Moving Beyond The Critical Synthesis Summary

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Article Reviewed: Hurd, R. W. (2013). Moving beyond the critical synthesis: does the law preclude a future for US unions? Labor History, 54(2), 193-200. doi:10.1080/0023656X.2013.773147. The article, “Moving beyond the critical synthesis: does the law preclude a future for US unions?”, by Hurd, R.W. seeks to give a better understanding of how certain laws limit or restrict unions from being effective. Unions have been around for decades, but with new laws essentially being passed, unions are restricted on what they actual want to accomplish. This article details the decline of unions as a result of those specific laws and how unions will continue to suffer in the future. The author wanted to show how laws and certain boards that are formed …show more content…

Better wages, work environment, and hours available to work are what most unions fight corporations over. These three things take their toll on employee morale as people need to work to provide for their family, but a safe and efficient work environment with decant wages is significantly high on the priority list. There are two bargaining strategies, distributive bargaining and interest-based bargaining (IBB). Distributive bargaining is defined as a negotiation process that has the goal of coming to an agreement over how resources should be allocated. IBB is a mutual gains or win-win approach that looks for logical trade-offs and is referred to as an expanded-pie approach (Study Guide …show more content…

In this situation either the employer or employee will have positive gains. For one to be successful the other has to lose significantly. The goal of distributive bargaining is to get as much of the limited resources for your side as possible. For example, if the union wins higher wages and better healthcare, company executives and shareholders will see decreased wages and benefits. IBB is when both sides can garner wins, but not at the expense of the other side. IBB allows both sides to come away with positive gains in many cases but everything that was negotiated may not have been achieved. When using the IBB to negotiate there must be a list of topics to discuss, otherwise there will be one side walking away