Management rights
Unions say they will give workers power in the workplace - that workers will make the important decisions about their work environment.
What power does a union have over management decisions?
The answer: none.
Even when a union is present, management continues to have the right to run the business.
Union contracts usually contain a "management rights" clause) listing decisions that continue to be made exclusively by management, even though workers are represented by a union.
Here are two examples:
The SunCoke Energy – Granite City Operations contract with the United Steelworkers Union contains a "Management Responsibilities" clause that says company management has the exclusive rights to:
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“direct, train and test the work force”
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“transfer work to other facilities”
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“hire, promote, layoff, demote, and discipline and discharge for just cause”
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“establish reasonable rules and policies”
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“relieve employees from duty because of lack of work and for other legitimate reasons”
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“create, combine, eliminate or change any job, job classification or department”
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“determine work assignments”
The AK Steel contract with the International Association of Machinists has a "Management" clause saying company management has the rights to:
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"hire, retire, transfer, change assignments"
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"promote, demote, suspend, discharge, discipline"
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"relieve employees for lack of work or other legitimate reasons"
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"maintain discipline and efficiency of all employees"
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"establish work schedules and to make changes therein essential to the efficient operation of the plant"
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“be the judge of the physical fitness of employees”
Still, there's one management right that union contracts usually don't include:
The right to reward workers for doing a good job.
"Merit pay" or "pay for performance" is rarely seen in union contracts. Rather, if raises are given, the best performers and the worst performers get the same raise.
Some employers have tried to reward their best performers, but had to stop when the union protested; for example:
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Brooklyn Hospital Center rewarded its best nurses with $100 gift cards. When the nurses' union protested, the NLRB told the hospital to stop.
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The Register Guard Publishing Company in Oregon gave a bonus to employees who sold advertising contracts the company wanted to promote. When the union protested, the NLRB ordered the company to stop.
Unions killed a law that would have let employers give merit raises to unionized employees in addition to their regular pay?
In 2012, Congress considered the RAISE ("Rewarding Achievement and Incentivizing Successful Employees") Act which would have lifted the ceiling on unionized workers’ wages by allowing employers to pay individual workers more — but not less — than the union contract calls for.
Unions strongly opposed the RAISE Act, and it was defeated in the U.S. Senate by a vote of 45 for and 54 against.
Some researchers found that if Congress had passed the RAISE act, average pay for union members could have risen between $2,700 and $4,500 a year.
Why are unions dead-set against merit pay?
Maybe it's this: if management gives raises to workers on their own, without bargaining with the union, the workers might start to feel they don't need to pay a union to speak for them.
THE BOTTOM LINE:
Sometimes when a union is voted in, the changes workers get aren't the changes they want.