Collective Bargaining Rights

 

 

Collective bargaining is the process in which working people, through their unions, negotiate contracts with their employers to determine their terms of employment, including pay, benefits, hours, leave, job health and safety policies, ways to balance work and family and more. Collective bargaining is a way to solve workplace problems.

Collective Bargaining Rights

 

Collective bargaining is the process in which working people, through their unions, negotiate contracts with their employers to determine their terms of employment, including pay, benefits, hours, leave, job health and safety policies, ways to balance work and family and more. Collective bargaining is a way to solve workplace problems.

 

Congress Encourages Collective Bargaining Rights for Workers

 

Below is the exact wording from the National Labor Relations Act

 

It is declared to be the policy of the United States to eliminate the causes of certain substantial obstructions to the free flow of commerce and to mitigate and eliminate these obstructions when they have occurred by encouraging the practice and procedure of collective bargaining and by protecting the exercise by workers of full freedom of association, self- organization, and designation of representatives of their own choosing, for the purpose of negotiating the terms and conditions of their employment or other mutual aid or protection.

 

Notice of Bargaining Obligation NLRB

 

Management and Union Rights and Obligaions in Collective Bargaining

 

Employee Rights Under the National Labor Relations Act

 

Labor and Employment Law Seminar Private Sector Bargaining

 

Federal Labor Laws The Duty to Bargain

 

Guidance on the Impact of Collective Bargaining Agreements on the Duty to Bargain and the Exercise of Other Statutory Rights

 

The Union Difference

 

Union members earn better wages and benefits than workers who aren’t union members. On average, union workers’ wages are 27 percent higher than their nonunion counterparts.
 
Unionized workers are 60 percent more likely to have employer-provided pensions.
 
More than 85 percent of union workers have jobs that provide health insurance benefits, but only 54 percent of nonunion workers do. Unions help employers create a more stable, productive workforce—where workers have a say in improving their jobs.
 
Unions help bring workers out of poverty and into the middle class. In fact, in states where workers don’t have union rights, workers’ incomes are lower.

 

As the charts illustrate, 88 percent of workers in unions participate in pension plans versus 49 percent of nonunion workers. Seventy-seven percent of union workers have guaranteed pensions, compared with 17 percent of nonunion workers. Roughly 84 percent of workers in unions have paid sick leave compared with 62 percent of nonunion workers.

 

In states that have laws restricting workers' rights to form strong unions, the average pay for all workers is lower. So-called right to work for less laws that limit workers' rights to collectively bargain contracts (including wages and benefits) are a bad deal for all workers. In 2010, average pay in so-called right to work states was 14 percent lower than in states where workers have the freedom to form strong unions.

Unions are about a simple proposition: By joining together, working women and men gain strength in numbers so they can have a voice at work about what they care about. They negotiate a contract with their employer for things like a fair and safe workplace, better wages, a secure retirement and family-friendly policies such as paid sick leave and scheduling hours. They have a voice in how their jobs get done, creating a more stable, productive workforce that provides better services and products. Always adapting to the challenges of our nation’s evolving workforce, unions are meeting the needs of workers in today’s flexible and nontraditional work environments. Because no matter what type of job workers are in, by building power in unions, they can speak out for fairness for all working people in their communities and create better standards and a strong middle class across the country.