1. There's no federal constitutional right involved, so when it comes to public employees, it's up to each state. In 1935, when Congress passed the National Labor Relations Act, private employees have had the legal right to unionize and bargain collectively. But that law left to individual states the decision of whether to give the same right to their public employees. Most states did so. The 45 states, including Wisconsin, laws specify which issues can be subject to bargaining, such as pay, benefits, hours, and tenure. The other five states -- Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Texas, and Virginia -- prohibit collective bargaining by any public employees. Teachers, firefighters and police doe have collective bargaining rights. As an elected official, I know that we have to deal with Civil Service laws that do protect some workers.
State and local government employees do not have the same rights because State legislative laws oversee wages, hours worked, terms of employment and working conditions. As per National League of Cities vs. Usery states the state has sovereignty over its own employees and denied that the commerce power of the federal government could be invoked to regulate that relationship.
2. After reading the case I think that the mine did what it needed to do to keep its cost low and the profits high at the time. Employees knew that the mine was nonunion and wished to remain that way so when they took the job they knew the status.
3. I feel that the union felt they were being fair to the employees by offering them coverage and protection of the union but the employees there knew what the intention of the mine was, to be nonunion, so the union should have backed away. These employees were not forced to work at Hitchman, they chose to do so. I did not see where the union threatened the miners or tried coercion, so I would say the union was playing both sides.
4. Based on the language of the NLRB decision, I would say no. The text says that each site has its own plant managers that oversee daily operations and they are located in separate area geographically. It states each site is run independently of the other. True personnel policies are set by a central office but hiring, hours of work, wages, and labor activities are handled independently.
5. I would say yes it is an appropriate unit to be set as a single bargaining unit. Based on location, amount of employees and operation.
6. I would combine them for the appropriate bargaining units as follows:
Outside and Inside sales
Maintenance workers and Janitorial workers
Security guards
Clerical workers
Assembly line workers and truckers
I do not think I can list professional employees because the text does not state if the majority of professional employees has been approved.
7. I would agree because the employee was summoned for only one reason and that was how to stop the union. There was a definite threat of terminating the supervisor who was supposedly disliked by the employees. These are all violations by the company and the plant manager.
8. Based on the text, I do feel that he thought he could stop the union if he terminated the supervisor who was causing the problems. It is evident that he felt he could stop the union otherwise he had no reason to speak with the employee.
9. It was relevant in showing that there was not a detailed description of job content and the use of fiberglass was used throughout the company. Based on that knowledge the arbitrator had to look at who used, handled, or worked with fiberglass and were they all classified as Hand Pack Insulators.
10. Yes I do agree because other employees throughout the company worked with fiberglass and they were not reclassified to Hand Pack Insulators. The management utilized the rights clause and made changes necessary to the production and operation of their facility.
11. In my opinion, the company made a business strategic move that was