HRM PA533 Collective Bargaining Case Study

Collective Bargaining Case Study

HRM/PA533

Collective Bargaining Case Study

Sunbelt City as recently hired a new City manager. This Case Study will describe the PBA (Police Benevolent Association) union and the tag and pull situation between the city’s management and union. The case study elaborates on the negotiation process and alternatives for improved pay, and benefits that develops an unpleasant relationship between the management and the union, which will result in various debates and disagreements. Every collective bargaining process will include hard work, perfect execution, and a lot of persuasion to gain votes.

First, this paper will discuss the relationship like between city management and the unions and identify any problem amongst the groups. Second, this paper will discuss what the collective bargaining process, analyze what was effective in the process, and analyze the options associated with the case study. Third, this paper will identify what were some of the challenges faced to reaching an agreement and discuss if these challenges were normal. Last, this paper will identify what personal and public factors must be considered when determining which course of action to take.

Management and Union Relationship

The unions and city’s management relationship seemed to be unsecure and adverse, because of the outcomes in the negotiation process where the city management were involved with the city’s solid waste and public works services. The city’s willingness to shift in the direction of privatization or outsourcing to hire new employees, would replace the unsatisfied employees was considered a threat. Therefore, the PBA (Police Benevolent Association) union became worry that the association would encounter an unpleasant situation. Indeed, this type of situation caused various problems within the relationship between the city’s management and the PBA (Police Benevolent Association) union.

The city is prepared to bargain hard with the union regarding the new contract. The public sector was threatened with privatization and outsourcing and hiring new employees because this has been done many times before (Klingner, Nalbandian, & Liorens, 2010).

In this instance, one is able to distinguish the relationship between the city management and unions in the public sector. The city management strived to negotiate the terms for the public service pay and benefits increase. However, the PBA (Police Benevolent Association) union wants to renegotiate the terms of the city’s council efforts to make service cuts and lower the budget. This moved by city management would threaten the union, because the method of outsourcing the services to third party security companies that use retired police and correctional officers or rent-a-cop security guards instead of sworn officers to protect the public. This shift to privatization would cause more scrutiny to the PBA (Police Benevolent Association) union from the perspective of the department’s employees.

Collective Bargaining History and Process

Collective bargaining is the process in which working people, through their unions, negotiate contracts with their employers to determine their terms of employment, including pay, benefits, hours, leave, job health and safety policies, ways to balance work and family and more. Collective bargaining is a way to solve workplace problems ( AFLCIO, n.d).

Collective bargaining started to be used in the 1950s by public employees, with Wisconsin being the first state to adopt it. Between 1955 and 1965 10 states adopted collective bargaining. New York Mayor Robert Wagner was the first public officials to promise legalize public sector unions in return for their vote for office (Ballotpedia, n.d).

The collective bargaining process in this situation between the city management and PBA (Police Benevolent Association) union was considered to be a very rocky process. The two parties proposed various negotiation terms in efforts to push their own independent agendas that would affect them and their stakeholders directly and indirectly.

Although, the process was very unpleasant for both parties, the city management found favor with the proposal that was presented to the city council members. The city council members were enthusiastic about the presented proposal to reduce the city budget and hard bargaining the salary and fringe benefits with the union. This proposal included the outsourcing strategy to renegotiate the contracts of the city’s solid waste and public workers that would change how the department is operated. This proposal extend the work hours of the public work employees, which protected the salaries and benefits of current employees, but would require new employees to start at a lower salary.

However, the process was effective in some ways but it could have gone much smoother. There were no other options that would be ideal for the situation. Hard bargaining with the union was the best choice by the city management, because it was the less risky compared to the option of outsourcing the law enforcement services to security companies and civilians.

Challenges

The primary challenges of collective bargaining pertains to ensuring that the principals of both parties agree to the settlement, ensuring that the process addresses core issues, and ensuring the relevance of the settlement in a fast paced business environment that demands constant change. The primary challenges of collective bargaining lies in ensuring “collectivity.” The collective bargaining takes place with a group of negotiators representing the management on one side, and another group representing the workers, usually the trade union, on the other side (Ballotpedia, n.d).

In this instance, a new council member suggests that use the same strategy when renegotiating the contract with the PBA (Police Benevolent Association) union for the renewal of a contract that is to come within the same later that year. This could possibly create a problem for the city management, because hard bargaining the terms for the city solid waste and public works was an ideal strategy given the great track record using third party companies. This brought concerns and created an alarm with the city management because the union would disagree with the proposal to outsource employment opportunities with security companies.

Ultimately, the outcome would become a liability for the city council and city management if the third companies provided under trained employees. Although, there seem to be a lot back and forth about the proposal, it was still normal for the two parties to participate in this type of debates.

Personal/Public Factors

Therefore, when developing a strategic proposal that would alter changes in how a city operates one has to take into consideration various factors that would help to produce an effective and efficient decision. Critical thinking is the practice of methodically gathering, analyzing, and evaluating information. It is one of the most vital parts of the problem solving and decision making process, as it is the act of clearly thinking through options that will lead to a final choice. While decision making is the process that leads to actionable conclusions, critical thinking is the element that defines whether the choice is sound (Discover Business, 2014).

In this instance, the city management may or may not have thought about the long term of the proposal but maybe in a shorter term of envisioning how to help the city make budget cuts and increase benefits. As a Public administer one must make the best choice that will favor the public and one that has the public’s interest at hand.

Conclusion

Last, the process that the city management and the PBA (Police Benevolent Association) union seemed to be a very unpleasant and uneasy process that affected not only the employees, but more importantly the lives of the community. The city management wanted to outsource the law enforcement services to third party companies, while improving the benefits and pay to public service workers. However, the PBA (Police Benevolent Association) union opposed the proposal terms that was drafted by city management and secretly found favor with some of the city council to overthrow the contracts.

First, this paper discussed the relationship between city management and the unions and identified any problem amongst the groups. Second, this paper discussed what the collective bargaining process was like, analyzed what was effective in the process, and analyzed the options associated with the case study. Third, this paper identified what were some of the challenges faced to reaching an agreement and discussed if these challenges were normal. Last, this paper identified what personal and public factors must be considered when determining which course of action to take.

References

AFLCIO. (n.d). Collective bargaining. Retrieved from http://www.aflcio.org/Learn-About-Unions/Collective-Bargaining

Ballotpedia. (n.d). Collective bargaining. Retrieved from https://ballotpedia.org/Collective_bargaining,_private-public_sector_differences

Discover Business. (2014). How to Make Better Decisions. Retrieved from http://www.discoverbusiness.us/problem-solving/

Klinger, D. E., Nalbandian, J., & Liorens, J. (2010). Public personnel management. context and strategies (6th ed.). Retrieved from https://newclassroom3.phoenix.edu/Classroom/#/contextid/OSIRIS:50319867/context/co/view/activityDetails/activity/9f31445c-d687-4a40-b958-6d853b7261bc/expanded/False/tab/https://newclassroom3.phoenix.edu/Classroom/#/contextid/OSIRIS:50319867/context/co/view/activityDetails/activity/9f31445c-d687-4a40-b958-6d853b7261bc/expanded/False/tab/.