Pros and Cons of a Closed Shop in the Workplace

If you decide to go to work for a company that tells you it operates under a â€Å"closed shop† arrangement, what does that mean to you and how might it affect your future employment? The term closed shop refers to a business that requires all workers to join a particular labor union as a precondition of being hired and to remain a member of that union during the entire term of their employment. The purpose of a closed shop agreement is to guarantee that all workers observe the union rules, such as paying monthly dues, taking part in strikes and work-stoppages, and accepting the terms of wage and working conditions approved by the union leaders in collective bargaining agreements with company management. Key Takeaways: Closed Shop â€Å"Closed shops† are businesses that require all of their workers to join a labor union as a precondition of employment and to remain members of the union in order to keep their jobs. The opposite of a closed shop is an â€Å"open shop.†Closed shops are allowed under the 1935 National Labor Relations Act, intended to prevent businesses from engaging in labor practices that harm workers.  While union membership offers workers advantages, such as the power to negotiate for higher wages and better working conditions, it also has potential  drawbacks. Similar to a closed shop, a â€Å"union shop,† refers to a business that requires all workers to join the union within a specified length of time after they are hired as a condition of their continued employment. At the other end of the labor spectrum is the â€Å"open shop,† which does not require its workers to join or financially support a union as a condition of hiring or continued employment. History of the Closed Shop Arrangement The ability of companies to enter into closed shop arrangements was one of the many workers’ rights provided by the federal National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) — popularly called the Wagner Act — signed into law by President Franklin D. Roosevelt on July 5, 1935. The NLRA protects the rights of workers to organize, bargain collectively, and prevent management from taking part in labor practices that might interfere with those rights. To the benefit of businesses, the NLRA prohibits certain private sector labor and management practices, which could harm workers, businesses, and ultimately the U.S. economy. Immediately after enactment of the NLRA, the practice of collective bargaining was not viewed favorably  by businesses or the courts, which considered the practice to be illegal and anti-competitive. As courts began to accept the legality of labor unions, the unions began to assert greater influence over hiring practices, including the requirement for closed shop union membership.   The surging economy and growth of new businesses following World War II spurred a backlash against union practices. In reaction, Congress passed the Taft-Hartley Act of 1947, which banned closed and union shop arrangements unless authorized by a majority of the workers in a secret vote. In 1951, however, this provision of Taft-Hartley was amended to allow union shops without a vote of the majority of the workers.   Today, 28 states have enacted so-called â€Å"Right to Work† laws, under which employees in unionized workplaces may not be required to either join the union or pay union dues in order to receive the same benefits as dues-paying union members. However, state-level Right to Work laws do not apply to industries that operate in interstate commerce such as trucking, railroads and airlines. Pros and Cons of Closed Shop Arrangements Justification of the closed shop arrangement is built on the unions’ belief that only through unanimous participation and â€Å"united we stand† solidarity can they ensure the fair treatment of workers by company management. Despite its promised benefits to workers, union membership has decreased notably since the late 1990s. This is largely attributable to the fact that while closed shop union membership offers workers several advantages such as higher wages and better benefits, the unavoidably complex nature of the unionized employer-employee relationship means that those advantages can be largely wiped out by their potential negative impact. Wages, Benefits, and Working Conditions Pros: The process of collective bargaining empowers unions to negotiate higher wages, improved benefits and better working conditions for their members. Cons: The higher wages and enhanced benefits that often won in union collective bargaining negations can drive a business’s costs to dangerously high levels. Companies that become unable to pay the costs associated with union labor are left with options that can harm both consumers and workers. They may raise the prices of their goods or services to consumers. They may also outsource jobs to lower-paid contract workers or stop hiring new union employees, resulting in a workforce that is unable to handle the workload.   By forcing even unwilling workers to pay union dues, leaving their only option being to work somewhere else, the closed shop requirement can be viewed as an infringement of their rights. When a union’s initiation fees become so high that they effectively bar new members from joining, employers lose their privilege of hiring competent new workers or firing incompetent ones. Job Security Pros: Union employees are guaranteed a voice — and a vote — in the affairs of their workplace. The union represents and advocates for the employee in disciplinary actions, including terminations. Unions typically fight to prevent worker layoffs, hiring freezes, and permanent staff reductions, thus resulting in greater job security. Cons: The protection of union intervention often makes it hard for companies to discipline, terminate or even promote employees. Union membership can be influenced by cronyism, or a â€Å"good-old-boy† mentality. Unions ultimately decide who does and who does not become a member. Particularly in unions that accept new members only through union-approved apprenticeship programs, gaining membership can become more about â€Å"who† you know and less about ​â€Å"what† you know. Power In the Workplace Pros: Drawing from the old adage of â€Å"power in numbers,† union employees have a collective voice. In order to remain productive and profitable, companies are compelled to negotiate with employees on workplace-related issues. Of course, the ultimate example of the power of union workers is their right to halt all production through strikes. Cons: The potentially adversarial relationship between the union and management — us vs. them — creates a counterproductive environment. The combative nature of the relationship, spiked by constant threats of strikes or work slowdowns, promotes hostility and disloyalty in the workplace rather than cooperation and collaboration. Unlike their non-union counterparts, all union workers are forced to take part in strikes called by a majority vote of the membership. The result is lost income for the workers and lost profit for the company. In addition, strikes rarely enjoy public support. Especially if striking union members are already better paid than non-union workers, striking can make them appear to the public as greedy and self-serving. Finally, strikes in critical public sector agencies such as law enforcement, emergency services, and sanitation can create dangerous threats to public health and safety.

