Maintaining a Union Free Work Environment - Admission/Application Essay Example

In the workplace employees are always in need to communicate their ideas, views and air their grievances to others and to the management. The channels available to do this and especially communicating with the management are either to approach the relevant authority in person or have a mediator whereby in most cases is a representative of the workplace trade union. However, there are inherent problems that are with union characterized workplaces that make some work environments or companies develop a better approach to managing the workforce without necessarily having a union to mediate between the management and the employees (Machin 2002). For a company to maintain a union free workforce various issues need to be considered and some practiced. This paper seeks to elaborate on how to maintain a union free workplace for organizations. As indicated above unions are known to have inherent disadvantages that make them unpopular in workplaces. One of them is that they lead to unemployment in situations where the labor market is a competitive one. The reason for this is that they usually lobby for higher and higher wages making organizations reduce their employment rate as the salary and wages expenses and allowances would be huge with a slight addition of members of staff. Trade unions are known to cause strikes if their propositions are not matched by management and this in both short and long term end up leading to losses in revenue to the organization and ultimately may lead to loss of jobs. Powerful workplace unions are known to cripple organizations and even nations by their ever increasing demands for higher pay and benefits for the employees. A good example is UK which faced a significant inflation rate of 27 percent back in 1979 after the country’s unions increasingly bargained for wages higher than the prevailing inflation rates (Machin 2002). Because of these and more workplace unions have become unpopular in some organizations and they have adopted workplace free from these unions although it is a challenge to maintain such a situation. In order to maintain union free workplace the leadership and more so the supervisors are to have good communication skills to start with. This is essential as many problems faced by employees and those that can create problems are better solved through discussions. The leadership should also be good in listening to the various employees’ views and suggestions and discuss them accordingly without bias (Machin 2002). This in an ideal workplace is quite practical as employees feel that their concerns are being catered for. The employer must come up with various rules and regulations that govern workplace procedures and the hierarchy of authority. This creates the channel through which suggestions and comments can be aired and outlines the conduct expected of employees. This should be coupled with the various rewards and repercussions for excellence and unacceptable conduct respectively. It important to note here that rewards as well as disciplinary measures outlines need to be seen to be fair and just failure to which problems will develop. The employees’ health and safety should be well catered for in relation to insurance benefits and safe workplace environment and where safety is inherently lacking then the employer should provide it. A good example is a media company sending journalists in war torn regions. Here the employer should ensure the security of the journalists by for example hiring security escorts. A rather simple example is providing workers with protective gear where required e.g. in the construction industry. Remuneration is one of the key areas that yield disputes between the employees and their employers. It is therefore important to have a package that is adequately compensating the work done while considering the market rates for such jobs using surveys (Machin 2002). It is important also on the same breath for the employer to come up with a clear compensation plan that details the salary scale and rates as well as allowances. This enhances clear debate as to whether an increment is due and at what point it should fall. In the events of hiring, firing, promotions and demotions, clear guidelines should be available for everyone so as to ensure transparency in these processes. It is a common scenario to have complains on all these where bias is the immediate culprit. This can be well avoided when these programs have clearly laid out guidelines. Employers need to embrace the above points and adopt more that suit their organizational contexts. Dealing with employees is not an easy assignment but it is an inevitable one for an organization making it all the more necessary to have a defined way of dealing with them in crisis and in good times. Using the above guideline an employer will be able to efficiently maintain union free workplace. Works cited Machin, Stephen. Union decline in Britain. British Journal of Industrial Relations. 2002. Vol 38 (4). 631-645. Read More