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1 – 10 of 213
Book part
Publication date: 30 December 2004

Alexander J.S. Colvin

This paper investigates the adoption, structure, and function of dispute resolution procedures in the nonunion workplace. Whereas grievance procedures in unionized workplaces have…

Abstract

This paper investigates the adoption, structure, and function of dispute resolution procedures in the nonunion workplace. Whereas grievance procedures in unionized workplaces have been an important area of study in the field of industrial relations, research on dispute resolution procedures in nonunion workplaces has lagged behind. As a result, our knowledge of the development of nonunion procedures remains relatively limited. Similarly, with a few noteworthy exceptions (e.g. Lewin, 1987, 1990), our knowledge of workplace grievance activity is almost entirely based on research conducted in unionized settings. Given the major differences in the institutional contexts of union and nonunion workplaces in the United States, existing ideas about workplace dispute resolution developed in the unionized setting will likely require significant modification in order to understand dispute resolution procedures and activity in the nonunion workplace. Issues relating to dispute resolution in the nonunion workplace are of increasing importance to public policy given the combination of continued stagnation in levels of union representation and mounting concerns over rising levels of employment litigation in the courts. Knowing what nonunion dispute resolution procedures look like and how they function will help answer the question of what role these procedures may play in the future governance of the workplace.

Details

Advances in Industrial & Labor Relations
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-84950-305-1

Book part
Publication date: 22 November 2012

Tony Dundon and Diane van den Broek

Purpose – The chapter analyses potential interconnections between competing strands of worker misbehavior and mischief that result in forms of active resistance for those workers…

Abstract

Purpose – The chapter analyses potential interconnections between competing strands of worker misbehavior and mischief that result in forms of active resistance for those workers employed in nonunion settings.

Design/methodology/approach – The analysis integrates extant literature and theory concerned with differences between resistance, mischief and misbehavior on the one hand, and patterns of nonunion and unorganized workplace relations on the other.

Findings – Using a revised conceptual framework that advances a deeper and more nuanced understanding of unorganized workplace resistance, mischief, and misbehavior, the chapter illustrates the role that institutional and structural regulation plays in delineating between formal (and often collective) indicators of conflict, and informal (sometimes individualized) instances of mischief and misbehavior.

Research limitations/implications – The chapter offers a potential schematic framework for future researchers seeking to explore the complex interactions between resistance and misbehavior in a global and increasingly nonunion context.

Originality/value – While researchers have observed the quantitative decline in unionized conflict and industrial action, this chapter argues for a more inclusive incorporation of employment relations institutions to understand the deeper qualitative affects on workforce misbehaviors.

Details

Rethinking Misbehavior and Resistance in Organizations
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78052-662-1

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 14 November 2016

Steven Abraham

Unionized employees have the legal right to bring a union representative with them into an investigatory interview if they request it (“Weingarten rights”). This study aims to…

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Abstract

Purpose

Unionized employees have the legal right to bring a union representative with them into an investigatory interview if they request it (“Weingarten rights”). This study aims to demonstrate that employers should allow nonunion employees the right to have a co-employee accompany them in a similar type of interview, if the employees make that request.

Design/methodology/approach

Not applicable.

Findings

There will be two benefits to allowing nonunion employees the right to bring a co-employee into an investigatory interview with them. First, this will be a form of organizational justice, and researchers demonstrated the benefits of employees perceiving that they receive organizational justice. Secondly, this will be a form of union substitution which should reduce employees’ desire for unionization.

Originality/value

Whereas most employers seek to avoid the application of Weingarten rights in nonunion workplaces, this article argues that organizations should grant employees this right voluntarily.

Details

Strategic HR Review, vol. 15 no. 6
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1475-4398

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 13 February 2009

Raymond Hogler, Michael A. Gross and Zinta S. Byrne

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the importance of dispute systems for academic employees and to propose a procedure of voluntary binding arbitration, which would improve…

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the importance of dispute systems for academic employees and to propose a procedure of voluntary binding arbitration, which would improve governance, promote organizational justice, and reduce litigation.

