multiple perspectives. In most ways, labor unions were the initial catalyst for the rights which workers gained and which are today enforced by human resources management personnel and government interventions.
Labor unions are directly responsible for some of the most foundational rights for laborers throughout Occidental society, and in the United States, in particular. After the advent of the Industrial Revolution, virtually anyone (including women, children, etc.) was capable of working for as long as humanly possible in conditions which were oftentimes noxious. Labor unions are credited with advocacy measures for eight hour work days, time off for eating and resting, and even basic minimums in terms of compensation. The formation of these unions and their activity in this regard helped to stipulate the specific needs of workers in these regards.
By extension, many of the demands of labor union were eventually canonized into laws and regulations through government intervention. Today, eight hour work days are normative (Bradberry, 2016). There are laws—typically reinforced at the state level—dictating how long laborers can work prior to attaining a rest period. These legal mandates specify the minimum length of such breaks as well as their frequency. In this regard, the early efforts of labor unions were promulgated and codified by government reinforcement.
Human resources management personnel, then, are responsible for the specific implementation of these measures for individual organizations. They create the policy for companies which adhere to the foregoing protocols. Those protocols establish the minimums. Human resource management personnel, of course, can exceed those minimums by attracting employees with even better benefits packages, longer lunch periods than the law allows, and other means of recruiting and retaining employees. As such, there is a synthesis of the interactions of labor unions, government interventions, and human resources management personnel which plays an integral role in addressing worker rights and worker safety.
Evaluate whether unions and HRM have unique roles for different groups (i.e., the organization, management, and the workers) or if there are areas of overlap.
Labor unions do not necessarily have unique roles for different groups. In general, these groups are focused on the rights of the laborer for employment (Block, 2011). Although those rights are oftentimes discussed collectively, more often than not they specifically apply to individual laborers. It is the consideration of how labor union rights affect individual workers that forms the basis for the collective bargaining stance of such organizations. In this regard there is a considerable amount of overlap in how such unions interact with the different groups which typically include the organization it is dealing with as a whole, its management, and its workers as well. Those interactions are predicated on championing the rights of the individual, a fact which is represented at each of the previously mentioned levels of dealing with an employer.
Conversely, human resources management definitely facilitates a unique role between the preceding groups—although there are some minor areas of overlap. It is up to this management group to prioritize those needs, meet them accordingly, and do so in a way which is advantages to the perpetuation of the organization. In this respect, human resources management has an overarching responsibility to the organization since it is one of the more vital functions of the said organization. For workers, however, human resources management resources wants to identify ways in which to train workers so that they are competent enough to fulfill their positions and help achieve organizational goals. HRM actually needs to recruit, attract, and retain workers to meet this desired object. Thus, it functions as the intermediary between those workers and the organization as a whole.
The differentiation HRM facilitates for these groups is based on the different ends of each group. Management, particularly upper level management, is concerned with reducing costs, increasing revenues, and maximizing performance (Korff et al, 2017, p. 45). HRM must devise ways to facilitate these advantages without necessarily prioritizing the desires of employees. When considering the interests of the organization as a whole, HRM must work in accordance to the advantage of the various shareholders and stakeholders which such an entity has, in which those holders are prioritized about the other groups.
Assess the following statement, “Workers in the modern workplaces of America are well protected and well supported.” Explain whether you agree or disagree with this statement, based on what you now know about government interventions, unions, HRM, and worker advocacy.
I agree with the preceding statement about the protection afforded laborers in the contemporary workplaces in the U.S. However, I would add a pivotal caveat to it and state that such protection is needed because it is the general nature of labor for the employer to exploit the labor of the worker. What the various unions, government interventions, HRM and worker advocacy groups do is provide a framework for the protection and support of laborers. Nonetheless, these things are not a guarantee against the exploitation of laborers in which, despite that protection, they are still in undesirable working conditions.
For instance, there is a fairly well publicized incident in which delivery workers for Amazon have sued that company because of what the former perceives as unfair labor practices. Specifically, this organization’s Amazon Prime delivery service strives to deliver merchandise in hours, as opposed to days. Doing so causes delivery workers to drive nonstop for inordinate lengths of time to fulfill these objectives while forsaking their rights to overtime and facets of worker’s compensation due to their status as independent contractors (Bensinger, 2015). The issue of independent contractor status is a perfect example of the sort of loopholes which, despite government intervention, labor unions, and human resource management, organizations can utilize to exploit laborers without giving them benefits they should be due.
In summary, despite the fact that laborers are protected and supported via the aforementioned mechanisms, they still have to deal with tendencies towards labor exploitations. All of those measures are in place because employers tend to desire to exploit employees. Those measures do not abate this tendency, they simply make it more difficult to manifest.
References
Bensinger, G. (2015). Amazon faces lawsuit over whether delivery workers are employees. www.wsj.com Retrieved from https://www.wsj.com/articles/amazon-faces-lawsuit-over-whether-delivery-workers-are-employees-1445989623
Block, Walter. (2011). Labor relations, unions and collective bargaining: a political economic analysis. www.walterblock.com http://www.walterblock.com/wp-content/uploads/publications/labor_relations_unions.pdf
Bradberry, B. (2016). Why the 8-hour workday doesn't work. https://www.forbes.com/ Retrieved from https://www.forbes.com/sites/travisbradberry/2016/06/07/why-the-8-hour-workday-doesnt-work/#2510591136cc
Korff, J., Biemann, T., Voelpel, S. C. (2017). Human resource management systems and work attitudes: The mediating role of future time perspective. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 38(1) 45-67.