Prepare for Collective Bargaining

I don't need a answer from this text book, i need a answer as given here is the question

For each situation, do you believe that the union or the employer has the stronger negotiating position? Explain why.

From the Arizona Tribune (Phoenix, Arizona): Page 264 USW-led Coalition to Bargain in Copper Industrywide Strike Feared with New Bargaining Structure

SALT LAKE CITY, UT; March 16, 1967. Twenty-six unions have been meeting this week to hammer out plans for negotiating as a coalition against the copper industry when the major union contracts expire this summer. The coalition has been named the Non-Ferrous Industry Conference (NIC) and is being led by the United Steelworkers of America (USW), with significant assistance from the AFLCIOs Industrial Union Department (IUD). Tomorrow the coalition members will vote on the NICs bargaining goals, a 38-page booklet some have dubbed Heaven in 67.

The coalition's main goal, however, is no secret: industrywide uniformity in collective bargaining agreements covering the Big Four copper companies' mining, manufacturing, and refining operations in the United States and Canada covering over 60,000 workers at 73 locations. A USW spokesperson said the two primary objectives are companywide master agreements and simultaneous expiration dates across the industry. This outcome would be a drastic departure from traditional copper bargaining. For example, in previous negotiations at Phelps Dodge, the second largest domestic copper producer with 15,000 employees nationally, management has agreed to similar contracts for its four Arizona mining properties, including milling and smelting operations, but separate negotiations have always been the rule for its refinery and fabrication operations located throughout the United States.

The 26 unions participating in the NIC are quite diverse and observers of the labor movement are watching with keen interest to see if the alliance holds. The diversity stems from copper's history of decentralized bargaining and representation. The USW primarily represents unskilled mine employees and mill and smelter production employees. The Operating Engineers represent power shovel operators, the Teamsters and various railroad craft unions represent workers who haul mined ore to mills, and numerous craft unions represent mill and smelter maintenance workers. The Auto Workers and other industrial unions represent myriad workers in copper refining and fabrication.

To explain the existing union solidarity in the NIC, experts point to 12 years of a united AFLCIO and perhaps more importantly, to the recently finalized USW merger plans with the Mine, Mill, and Smelter Workers, or Mine-Mill. Mine-Mill has been plagued by Communist influences for two decades. The USW has been trying to raid Mine-Mill locals around the country for 15 years, but very rarely with success. Last year, a Supreme Court ruling reversed convictions against Mine-Mill leaders for allegedly lying on anticommunist oaths and in January, 40,000 Mine-Mill workers agreed

to join the million-member USW. A majority of workers in copper now belong to the USW and it comes as no surprise that the USW is leading the NIC. According to conference participants, Joseph Molony, a USW vice president, is likely to be named chief negotiator for the NIC. Some of the other 25 unions, however, are nervous that USW attention will be diverted once steel negotiations begin. Steel contracts expire next summer.

The Johnson administration has publicly declined comment; insiders say that Defense Secretary Robert McNamara and Treasury Secretary Henry Fowler will be kept apprised of developments at the bargaining table when talks begin next month. Armed conflict in Vietnam continues to increase and labor experts are certain that any strike would be on an industrywide basis. The IUD appears determined to bring stability to copper bargaining via industrywide bargaininga stance likely to require an industrywide strike, says Jim Scoville, assistant professor of economics at Harvard University. Such a strike, sources say, could have negative implications for the war effort and for the country's balance of payments. The TaftHartley Act gives the president powers to force an 80-day cooling-off period for national emergency strikes, but no one knows whether Johnson would invoke these powers if there was an industrywide strike.

Coincidentally, governors from five western states have been meeting in Phoenix this week to discuss matters of mutual concern. The governors unanimously endorsed a statement calling for productive negotiations between the unions and the copper industry. The Arizona governor is particularly apprehensive due to coppers importance to the state economy. Roughly 60 percent of U.S. copper comes from Arizona and 10 percent of earnings in Arizona comes from copper employment.

Copper prices have been rising for most of the decade, but industry analysts caution that new deposits of copper have recently been discovered in Africa and South America. Currently, imports amount to 5 percent of U.S. consumption. The Big Four copper companies targeted by the NIC account for nearly 90 percent of all U.S. copper mining, smelting, and refining. The Big Four are all engaged primarily in the nonferrous metals industry with little diversification. Phelps Dodge, in particular, is known for being self-financing and rarely borrows capital on the open market. An IUD spokesperson estimates that military-related U.S. copper consumption will amount to 600 million pounds in 1967, or enough to build more than 15 million cars. Sources at the Pentagon say that the government is considering a 10 percent set aside of all U.S. copper production for defense purposes. Several professors call this proposal previously unheard of.

From the New York Journal (New York, New York): Page 265 Phelps Dodge, Copper Unions Open Talks

1982 Losses, Kennecott Settlement Seen as Complicating Factors

NEW YORK, NY; May 4, 1983. Negotiations over new collective bargaining agreements between copper producer Phelps Dodge and 13 unions began today in Phoenix. Phelps Dodge lost $74 million in 1982 as the worst recession since the 1930s shut down automobile factories and new constructioncoppers biggest customers. Industry analysts disagree about whether copper prices will rebound any time soon. While negotiators refused comment, Phelps Dodge is reportedly seeking $2 per hour wage cuts, an end to cost-of-living adjustments (COLA), and benefits reductions. Industry leader and SOHIO subsidiary Kennecott, however, surprised the industry last month by agreeing to a new contract containing only minor benefits concessions. The Kennecott settlement, which preserves wage rates and the COLA clause, dropped a bombshell on the industry says George Hildebrand, a labor relations expert at Cornell University.

