Collective bargaining and the right to strike are discussed in detail. Though precedent-setting has made the processes of collective bargaining more and more predictable, collective bargaining does not always have a smooth flow many things may happen that prevent both sides from keeping the process from moving. In the USA three things can happen when an impasse develops.
- Conciliation or mediation
- A strike or a lockout
- Arbitration
In India and Sri Lanka, impasses more often lead to strikes than the other two options. However, trends in recent recessionary times have shown a greater willingness on both sides to resort to the other two options.
The Canadian Oxford dictionary defines a strike as an organized refusal by employees to work until some grievance is remedied.
Such a withdrawal of service to the employer can be triggered by a variety of causes and circumstances, In the US, a series of distinctions are made, as follows:
The Right to Strike
1. Contract strike – This occurs when management and the union cannot agree on the terms of a new contract. In the USA more than 90% of the strikes are contract strikes.
2. Grievance strike – This occurs when the union disagrees with how management interprets the contract or handles day-to-day problems such as discipline. These are usually prohibited by about 95% of the contracts in the USA but occur frequently in some specific industries.
3. Jurisdictional strike – This takes place when two or more unions disagree on which jobs should be organized by each union. The Taft-Hartley Act gives the NLRB power to settle these issues unions also have their own methods of settling them.
4. Recognition strike – This occurs as a strategy to force an employer to accept the union. Only 1% of strikes in the US are in this category.
5. Political strike – This takes place to influence government policy extremely rare in the USA.
6. Economic strike – This lake’s place when employee/union demands on wages, working hours, and terms and conditions of employment are not met.
7. Wildcat strike – This is a quick, sudden and unauthorized stoppage of wet and is illegal.
8. Sit-down strike – In this type of action, employees get to their places/points of work but refuse to work.
9. Sympathy strike – In this, employees or the union is not connected with the dispute, but strike in order to show their solidarity with the striking union. In the USA such a strike is illegal under the Taft-Hartley Act.
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