We Started Every Year Of Dixie Basketball Camp - 946 Words

â€Å"Are you fired up?!?† the General yelled. The answer, of course, was â€Å"Yes sir, fired up, sir!† This was how we started every year of Dixie Basketball Camp as we came together in the Southwest Mississippi Community College (SMCC) auditorium. It is hard to explain what the Dixie Basketball Camp is all about. Experiencing it is really the only way of knowing. Dixie teaches kids every year the value of hard work along with the fundamentals of basketball. The camp has a unique and special enthusiasm, filled with cheering and chants, many of which have continued for many years and have made Dixie one-of-a-kind. The General, Joe Dean Jr., has been running the camp for over twenty years. He inspires five hundred campers every year to work hard and sweat on the basketball court. Over the past eight years, he has served as a role model for me at the camp. The Dixie Basketball Camp has been a significant part of my life since the fourth grade; I could not help but be ups et as I drove away from the campus after my eighth and final year at the world famous Dixie Basketball Camp and Country Club, â€Å"Hey!† I was going to miss all of the enthusiasm the most. The week of Dixie has always been my favorite week of the year. I love everything about Summit, Mississippi and the fun I had there every summer. The summer before my senior year of high school was the fiftieth year of the camp and I thought to myself, â€Å"What a perfect way to end my Dixie experience!† My brother and I drove to

Role of Modern Crm Practices in Enhancing Industry-Institute free essay sample

It is a well established fact that former students, known as Alumni, play a vital role in developing and strengthening the relationship and Onondaga between the Industry and Institute. In order to study the significance, role and importance of the alumni for the development of an institute, the researchers have decided to conduct an exhaustive study for applying modern Customer Relationship Practices to have perpetual and hormonal relationship of an institute with the passed out students of B- Schools.The paper highlights the common modern practices of CRM and its applications to maintain the relationship with the passed out students and business houses. The objectives of the paper are- O To give an overview of CRM practices in modern era of our complex business world. TOT highlight the effective application methods to implement CRM Practices to maintain strong relationship with students as customers. [1 To apply CRM practices with the industrial houses who extend consultancy projects to B-Schools. COT describe the problems, challenges and obstacles faced by B-Schools in involving, developing and maintaining CRM practices with alumni, business houses, other related organizations and enterprises. C To suggest measures for enhancing CRM Practices by B-Schools. In short, it can be stated that the presented Research Paper is a capsule description of CRM Practices applied y the business school to enhance its quality of education and maintaining creativity at the rate of obsolescence.Key Words- CRM Practices, Alumni, Consultancy, Industry-Institute Interaction, a-schools Introduction The Management degree, perpetually an assured credential for progression is losing some of its luster. The reduced prospects of management courses result partly from the proliferation of management institutes in India, particularly in the State of Maharajahs. In recent years, since many management graduates have been unable to find suitable jobs, their interest in the management degree and enrollments ha ve begun to decline. There are entrance examinations conducted by various bodies for getting admissions in CITE approved Institutions for MBA courses. The Directorate of Technical Education, Maharajahs, conducts AMAH- MBA/MS-GET every year for admission to first year Of the two-year full time MBA/MS/PODGY/ PAGE Course. Generally all seats are filled after the 4th round of admission. But in year 2010 there were many vacant seats. DATE decided to conduct a 5th round for admissions. Later on, they removed the barrier of entrance test.In spite of these efforts, forty percent of the seats remained vacant. This was an alarming situation for management institutions. These are challenging times for a-schools and to compete successfully it is important to adopt best practices that can enable them to consistently interact with their diverse stakeholders in a highly personalized and professional manner. For a-schools, students and Industry are their customers. Even though CRM usage is widespread in the corporate sector, B-Schools are far behind with CRM implementation.However these problems can be resolved by maintaining a good network of alumni who are actually messengers of their respective B- schools to the outer world. Alumni are important catalysts for brand building of their institute. Currently, in the Indian context, very few institutes have strong alumni network. The use of technology for interaction and communication is missing. After completion of the course, the institute fails to keep in touch with alumni due to lack of proper channels and mechanism of interaction.This research investigates the new ways of networking alumni and their effective use in brand building of a-schools. Not only the students but also former employees, former members, industry delegates and other stakeholders of the institution can be considered as Alumni. Alumni: As change agent for enhancing quality of Education, development and employment of B-Schools. Alumnus and alumna both originated from Latin. Alumnus is a masculine noun with plural alumni and alumna is a feminine noun with plural alumnae. Educational institutions usually use alumni for graduates of both sexes.The term is also given to an individual who takes pride in his/her alma mater by influencing