The 13 unions have joined forces as the Unity Council and are jointly negotiating contracts covering 2000 workers at Phelps Dodges remote Arizona properties in Morenci, Ajo, Douglas, and Bisbee. Union contracts for Phelps Dodge's Tyrone, New Mexico mine, mill, and smelter complex expire next year. The Unity Council dates back to 1967 when the unions attempt to impose industrywide contracts failed. Since that time, the copper unions have followed a practice known as pattern bargaining in which the first settlement in each bargaining round sets the pattern for subsequent negotiations. Consequently, settlements every three years at Phelps Dodge have followed the pattern set at Kennecott or Anaconda, but only after a strike each time. In the last bargaining round, Phelps Dodge withstood a 90-day strike before conceding to the unions demands. Pattern bargaining and COLAs yielded an annual wage increase of roughly 15 percent in the 1970s, according to Phelps Dodge.

In spite of these successes in the 1970s, observers argue that these are tough times for organized labor. President Reagan is widely believed to be unsympathetic, if not openly hostile, toward labor unions as illustrated by his appointments to the National Labor Relations Board and the firing of the air traffic controllers in 1981. Unions represent a smaller fraction of the workforce than at any other time since World War II and employers are trying to bust unions like never before says an AFLCIO spokesperson. Organized labor has also criticized the Reagan administrations inflation-fighting tight monetary policy and the increased taxation of unemployment insurance benefits.

Labor is also fearful of a Supreme Court decision in Belknap v. Hale, which is expected some time this summer. A Kentucky court of appeals ruled that an employer who told new employees who were replacing striking workers that they were permanent could not discharge the replacements to make room for returning strikers without committing a breach of contract. Labor worries that the Supreme Court will affirm this ruling. Management has had the right to replace striking workers during a labor dispute since the 1938 Mackay ruling.

The copper industry has its own worries. Copper imports now account for over 20 percent of domestic consumptionand much of the imported copper is from state-owned mines in places like Chile and Zambia. Even after last month's modest copper price increase to 70 per pound, Phelps Dodge loses 10 on every pound of copper it produces. In addition to Phelps Dodges $74 million loss for 1982, Anaconda lost $332 million, Kennecott $189 million, and ASARCO $38 million. According to industry insiders, however, Phelps Dodge is very close to introducing a new solvent extraction-electrowinning process which drastically reduces production costs, eliminates the need for smelting, and makes it cost-effective to extract copper from low-grade ore previously considered waste. Phelps Dodge's Douglas smelter employs 300 people and is the nations largest polluter of sulfur dioxide.

The Unity Council is being led by the Steelworkers union (USW) a majority of Arizona miners. The Unity Council is following the broader industry goals established by the Nonferrous Industry Committee led by USW vice-president Frank McKee. McKee, 62, has publicly denounced the concession bargaining that has occurred in other industries, notably autos. His name is commonly mentioned as a possible successor to USW president Lloyd McBride who is seriously ill. George Seltzer, professor of industrial relations at the University of Minnesota, describes McKee as a hard-line, bread-and-butter unionist.

The growing metropolis of Phoenix with its growing base of emerging companies is an odd setting for a classic Western standoff. But from Wall Street to Main Street Morenci, Arizona, where miners were laid off for six months last year and only two-thirds have returned to work, many eyes are focused on the negotiating table at a Phoenix hotel. Unlike many in the United States, the aging Morenci Miners, as they are known locally, have a strong understanding of history, but so, too, does Phelps Dodge.

Ethics in Action Is Bluffing Ethical? Page 266

A classic Harvard Business Review article argued that business is like a poker game. Because bluffing is a well- known part of both poker and business that everyone does to win, bluffing is ethically acceptable. This theme has been taken up in discussions over labor negotiations often with the same conclusions: Bluffing is part of the game and is therefore harmless because (a) everyone does it and (b) you need to protect yourself against the bluffing of others.

But not everyone agrees; critics emphasize the true nature of bluffing. Dont confuse bluffing with asking for a generous settlement. Opening a negotiation by asking for a 10 percent wage increase and then making compromises is not bluffingthis is readjusting your expectations after seeing the other sides resistance. Bluffing involves inten- tional deception. An employer claims it has replacement

workers already lined up to continue production if the regular employees strike, but it doesnt. A union claims that the employees will strike if the employer insists on any health insurance co-pays, though it knows they wont. These types of deceptions are what bluffing is about.

On pages 264 - 266 there are three fictitious newspaper articles about upcoming contract negotiations between employers and unions in the mining industry in different years (please note the dates of each article). The articles are based on fact, but are embellished for teaching purposes.

For each situation, do you believe that the union or the employer has the stronger negotiating position? Explain why.

Please limit your answer to one or two sentences for each year - this is intended as a brief exercise [3 points]. If you feel that you need more information, explain what information you would like to know (you do not need to find the answers, just what information you want to know).

Please this is a last work for Labor Relation

I don't need a answer from this text book, i need a answer as given here is the question

For each situation, do you believe that the union or the employer has the stronger negotiating position? Explain why.

Thank You!