Deck 12: Dealing With Union and Employeemanagement Issues

Question 1

The Knights of Labor, the first national labor organization, offered membership to all working people, including employers.

Answer 1

True

Question 2

The presence of formal labor organizations in the United States dates back to the late 1700s.

Answer 2

True

Question 3

A union is an employee organization that has the main goal of representing its members in employee-management negotiation concerning job-related issues.

Answer 3

True

Question 4

The Knights of Labor was the first truly national labor organization in the United States.

Question 5

Some business observers contend that the previous success of labor unions is a reason for the decline of labor unions.

Question 6

A craft union is an organization of skilled specialists in a particular craft or trade.

Question 7

Throughout most of American history, the relationship between managers and employees has been fairly smooth.

Question 8

One of the things that labor is interested in is fair and competent management.

Question 9

Even in their infancy, the main goal of most labor unions was to provide members with increased management power.

Question 10

Labor unions played a major role in establishing minimum wage laws, child-labor laws, and improvements in job safety.

Question 11

Most historians view the increase in union membership in the United States as an outgrowth of the transition from an industrial economy to a service economy during the middle part of the 20th century.

Question 12

Historically, managers were less concerned about productivity and more concerned with friendly relations with coworkers.

Question 13

Samuel Gompers was the most important leader of the American Federation of Labor during its early years.

Question 14

Some contend that the main reason membership in labor unions has declined in recent years has been the passage of anti-labor legislation in the late 1980s that guaranteed all employees of a firm the same wages and benefits whether they joined a union or not.

Question 15

The AFL (American Federation of Labor) was initially intended to be a single craft union.

Question 16

A union that consists of members who are all skilled specialists in a particular trade is called an industrial guild.

Question 17

During its early years, the AFL tried to expand as rapidly as possible by recruiting both skilled and unskilled workers.

Question 18

The first national labor organization, the Knights of Labor sought to gain enough political power to restructure the entire U.S. economy.

Question 19

Today labor unions have seen a revitalization of support and union membership has increased significantly.

Question 20

In its early years, the AFL (American Federation of Labor) limited its membership to skilled workers.

Question 21

The initial objective of the American Federation of Labor (AFL) was to provide union membership to workers in all industries.

Question 22

The Knights of Labor and the American Federation of Labor were actually very similar in their aims, tactics, and membership. The only major difference was in the effectiveness of their leaders.

Question 23

The Industrial Revolution slowed the growth of unions by creating a rapidly rising standard of living for most workers.

Question 24

A major difference between early labor organizations in the United States and today's labor unions is that the early labor groups often were temporary organizations that disbanded after achieving a short-range goal, while today's unions are permanent organizations.

Question 25

A yellow-dog contract required workers to agree not to join a union as a condition of their employment.

Question 26

In 1955, after the passage of the Taft-Hartley Act, the AFL and CIO merged to create the AFL-CIO.

Question 27

John L. Lewis broke with the American Federation of Labor (AFL) in 1935 over membership issues and formed a rival group known as the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO).

Question 28

The Norris-LaGuardia Act prohibits firms from requiring workers to agree not to join a union as a condition of their employment.

Question 29

Membership in industrial unions was strictly limited to skilled craftspeople.

Question 30

The Norris-LaGuardia Act made it more difficult for unions to legally recruit new members.

Question 31

For 20 years, the CIO was a major rival of the AFL in the contest for leadership of the labor movement.

Question 32

Outspoken critics of today's labor unions believe that these organizations have lost their focus. They contend that they no longer represent the rights of workers, as much as they are concerned with the vitality and strength of the union itself.

Question 33

Today, more than 55 national and international labor unions are affiliated with the AFL-CIO.

Question 34

Union membership is likely to rise in the coming decade, because the same economic and political conditions that gave rise to unions in the late 19th and early 20th centuries are now reappearing.

Question 35

The growth and strength of organized labor has always depended on one thing: the state of the economy.

Question 36

Abraham was an unskilled worker who toiled 10 hours a day on an assembly line during the early and mid 1930s. His hours were long, his wages were low and his working conditions were unsafe and unpleasant. Abraham would probably be more sympathetic to the views of John L. Lewis than to those of Samuel Gompers.

Question 37

The National Labor Relations Act gave labor the legal justification to pursue collective bargaining and other key labor issues.

