Describe the National Labor Relations Board, business and finance homework help

Describe the National Labor Relations Board.The NLRB was established by the Wagner Act and has jurisdiction over mostfor-profit employers, private for-profit and nonprofit hospitals, and the U.S.Postal Service. It determines whether employees desire union representation andwhether, under federal law, unions or companies have committed unfair laborpractices.Explain the concept of "duty tobargain."Unions and employers have a mutual duty to bargain in good faith aboutwages, hours, and terms and conditions of employment. Each must meet with theother when requested to negotiate an agreement, reduce it to writing, andinterpret its meaning if disagreements arise. Neither is required to concedeany issue to demonstrate good faith. Notifying the Federal Mediation andConciliation Service (FMCS) is required as a condition to modify a contract.Specific and more stringent requirements are laid out for health careorganizations.What are the responsibilities of the FederalMediation and Conciliation Service?The Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service (FMCS) was established bythe Taft-Hartley Act to help parties resolve labor disputes. In contractnegotiation, it may mediate either through invitation or on its own motion.Mediators assist the parties in bargaining but have no power to imposesettlements or regulate bargaining activity.The FMCS offers preventive mediation and alternative dispute resolutionprograms, including problem resolution services for federal agencies asmandated by the Alternative Dispute Resolution and Negotiated Rule- making actsof 1990. It aids local labor-management cooperation programs through grants andtechnical assistance enabled by the Labor-Management Cooperation Act of 1978.To foster peaceful conflict resolution of employment issues internationally,the FMCS has provided mediator training in a number of developing economies.It provides to requesting parties panels of private practice arbitrators,who are qualified under FMCS rules, from which the parties may choose one tohear and rule on a contract dispute.Explain what trade treaties are intended toachieve.Trade treaties often include provisions for minimum labor standards.These are usually included to protect jobs in high-wage countries. Developingcountries seldom can afford to duplicate conditions experienced in first-worldcountries. Prohibitions on child labor and forced (prison) labor may be somewhateasier to enforce.43 Area trade treaties, such as the North American Free TradeAgreement (NAFTA), offer opportunities for international cooperation by unions.To this point, however, evidence suggests they have had a greater effect onnurturing national identities rather than international development.Briefly explain the responsibilities andqualifications of a union steward.At the work-unit level, stewards are elected or appointed. Stewardspolice first-line supervisors compliance with the contract. Stewards representgrievant to the employer. They collect dues and solicit participation in unionactivities. Many collective bargaining contracts recognize the vulnerability ofthe stewards advocative position by according it super seniority. Stewards arethen, by definition, the most senior members of the unit. They often do nothave experience representing employees before they assume their positions.Union training helps them learn their responsibilities, particularlyunderstanding the goals of the union movement, understanding the contract, andcommunicating with mem- bers.5 Stewards are activists. Most are involved inother organizations outside their jobs. They average about 12 years of jobexperience and about 5.5 years of steward experience. About half are appointed,and only about 25 percent are opposed in elections. While stewards are unionactivists, union leaders see their roles as being grievance handlers orrepresentatives who operate using a rational perspective. To be effective,stewards need to be well versed with regard to their legal rights and protections.Briefly describe the structure of nationalunions.Beginning in the 1850s, a few national trade unions formed. These earlyunions have all disappeared or been merged into surviving unions. Until theCivil War, unions represented certain trades or industries, a pattern thatultimately prevailed in the United States. After the Civil War, however, thefirst major movements were increasingly national, without craft or indus- trydistinctions. These early movements were strongly focused on major publicpolicy issues. Immigration posed a problem for unions because while manymembers were immigrants, they feared the effects that further immigration wouldhave on wages. Many civic organizations opposed open immigration and advocatedliteracy tests. Trade unions adopted these positions at the end of the 1800s,partly to attain mainstream institu- tional legitimacy.10The National Labor Union (NLU) was founded in 1866. Its goals were largelypolitical and reformist rather than economic or immediate. Its leader, WilliamSylvis, had been a founder of the National Molders Union in 1859. NLU goalsincluded introduction of the eight-hour workday, establishment of consumer andproducer cooperatives, reform of currency and banking laws, limitations onimmigration, and establishment of a fed- eral department of labor.The NLU was open not only to skilled-trades workers but also to otherinterested and sympathetic individuals. Suffragists, particularly prominent atits national meetings, attempted to get the NLU to endorse their efforts to gainvoting rights for women.Sylvis was the backbone of the NLU. His death in 1869 and its subsequentalliance with the Greenback Party in 1872 doomed the NLU. A lack of leadershipand inattention to worker problems contributed to its demise. However, thefirst attempts to coordinate labor organizations nationally had begunand wouldultimately be successful.