Design/methodology/approach

It is argued that the rationale for arbitration in the educational sphere is even more compelling than in the nonunion industrial workplace because higher education is premised on the concept of shared governance between faculty and administrators. Colleges and universities confront an environment of declining resources, escalating costs, and a consumerist view of education where relations between members of the educational community increasingly resemble market transactions rather than cooperative endeavors.

Findings

Given those trends, faculty would benefit from a system of conflict resolution that serves to safeguard professional standards, ensure organizational justice, and provide an effective workplace voice.

Research limitations/implications

As a research agenda, future studies could examine these assumptions by empirically testing and evaluating the contribution and benefit of arbitration in higher education.

Practical implications

Binding arbitration offers a viable means of protecting the interests of faculty and institutions.

Originality/value

This paper offers a case for implementing organizational justice principles in higher education and will be of interest to those in that field.

Details

International Journal of Conflict Management, vol. 20 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1044-4068

Keywords

Book part
Publication date: 22 December 2005

Robert Hebdon

This paper develops and tests a new integrative theoretical framework for the study of workplace conflict that links the literatures of such disciplines as organization behavior…

Abstract

This paper develops and tests a new integrative theoretical framework for the study of workplace conflict that links the literatures of such disciplines as organization behavior, industrial relations, management, psychology, sociology, and social movement. It provides testable hypotheses where conflict is structurally blocked by laws, organizational rules, or social norms. It is hypothesized that a blockage of one expression will cause conflict to take on more covert forms of that same expression and to shift to other permitted forms.

In a test of the theory in municipal collective bargaining, the paper found that conflict that was structurally blocked in the form of strikes was redirected to both covert collective actions (sick-outs, slowdowns, etc.), other permitted collective actions (e.g., unfair labor practices) and such individual expressions as grievances.

There would appear to be a promising agenda for future research into the other cases described in the framework. For example, from the nonunion employer where collective actions are prohibited but individual grievances allowed it is hypothesized that such covert conflict as absenteeism, theft, or sabotage will be reduced. On the other hand, these same nonunion firms are predicted to have higher levels of individual conflict than unionized firms where both strikes and grievances are permitted.

Future research that evaluates workplace conflict resolution ought to take into account the complex relationships between conflict expressions suggested in the new framework. The temptation of researchers to study one expression at a time should be resisted.

Details

Advances in Industrial & Labor Relations
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-0-76231-265-8

Book part
Publication date: 7 December 2021

Alex Bryson and Harald Dale-Olsen

We present theoretical and empirical evidence challenging early studies that found unions were detrimental to workplace innovation. Under our theoretical model, unions prefer…

Abstract

We present theoretical and empirical evidence challenging early studies that found unions were detrimental to workplace innovation. Under our theoretical model, unions prefer product innovation to labor-saving technological process innovation, thus making union wage bargaining regimes more conducive to product innovation than competitive pay setting. We test the theory with population-representative workplace data for Britain and Norway. We find strong support for the notion that local bargaining leads to product innovation, either alone or together with technological innovation.

Details

Workplace Productivity and Management Practices
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-80117-675-0

Keywords

Book part
Publication date: 19 July 2016

Ariel C. Avgar

This chapter explores the adoption and implementation of a conflict management system (CMS) in a hospital setting. In particular, it uncovers the different motivations and…

Abstract

Purpose

This chapter explores the adoption and implementation of a conflict management system (CMS) in a hospital setting. In particular, it uncovers the different motivations and challenges associated with a CMS across various stakeholders within the organization.

Methodology/approach

The chapter is based on qualitative research conducted in a large American hospital that adopted and implemented a CMS over the course of 15 months. The author conducted extensive interviews with stakeholders across the organization, including top management, union leaders, middle managers, clinicians, and frontline staff. Findings are also based on an array of observations, including stakeholder meetings and conflict management sessions.

