Severity of Strikes
Strikes or work stoppages have been used throughout history to pursue economic or political objectives and to modify or adjust the balance of power between labor and capital in work places, industries or nationwide (Early 2006). Through the years, strikes have achieved shorter working hours and safer working conditions through legislation or contract negotiation between the parties. They have also evolved new forms of worker organizations, raised class consciousness, rank-and-file leadership development and political activism. Most opinions hold that major strikes have, however decreased in the last three decades on account of substantial legal and financial risks, specifically in the public sector, where walkouts are severely restricted. Along with their decrease was the volume of union members and leaders in the last several years (Early). A similar trend has been occurring in the European Union where work days lost to labor disputes have been declining, due largely to lower inflation in the region (Ochel and Selwitschka 2003). The objective of this paper is to review the nature, mechanics, trends and future direction of strikes so as to investigate whether they have really been decreasing and why.
Other factors, which appear to have contributed to the decrease in the occurrence of strikes are changes in manufacturing conditions, such as the reduction of vertical integration by outsourcing and the limitation of inventories by just-in-time inventories, which have exposed the production process to disruption (Ochel and Sekwitscha 2003). Employers must have been more willing to make concessions and avoid the occurrence of strikes. Lastly, the lower level of union organization, which uses up strike funds and weakens the potential for mobilization, is also deemed contributory to the overall decline of labor disputes. The rules on labor disputes must be observed when initiating a labor dispute, including the obligation to maintain industrial peace and prohibit partners to collective bargaining agreements from initiating such disputes during their term of agreement. The rules also restrict the legality of strikes and lock-outs. The agreement binds both parties to maintain industrial peace (Ochel and Sekwitxchka). In the last 30 years, workers have brought up claims of employee rights and discrimination since the passage of major civil right legislation in the 1960s, such as the Equal Pay Act, the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Age Discrimination Employment Act, the 1973 Rehabilitation Act and the 1990 Americans with Disabilities Act (Enotes 2006). Under common law, employee-employer relationships not controlled by a formal contract were at-will relationships, wherein employees could be fired for any reason at all, with or without discrimination. At-will relationships still exist today although civil rights laws now protect employees against arbitrary dismissal. A most important civil rights law is the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which led to the creation of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the agency with the primary responsibility of enforcing these civil rights laws. Types of employment discrimination include race or color, sex, pregnancy and related conditions, national origin, religion, age, and disability. These civil rights laws prohibit discrimination in hiring and firing, compensation, appointment or classification of employees, transfer, promotion, layoff or recall, job advertisements, recruitment, testing, use of company facilities, training and apprenticeship programs, fringe benefits, pay, retirement plans and disability leave, harassment based on race, color, religion, sex, national origin, disability or age, marriage or association with another person of a particular race, religion, national origin or disability. Aggrieved workers may seek relief against discrimination from the Commission for back pay, hiring, promotion, reinstatement, front pay, reasonable accommodation and related actions, which will make the individual employee feel "whole." It may also be in the form of payment of attorney's fees, expert witness, court costs, actual monetary losses, future monetary losses, mental anguish and inconvenience, punitive damages against an employer who acted with malice and corrective or preventive actions to cure the source of the discrimination as well as to minimize the chances of recurrence (Enotes). Workers must band together into a recognized or formal organization, called a labor union, in order to have enough power to bargain for demands at work (Wikipedia 2006, Grabianowski 2006, Enotes 2006). Without a union, workers only have flimsy at-will relationships with their employer who can fire them any time for any reasons. However, civil rights laws were increasingly established to protect the rights of employees in the work place. The European Community reports that labor disputes have been in decline among its
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Approximate Word count = 2484
Approximate Pages = 10 (250 words per page double spaced)
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