Labor Relations

    Under common law employers are free to fire a worker for any reason or no reason at all, so long as they do not violate a contract, statutory right, or civil right. However, judges have ruled firings illegal if they violate public policy or an implied covenant of good faith.

      Today's labor organizations focus on day-to-day working conditions, wages, and terms of employment. In 1940, the CIO and the AFL were competing for members in most trades and industries. When the AFL and CIO became one federation in 1955 their new constitution forbade raiding and established a structure of self-government with three levels: the local; the national or international union- and the federation's headquarters and executive boards.

      The most important job of locals is to bargain with employers and handle job-related grievances. The members of a craft local do the same kind of work in the same geographic area. The members of an industrial local include many difFerent kinds of workers serving the same employer. Typically an industrial local tries to attract all the eligible employees at a workplace to become members.

      National or international unions organize the unorganized, a task that often requires the efforts of paid organizers over years. The federation acts as the voice of labor in American politics, pooling funds and influence. Its members avoid the expense of fighting off raids. They also gain the benefits of legal and other services provided by the federation.

      Four federal laws govern unions, providing the base for a web of rules, regulations and decisions. In 1932, the Norris-LaGuardia Act took courts out of the business of helping employers block union organizing. In effect, it overruled the criminal and civil conspiracy doctrines. The Wagner Act of 1935 protected the right of workers to form unions and bargain collectively. As amended by the Taft-Hartley Act in 1947, the law outlines unfair labor practices by both unions and employers. The Taft-Hartley Act provides a procedure to intervene in strikes that threaten the nation. The Landrum-GrifFith Act of 1959 aimed to clean up corruption in unions and guarantee their members certain rights. However, unions may not be especially corrupt.

      The NLRB supervises union elections. One of its tasks is to approve bargaining units, which must each represent a community of interests among its members. They may not include supervisors, managers, or confidential workers, none of whom have a legally protected right to bargain collectively.

      Employers and unions must bargain, but if the bargaining process reaches an impasse they may resort to strikes and lockouts. Collective bargaining aims at terms of employment that both parties can accept for a given period. As a rule, both sides retreat from their starting positions in search of a compromise. A typical agreement includes some form of union security clause, clauses covering wages and job security, a "no-strike, no-lockout" clause, and a grievance process ending in arbitration.

      Workers who participate in a strike protesting unfair labor practices usually are entitled to their jobs after the strike. However, participants in an economic strike are not entitled to their jobs if they have been replaced. Organizational, jurisdictional, political, and grievance strikes are not important in the United States today. Strikes of all kinds include picket lines.

      Unions of government employees are governed by different laws than those governing private-sector unions. The federal government and most state governments forbid their workers to strike. Yet despite the use of mediation, fact-finding, and compulsory arbitration to settle impasses, the number of public-sector strikes has increased since the 1960s.