in various programs that will enhance the development of his/her B-School. Many Management Institutions have extended this definition to include friends of B-Schools. These are individuals who offer consultancy projects and arrange campus interviews for B-School students. Aggressive creation of dynamic partnerships across the institutions wherever there is alumni involvement could be beneficial to the institutions. Pre Alumni Pre-alumni are current students who are tomorrows alumni.It means to acknowledge the potential of those students who can later serve as the ambassadors of the institutions to the external world. It is critical for the B- School to have pre-alumni awareness. It is responsibility of the a-School to cultivate an interest in the alumni relations while they are within reach of the B-Schools. During the period of two years of the course, the institute can monastery contributions made by the alumni. This will encourage pre- alumni to contribute after their management degree. Benefits to Alumni Good alumni relations will benefit the alumni, the institutions and society at large.After getting the management degree, the former students have a number of options including ; Seeking employment ; Starting business ; Further studies Regardless of the path taken by the student, there is always opportunity to interact with the institutions where they have learnt. ; For job seekers, the institutions can provide their industry contacts for employment. Some organizations need only experienced employees. From the well maintained and updated database, the institutions can provide such experienced employees benefiting both alumni and industry. Alumni can also seek advice or opinion from faculties while facing problems during their jobs. ; Those who want to start their own business, institutions can help them by providing Human resources. ;Further studies are where there are often most interactions. The alumni may go to the same institution where they went through for further studies, seek advice on opportunities, recommendations o enable them enter programmed of studies in other institutions or endorsement of their documents. Further alumni have sustained contact with B-schools through letters, emails, and publications. They can trace old friends and fellow alumni. Benefits to the Institutions The alumni often have indoctrination regarding Institutions from their study experiences. They can therefore ;Act as B-School ambassadors. ; Provide feedback to the institutions on their programmed and therefore assist in the improvement of such programmed. ; Share knowledge and experience with pre-alumni. Serve as guests of honor and speakers at various student functions. ;Assist with job seeking for fresh graduates. Institutions can get greater student enrollments through promotional activities undertaken by alumni. ; The Institutions will be able to develop more relevant programmed through the involvement of the alumni in curriculum development and review. ; The institutions can get Turnkey Projects from alumni. The society at large The students spend only two years at management institutions, but they will spend the rest of their life contributing to the society. Good alumni relations an act as social control through peer pressure and role modeling.They can contribute to more effective human resources base to support societal development by provision of good facilities for training, Current Practices of Alumni Management in B-Schools Before advent of cellular phones and the internet, a-schools were finding it difficult to have interaction with their alumni. The alumni management program was restricted to annual social gatherings of the institution. Alumni, who have recently passed out from institutions, show an interest for a couple of years. There was hardly any help taken from the alumni.Today, Alumni Management is assigned to a faculty member, who apart from his regular duties, handle alumni database. Some enthusiastic alumni form an Alumni club, but again it is limited to dinner and is not well organized. An alumnus who has current knowledge of market is De-motivated by faculties as they are not in touch with current scenario. Faculty is busy in telling others about alumni, how he was mischievous during his tenure in the institutions. This discourages alumni in participation of alumni networking. There is inferiority complex among alumni and faculty members of the institutions. This is not good for the health of the institutions. In fact alumni could be used as competitive edge over others with effective CRM practices. Industry-Institute Interaction to Public-Private Partnership: A Journey to excellence Globalization and opening up of Indian economy to the outside world has created cut-throat competition among industries. Industry wants employees who can work right from day one in their core businesses. To solve their problems they are looking at management Institutions.Similarly, there is an urgent need to prepare management students for jobs in Macs by exposing hem to newer methods of management. These objectives can only be achieved well by bridging the gap between industry and the management institute. Management education is often criticized for following reasons ; B- Schools do little to produce future managers who are able to meet the challenges of the dynamic global business environment. ; Mambas are generally ill-prepared to cope with an increasingly diverse work force. Faculty members lack appropriate business experience, and is worried about syllabus of the University and not bothered to teach students what is applicable in real world environment ; Students are examination oriented to get mere degree of MBA and not interested in acquisition of various skill-set required to perform a job. Considering the above situation, there is need of better interaction between institutions and industry. This will