Chapter 8: Employment, labor, and wages

1. Chapter 8: Employment, labor, and wages Christian “Destroyer of Worlds” Perez, Elaine “Left Lane” Mattson, Felix “The beast in heat” Rodriguez, Norman “Iron Patriot” Wheaton III, Amy “The lady” De la cruz

2. Section 1: The labor Movement “the beginning of the end” • Macroeconomics is a branch of economics that deals with the economy as a whole, including employment, gross domestic product, inflation, economic growth, and the distribution of income. • By mid-2001, less than half (140 million) of the population belonged to a civilian labor force. • Civilian class excludes members of armed forces, prison population, and other institutionalized persons. • Unions play an important role because 1) they help in promoting legislation that affects pay levels and working conditions today. 2) Unions are a force in the economy, with membership of nearly 16.3 million people.

4. Types of Unions & Activities • Independent Unions- unions that do not belong to the AFL-CIO ( The American Federation of Labor) • Unions try their best to help negotiate with employers for better pay, hours, and working conditions. • Works could strike or refuse to work until demands are met. • Sometimes workers will picket, or parade in front of the employers business carrying signs about the dispute • Lastly, they will try boycotting, which is a mass refusal to buy products from targeted employers or companies • Industrial Union- an association of all workers in the same industry, regardless of the job each worker performs • Development of basic mass-production industries such as steel and textiles established a way to organize this kind of union. • Craft union/trade union- an association of skilled workers who perform the same kind of work. • For example: printers unions, electricians union, machinists union, carpenters union, plumbers union.

5. Employer Resistance • Employers created a company union, organized, supported, or run by employers-to head off efforts by others to organize workers. • Business would sometimes hire all new workers when there was a threat of a strike • Employers had there own way of resisting workers demands, sometimes calling lockouts where they refused to let employees work until management demands were met. • Violence was a major problem during these resistances; troops were called in to keep peace.

6. Antiunion legislation • The more hate for unions grew and led to the Labor Management Relations Acts, Taft-Hartley Act, of 1947. • Puts limits on what unions can do in labor-management disputes • Gives employers the right to sue unions for breaking contracts, prohibits unions from making union membership a condition for hiring. • Two provisions: • 80 day cooling off period that federal courts could use to delay a strike in the case of a national emergency • Section 14b, an antiunion provision, which allowed individual states to pass right-to-work laws, state law making it illegal to force workers to join a union as a condition of employment, even though a union may already exist at the company.

7. Section 2: Resolving union and management differences “the duel kicks off” • Injunction: it’s a court order but there are no actions done the union can not strike • Seizure: the government can negotiate with the union • Kinds of union arrangements • Closed shop: it’s the most restrictive it only hires union members and helps determine who gets hired. • Union shop: workers don’t have to belong to a union to be hired but must join one after getting the job and remain one as long as they work there

8. Kinds of Union Arrangements (cont.) • Modified union shops: workers don’t belong to a union and cant be forced to join one to keep their jobs • Agency shop: workers don’t have to join a union but they do have to pay the union dues to help pay collective bargaining costs

9. Collective Bargaining • Grievance procedure: they contract someone to help them with problems that can pop up in the future • Mediation: bring in a third person to settle a dispute. main goal is to find a solution both people with accept • Arbitration: both people but differences aside in front of the third person but the third person says the final say • Fact-facing: third party makes recommendations on how to solve the problem with the information he gets from both union and management

10. Section 3: Labor and Wages “grand quest for the treasure chest” • Wages differ for a variety of reasons, including skills, type of job, and location • Noncompeting labor grades • Unskilled labor/workers • Semiskilled labor/workers • Skilled labor/workers • Professional labor/workers

11. Wage determination • Wage rate – a standard amount of pay given for work performed. • Wage rate is determined by: • Traditional tools of supply and demand • The influence of unions in the bargaining process • “Signaling theory”

12. Section 4: Employment trends and issues “ the end of the beginning” • Decline of union influence • Reasons for decline include: • Many employers made efforts to keep unions out • The addition of more people such as women and teens. • Unions raise wages, union made products prices raise. People cheap, want cheaper stuff, go to nonunion producers for cheaper stuff. Unions sad, lay off people.

13. Lower pay for women • Female income has been only a fraction of male income over 40 years a 28% gap • It was reported that 1/3 of this gap was from differences in skill and experience that women have, which are that women have lower education than their male counterparts • Slightly less then 1/3 of that is due to an uneven distribution of men and women in the different occupations • Also women tend to drop out of the labor force to raise families

14. Lower pay for women (cont.) • The report also found that more than a 1/3 of this gap can be counted from discrimination in which they have difficulty getting raises and/or promotions which is like reaching a glass ceiling

15. Vocabulary • Glass ceiling- an invisible barrier that obstructs their advancement up the corporate ladder. • Comparable worth- the principle stating that people should receive equal pay for work that is different from, but just as demanding as, other types of work. • Set-aside contract- a guaranteed contract reserved exclusively for a targeted group