Now, if you're a union,
what is your leverage to get your way when you're negotiating with management.
Well, the answer is that your primary lever is the threat of not working.
This is obviously risky because,
if you don't work, you can lose your job.
Well, we're going to talk about that in this lecture,
and some related issues.
So, strikes and picketing are really the two most common types of labor actions,
mostly strikes, picketing comes after striking most of the time.
So, what a strike is just a work stoppage by the employees,
and what picketing is is employees or others, you've seen on TV right.
Holding up signs, marching in front of the workplace.
This is a public relations matter to try and get
people on your side and against the employer.
Strikes are allowed in various instances,
but as a general rule,
the union must give the employer 60 days notice before they strike,
and this 60 day period is called the cooling-off period,
and you're not allowed to engage in a strike during the cooling off period.
Is meant to give the negotiators and
both sides more incentive to get this thing figured out,
because they know that the clock is now ticking,
and the other time you're not allowed to strike is if in
your collective bargaining agreement,
you have a no strike clause.
If you strike when you have a no strike clause in your CBA,
this is an unlawful strike or an illegal strike,
and there are consequences for that.
We'll, discuss those in just a moment.
So, there are a number of different types of strikes that employees can engage in,
and depending on the reason for the strike,
there are different consequences that come as a result.
So, the first type of strike is what's called an economic strike.
This is very common.
This is when the union and the employer are engaged in negotiations,
and it's very contentious a lot of the time, and so,
the employees as a way to influence that negotiation engage in a strike.
So, the employer says" We don't want to pay you this much," and
the unionized employees say,"Fine we just won't work at all."
This is trying to influence the bargaining process.
Now, in an economic strike,
the employer is not allowed to permanently terminate the striking employees,
but the employer is also not obligated to give them their old jobs back,
and if they hire replacement workers and there
aren't jobs for those striking workers when the strike ends,
the employer actually in many instances can lay
off a striking worker until a new job is available.
Can't permanently terminate them,
but they can't take some other actions against them.
Now, contrast that with an unfair labor practice strike.
This is not a strike to influence negotiations,
instead this is a strike to protest some violation of labor laws.
When this happens, and these are not as common,
but when they do happen,
the workers are entitled to get their old jobs back immediately once the strike ends.
Next type of a strike is what's called a sympathy strike.
So, this is when a group of
employees goes on strike not because of something that happened to them,
but because something happened to
somebody else and they want to stand in solidarity with them.
So, if you work at a hospital and the nurses go on strike,
maybe the doctors say we're going on strike too as
a sympathy strike to put more pressure on management to
engage in finding a settlement with the nurses who are in this bargaining process.
A partial strike is when bargaining unit goes on strike maybe one day a week,
or just for a morning or an afternoon or something like this.
Now, you've got to be really careful with partial strikes.
If you call a one day strike and your employer knows you're going back to work
after one day and you won't be striking again in the near future,
that's usually all right.
But, if you do partial strikes such that it
disrupts your employer's ability to carry on its business,
this can be an illegal strike.
So, you really careful if you try to pull off a partial strike,
and then finally, not really a strike,
but similar to a strike is what is called a sickout.
A sickout is exactly what it sounds like,
it's a coordinated effort of employees to call in sick.
Now, you might say why would this ever happened? Why should it go on strike?
Well, some workers are not legally allowed to go on strike ever.
Like police are usually not allowed to go on strike.
Why? As a society we think it's
probably good to have police out there patrolling the streets.
So, we just have a law that says you can't go on strike.
But, what if police are negotiating a contract and they're not happy with it.
Well, they can do a sickout.
Now, sickouts can be illegal or illegal depending on what motivates the sickout.
If it's economically motivated like we want a better contract with more money,
a sickout would generally be illegal,
and the workers could suffer
consequences including termination for engaging in a sickout.
But if the sickout is to make a political statement;
protest an unfair labor practice,
some other political statement,
the courts have held that this is actually protected free speech and
employers are not allowed to take consequences
against employees engaging in a sickout because of that.
From the employer perspective,
your employees are striking,
your business is shut down, what can you do?
Well, the first and easiest thing is to ask your employees not to strike,
and ask employees to break
the strike if a strike actually occurs, and this happens a lot.
The employer will send a message to all the employees saying "Hey.
I know there's a strike called,
but please come into work anyway.
Maybe we'll treat you extra nicely, we'll bring donuts, who knows."
So, you can ask the employees to be strikebreakers.
If that doesn't work enough to get your people to keep your business running,
you can actually hire replacement workers.
Professional baseball is famous for hiring
replacement players for a season when the actual players were on strike.
You can imagine the quality of games was perhaps not as great.
So, it depends on what your industry is whether this works well for you or not,
but employers do have the right to hire replacement workers.
They have to cross that picket line.
So, some people might not want to do that or might actually be afraid to do it.
So, that's one challenge of hiring replacement workers.
Now, the big question for the employer is,
"Can I fire these no good Nicks who are out there striking? "
And as a general rule,
if the strike is illegal or unlawful, yes.
Employers can fire those striking employees.
But otherwise, if the strike is lawful,
the employer cannot fire them,
but usually don't have the obligation to return them to their old positions.
So, it's a give and take for employers in that situation.
Professor Michael R FrickeTeaching Assistant Professor
