What’s your Labor Affiliation?

Unions, Works Councils, Collective Bargaining Agreements, Employment Contracts all represent the rights of the worker.  Traditionally, in the US, we find Unions primarily in manual labor positions unlike in the rest of the world where we find labor representatives in knowledge worker positions as well.   As a result, we have seen a decline in the US of union membership over the past 50 years. 

The Bureau of Labor Statistics released its annual summary of unionization in the US and stated that members of unions were at 11.3% - no change from the previous year.  After the decline from 11.8% in 2011 due to changes in the collection of union dues in many states.   It is important to note, in the US, members of unions represented 30% of the working population fifty years ago.   What does this really mean for Unions and Union jobs looking forward?  

Potentially a little grim for those in Chattanooga working for VW.  VW’s global works council has indicated that they will not expand their US plant unless there is more support for unionization – according to this Financial Times article.  The United Auto Workers union is trying to use this situation to try to unionize other foreign owned car plants but not certain of their success.   President Obama is also getting involved accusing Republicans of trying to block workforce efforts.  If we base our analysis on the trend, it is obvious – there is a decline.   However, as global labor representation increases – what does this mean for the future of union workers in the US?  We will be able to see soon based on what happens in Chattanooga. 

But what does this mean for HR and how we manage our workers?

Ultimately, HR must support rules driven processing based on individually or bargaining unit negotiated terms.    Organizations with Unions or Works Councils will also have workers not associated with those bargaining units.  As a result, the rules should be tied to the worker directly as well as other attributes such as affiliation, location, job, level or other.  In addition, those rules must be dynamic in order to remain competitive for affiliated and non-affiliated workers.    Rules for processing should be regarded as best practice for all employees and should not be restricted to union or works council affiliated workers only.   Rules should be defined to guide or restrict processing.    

As organizations globalize their strategies, transforming the extent of their rules definitions and standards are critical to the management of their fully optimized global workforce.