The vast majority of Americans do not have access to a collective bargaining process. Employer hostility towards unions chills organizing efforts. [11] Working people who wish to join together to raise wages and standards are seeking new “on ramps” to bargaining, particularly when their employers refuse to either recognize their union or bargain with them collectively. Sometimes, the NLRA structure of bargaining does not enable people to bargain with their “real” boss—the company that has actual economic control over their work but is not their direct employer. In those cases, employees are utilizing alternative strategies to build power and influence their wages and standards. For example, the cleaning staff for Target stores in Minnesota managed to win a direct agreement with Target in order to improve standards with the stores’ subcontracted cleaning firms.
Bargaining spaces can also be created through legislation. Childcare and homecare providers in Connecticut recently mobilized in support of a Low Wage Employer Fee, which would assess a fee on large, low wage employers in order to fund the state’s strained public care programs. While the fee did not pass, advocates won a Low Wage Employer Advisory Board, where care workers will have the chance to sit with employers, public assistance recipients, elected officials and other stakeholders to confer over recommendations to the governor and state legislature on how to address the public cost of low wage work.
Finally, working people who lack the right to collectively bargain are taking their “bargaining” demands to the public too. Domestic workers in Hawaii, Massachusetts, California, Connecticut and New York have successfully won “Domestic Workers’ Bill of Rights” laws that ensure they receive access to overtime pay and adequate workplace protections.
[2] Federal Mediation & Conciliation Service. (2015.) 2014 Annual Report. Washington, DC., Footnote 1, p. 4. Retrieved from http://www.fmcs.gov/assets/files/Public%20Affairs/2014%20Documents/FY2013_Annual_Report_Final_2-21-14.pdf.
[3] Bureau of Labor Statistics. (2015, Jan. 23) Union affiliation of employed wage and salary workers by occupation and industry. Retrieved from http://www.bls.gov/news.release/union2.t03.htm.
[4] American Rights at Work. (2008 November). The Haves and Have Nots: How American Labor Law Denies a Quarter of the Workforce Collective Bargaining Rights. Retrieved from http://www.jwj.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/havesandhavenots_nlracoverage.pdf
[5] Katz, H.C., Kochan, T.A., & Colvin, A.J.S. (2008). An Introduction to Collective Bargaining & Industrial Relations (4 th ed.) New York: McGraw-Hill.
[6] Sanes, M., & Schmitt, J. (March 2014). Regulation of Public Sector Collective Bargaining in the States. Retrieved from http://www.cepr.net/documents/state-public-cb-2014-03.pdf
[7] Human Rights Watch (2000, Aug.). Unfair Advantage: Workers’ Freedom of Association in the United States under International Human Rights Standards. Available at http://www.hrw.org/reports/pdfs/u/us/uslbr008.pdf.
[9] Katz et al., 2008.
[10] Sanes, M., & Schmitt, J. (March 2014). Regulation of Public Sector Collective Bargaining in the States. Retrieved from http://www.cepr.net/documents/state-public-cb-2014-03.pdf
[11] Bronfenbrenner, K. & Warren, D. (June 2011). The Empirical Case for Streamlining the NLRB Certification Process: The Role of Date of Unfair Labor Practice Occurrence. Retrieved from http://digitalcommons.ilr.cornell.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1158&context=workingpapers.
Erin… I think your initial definition is slightly off. You say: “Collective bargaining is the formal process of negotiation between an employer and a group of employees…” I believe the bargaining relationship is between an employer and a union, specifically *not* the employees who instead “contract” their rights to negotiate, to the union. The employees are not actually getting a contract with their employer, the union is.
Join our online team and make a big impact for working people.
