Collective Bargaining - Protective Services - Research Paper Example

In addition, if military members, or any government employee, petitioned for higher pay, a wage increase relates directly to an increase in taxes. Although members of the military deserve equal collective bargaining rights as private sector employees, granting said rights creates adverse economic and political implications. Collective bargaining incorporates negotiations between an employer and an employee in order to create satisfactory working conditions for the employee within the employer’s means.

The agreements made through collective bargaining include working hours, payment, working conditions, and union procedures (Congressional Digest 2003). In the United States, the National Labor Relations Act or Wagner Act covers the collective bargaining rights and procedures of most private sector employment. . create collective bargaining rights for certain public and government employees, however, no constitutional act exists to protect the labor rights of the members of the United States military.

For example, the Labor Management Reporting and Disclosure Act (LMRDA) provides labor rights for most public sector employees including postal workers and those covered by the Railway Labor Act which covers railway and airline workers (US Department of Labor 2011). While some may argue that the inability to collective bargaining is a breach of military members rights, there are economic and political implications that gravely hinder the ability to easily grant said rights. Recently several states have begun to discuss limiting the collective bargaining rights of their public employees in order to increase revenue and appease the national deficit.

Protests continue in these states in response to the abolishment of rights (Wisniewski 2011). Nevertheless, the recent collective bargaining legislation changes portray the economic implications of granting said rights to government employees. All government employees, including members of the military, are paid through tax money. If military members were given the right to collective bargaining and asked for an increase in pay, it would subsequently mean an increase in taxes for citizens. Such economic consequences hinder the accessibility to grant military members collective bargaining rights.

In addition, several political circumstances prevent members of the military to have rights to collective bargaining. According to article 1 section 8 of the United States Constitution, members of the military abide by a different set of rules known as the Uniform Code of Military Justice: "The Congress shall have Power . . . To make Rules for