Findings

The case study demonstrates the centrality of underexplored, generalizable, and industry-specific pressures that may lead organizations to reconsider their use of traditional dispute resolution practices and to institute a CMS. It also highlights the inherent organizational ambivalence toward the design and adoption, initiation and implementation, and routine use of a CMS and it documents the different types of outcomes delivered to various stakeholders.

Originality/value

The chapter provides a nuanced portrait of the antecedents to and consequences of the transformation of conflict management within one organization. It contributes to the existing body of research exploring the 30-year rise of alternative dispute resolution and CMSs in a growing proportion of firms in the United States. The use of an in-depth case-study method to examine this CMS experience offers a number of important insights, particularly regarding different stakeholder motivations and outcomes.

Details

Managing and Resolving Workplace Conflict
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78635-060-2

Keywords

Book part
Publication date: 22 November 2012

John Logan

This chapter examines the rise and fall of the Commission on the Future of Worker-Management Relations (Dunlop Commission) in the early 1990s. It uses the events surrounding the…

Abstract

This chapter examines the rise and fall of the Commission on the Future of Worker-Management Relations (Dunlop Commission) in the early 1990s. It uses the events surrounding the Commission to provide an insight into the dynamics of the struggle over federal labor law reform. The inability of the Dunlop Commission to get labor and management representatives to agree on proposals for labor law reform demonstrated, yet again, that employer opposition is the greatest obstacle to the protection of organizing rights and modernization of labor law. For the nation's major management associations, labor law reform is a life and death issue, and nothing is more important to them than defeating revisions to the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) intended to strengthen organizing rights. The failure of labor law reform in the 1990s also demonstrated that the labor movement would never win reform by means of an “inside the beltway” legislative campaign – designed to push reform through the US Senate – because the principal employer organizations would always exercise more influence in Congress. Instead, unions must engage with public opinion, and convince union and nonunion members about the importance of reform. Thus far, however, they lack an effective language with which to do this.

Details

Advances in Industrial and Labor Relations
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78190-378-0

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 1 September 1999

Raymond L. Hogler

Since the National Labor Relations (Wagner) Act of 1935, American labor law has prohibited certain forms of workplace organization in nonunion firms. Congress routinely considers…

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Abstract

Since the National Labor Relations (Wagner) Act of 1935, American labor law has prohibited certain forms of workplace organization in nonunion firms. Congress routinely considers legislation to overturn that prohibition and allow employers more flexibility in creating workplace teams. Systems of employee representation were a prominent feature in American firms after World War I, and in the early 1930s, employers used them extensively as a union substitution technique. At United States Steel, ironically, employee representation provided the means for unionization of the firm. The company’s experience offers insight in the contemporary debate.

Details

Journal of Management History, vol. 5 no. 6
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1355-252X

Keywords

Book part
Publication date: 29 March 2021

Aibak Hafeez and J. Ryan Lamare

We examine how different neutral sources and third-party neutral qualification differences relate to mediation and arbitration usage at large US firms. Neutral sourcing is…

Abstract

We examine how different neutral sources and third-party neutral qualification differences relate to mediation and arbitration usage at large US firms. Neutral sourcing is controversial, particularly in employment arbitration, where many have expressed concern that unregulated sourcing arrangements may bias outcomes in favor of employers. We use agency and structure theories to hypothesize that firms will be less likely to use mediation when the neutral is sourced as a result of court-annexed mediation, but that firms may be more likely to use arbitration when the neutral is sourced from a private third-party provider. Utilizing human capital theory, we also hypothesize that organizations will use both mediation and arbitration more frequently when neutrals are perceived to be more highly qualified. Empirically, we rely on data gathered from a survey of US Fortune 1000 corporations to test these hypotheses and find support for each of them. Our results suggest that, while firms uniformly value professionalization in their neutrals, employers may impose structures on themselves in high-stakes circumstances like arbitration to ensure standardized and consistent processes, but prefer agency in lower-stakes circumstances like mediation.

Details

Advances in Industrial and Labor Relations
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-83982-132-5

Keywords

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