have great impact on the management education curriculum, exposure of industrial atmosphere to management students and subsequent placement of young budding managers in industry across the country.To promote Industry- Institute Interaction following programs depicted below should be undertaken ; They should establish Industry- Institute partnership / interaction cell ; Invite alumni or various dignitaries working in corporate sector as well as self employed professional to share their experiences. ;Placement is not the job of only the placement department but it is job of every faculty and non faculty member. Management Institute must adopt holistic approach. ; Arrange visits of all faculty members to various industries and implement immediate changes.Industry- Institute Interaction program can be taken in various forms like problem solving, curriculum development, study visits, scholarship, apprenticeship training, and incubation center, faculty and staff exchange, hurt term training programs, onsite educational program etc. Such interaction is mutually beneficial. Implementation of CRM practices for perpetual relationship in B-Schools, alumni as well client Industry. Alumni Networking Alumni networking mean connecting with former students, former employees, former members and industry professionals to build professional relationships and gather information. According to a survey conducted by Crispin, G. Miller, M. (Feb. 2009) 70 to 90% jobs are not posted and survey of 45 large organizations suggests that most positions are filled internally by feral source. This indicates an importance of alumni management. There is an urgent need of establishing a network of alumni; it need not be expensive and the return on your investment can be considerable. Alumni associations may take various forms. In most cases, institutions leave these alumni issues entirely on voluntary associations with minimal involvement.But this type Of association fails as they are run by voluntary leaders who is employed elsewhere and may not be able to run it effectively. There is a need of support from institutions to manage these associations. Effective alumni outworking may help institutions in ; Watching career pathways of their former students and demonstrate it to pre-alumni. This will attract new potential students with increasing enrollment ratio. ; Track latest trends in the alumnis professional sphere and requirements of corporate sector. ; Continuous communication may be useful in getting corporate assignments. Institutions can make immediate changes in curriculum and get competitive advantage over others. Alumni development 1. Manage Database of Alumni- Upload list of all alumni with all necessary details like Name, qualification, Email, contact number, Industry, and type of elf he can provide to junior students or Institution etc. This data can be collected by phone, email, in person or through a web browser form. Allow alumni to create, register and update their own profile and records online. Then integrate and create custom fields as needed to meet your specific data requirement.Data integrity should be preserved and grant individual and/ or role based system access with granular permission settings for viewing or updating selected sets of records. The reports and queries should be generated real time. 2. Communicate with Alumni- First stage of immunization with alumni is to determine the long term and short term goals. Then identify profile of target audience and what are their media habits. Then concentrate on message which should be closely tied with your goals and audience. The message should be relevant, showing importance, urgency or magnitude of goals.Personalize your messages using individual merge fields from your alumni records. Then track open rates, bounce rates, and click rates on email campaigns. 3. Alumni networking- Develop alumni network with the help Of electronic media. As young generation is comfortable in responding emails, Isms, use their habits judiciously. An alumni newsletter is not the only way to communicate with alumni. Ask them for visiting lectures to share their experiences with pre-alumni. This will motivate them to be in contact with institutions. The current popularity of Backbone is remarkable. Encourage alumni to use Backbone for interaction. 4. Manage Alumni Events- Regular alumni events, whether big or small, must be arranged so that the alumni also interact with each other and help the institute to achieve its goals. Also, the alumni can help the institute with their practical suggestions so that the alumni event is a success. Recommendations- Establish separate cell in the institute to handle Institute- Industry Interaction program, Alumni Management along with the Placement cell.In fact all these three activities can be integrated in one department or cell. ; Communicate the role and purpose of new department of the institute to all alumni, faculty, staff members and other stakeholders. ; Implement new systems and processes for alumni networking and Industry- Institute Interaction program. ; Introduce additional activities apart from traditional activities. Also use various methods of communications. ; Identify areas for review in alumni relations provisions. Maintain high and measurable level of productivity and responsiveness. Invest more in its long term relations with alumni and pre-alumni. Conclusion Good dynamic relations with alumni, pre-alumni, Industry and other stakeholders may help management institutions in satisfying their students . CRM practices can be implemented effectively in B-Schools. CRM is not just for teaching but also using it to enhance the quality of education and serving society at large. The activities like alumni management, Industry- Institute interaction program, and Placement cell if integrated in one department can e useful and meaningful to the institutions.