Question

please help me answer this question

Jackie Anthony, the Labor Relations Manager for a small manufacturer in the Midwest was pondering a situation that had developed with the union. The union representative Tom Andrews had filed a grievance against the company and supervisor James Johnston over supervision and non-union employees performing union work.

The grievance stated that: “Union work has been completed by non-union employees in the past three weeks. Also work was being outsourced to area manufacturers which is work normally completed by union members.”

Under the union contract:

• Management Rights Clause: “Management has the right to schedule work and define the processes needed to complete the work.”

• Union Rights Clause: “The union is the sole bargaining agent for employees within the facility that produce the manufactured products.”

• Outsourcing: “The company has the right to outsource work and must negotiate impact with the union

Jackie had gathered the following information from her investigation:

• Supervision including James Johnson, supervisor along with three members of the non-bargaining unit finished assembly and shipped product to the customer on a Saturday in order to make the customer’s schedule.

• James explained that all union members had been asked for overtime however half of the workers turned overtime down and those who did accept the overtime were working on other jobs. The company did not want to work on Sunday to fill the orders because it was expensive from a cost of opening the plant as well as paying double time to the union workers.

• Tom Adams the union representative claims that management is avoiding paying Sunday overtime which would have fulfilled the customer orders. Also management was outsourcing work to other local machine shops that were cheaper in order to avoid hiring the right number of union workers which was keeping overtime up and tiring out the employees.

• Factory management was insistent on shipping work on time and reducing costs.

Jackie’s concerns were balancing the union, employees, supervision and the organization goals. If they went ahead with this grievance it was possible the arbitrator might restrict the company’s right to outsource.

what questions you would ask, what challenges is he facing? how would you deal if you were in this situations?

Answer 1

• The questions that I would ask are:

- What was the reason for employing non-union workers to complete union work in the past three weeks?

- How many union workers turned down the overtime?

- How many union workers accepted overtime? Why they were not provided the work? Reason?

- What amount of work was completed by non-union workers? Would it be possible to have been completed by the union workers who accepted overtime but work on other jobs?

• The challenge that is present in this case is that there was no transparency in the management decisions and the union’s grievance indicates that the unions and its members are frustrated about this decision taken by the supervisor James Johnston. This would create more conflict between the union, management and the non-union employees eventually leading to reduced employee morale.
• I was in the situation I would follow the ethical and professional code of conduct to take a fair judgment.

Analysis- James Johnston’s intention was to avoid double time to the union workers who accepted to work on Sundays. His prime goal was to deliver the product as per the customer’s expectations. He was right in his action when he asked the union workers to complete this schedule to deliver on-time. However, it was the union members (about half) who turned down the invitation. Though others accepted, they were held up with other jobs. Sunday was the only option available however it would cost double time to work on Sundays. As per the Management Clause, “Management has the right to schedule work and define the processes needed to complete the work.” James Johnston had adhered to this clause. Unions too adhered to their clause (“The union is the sole bargaining agent for employees within the facility that produce the manufactured products”) by questioning about non-union workers. However, the management failed to discuss the impact with the union as per the outsourcing clause. Outsourcing does not necessarily mean external agents, it can also include internal non-union workers. James Johnston should have informed Tom Andrews about this overtime schedule and ensure that all the non-union workers performed that particular order only because the union members were not available. Hence, there was no transparency in the decisions taken by James Johnston.

I would deal with the situation by making James Johnston realize his mistake which led to the grievance filing by the union members. I would arrange for a negotiation with the union and assure them that further decisions will not have any impact on unions and there will be transparency in decisions with effective internal communication. I would also compensate for the loss of the union workers by scheduling them future orders that needs to be met per the customer expectations.