Question 38

The Zendor Corporation operates a manufacturing plant in Bellridge. The work is arranged in an assembly line and is performed by semiskilled and unskilled workers. These workers are looking into obtaining union representation. The type of union they would belong to would be classified as an industrial union.

Question 39

The process by which a union is recognized by the NLRB as the authorized bargaining agent for a group of workers is called collective bargaining.

Question 40

Samuel Gompers believed that collective bargaining was likely to be an ineffective way for unions to achieve their objectives.

Question 41

During the 1980s unions became increasingly concerned with the issues of job security and union recognition.

Question 42

Collective bargaining is the process whereby union and management representatives negotiate a labor-management agreement, or contract, for workers.

Question 43

During the 1970s, the primary objective of most labor unions was to gain additional pay and benefits for their members.

Question 44

The Wagner Act established the first minimum wage for workers.

Question 45

The National Labor Relations Act gave employees the right to form and join labor organizations and the right to engage in activities such as strikes and boycotts.

Question 46

The Taft-Hartley Act allowed states to pass laws that prohibited compulsory union membership.

Question 47

The Taft-Hartley Act gave more power to management.

Question 48

One goal of the Landrum-Griffin Act was to clean up union corruption.

Question 49

Last week, Angie was approached by two of her coworkers during the lunch break pressuring her to sign a card check in favor of organizing a union. The card check is currently a NLRB (National Labor Relations Board) approved method of finalizing unionization.

Question 50

The AFL-CIO was a major supporter of the NAFTA agreement to expand trade and commerce among the nations of the United States, Canada, and Mexico.

Question 51

The Norris-LaGuardia Act prohibited courts from issuing injunctions against nonviolent union activities.

Question 52

Jake remembers his grandfather telling him about going to work at 16 years of age in the coal mines of southern Illinois. In order to get the job, he had to agree to a yellow-dog contract. Essentially this meant he would only get the job if he agreed not to join a union.

Question 53

The Taft-Hartley Act strengthened unions by giving them the right to engage in featherbedding and secondary boycotts.

Question 54

Once a union is certified to represent a group of workers, decertification is not a consideration or future possibility.

Question 55

Union representatives currently prefer secret ballot voting because they do not want to intimidate employees into voting for a union by asking them to outwardly sign a card check in favor of unions.

Question 56

The main objectives of organized labor, better wages and shorter hours, have remained remarkably stable over time.

Question 57

During an interview with Zytex company representative, Hillary was told that Zytex faces intense competition and management believes that the only way the company can survive is to have a nonunion workforce. Therefore, all workers Zytex hires must sign an employment contract stating that they agree not to join a union while they work for Zytex. This requirement by Zytex is illegal in the United States.

Question 58

The workers at the Kerriton Company are unhappy with the way their union has been representing them. The Wagner Act allows these workers to take away the union's right to represent them through a process known as decertification.

Question 59

Jenna is a member of a union team that is negotiating with management to obtain a labor contract for the workers represented by the union. Jenna is involved in contract arbitration.

Question 60

A card check is a method of openly soliciting signatures in favor of the organization of a union.

Question 61

The negotiated labor-management agreement clarifies the terms and conditions under which labor and management agree to function over a specified period of time.

Question 62

The vast majority of grievances filed by union members are negotiated and resolved by shop stewards and supervisory managers.

Question 63

The Taft-Hartley Act made the union shop agreement illegal in all states.

Question 64

Arbitration is an agreement to bring in an impartial third party to render a binding decision in a labor dispute.

Question 65

In an agency shop agreement, workers who do not belong to the union must pay a union fee or pay regular union dues.

Question 66

Wage rates, hours of work, employee benefits, and job rights and seniority are issues covered in a typical negotiated labor- management agreement.

Question 67

A grievance is a charge by managers that the union is not abiding by the terms of the negotiated labor-management agreement.

Question 68

Under a closed shop agreement, workers must agree not to join a union in order to keep their jobs.

Question 69

According to the "Reaching Beyond Our Borders" box in Chapter 12, global labor movements are forming to emphasize the setting of global labor standards.

Question 70

Until passage of the Taft-Hartley Act, under a closed shop agreement, a company could only hire workers who already belonged to a union.

Question 71

Under an agency shop agreement, only union members are represented at the bargaining table.

Question 72

Under an open shop agreement, workers have the option to join or not join a union, if one is present in the workplace.

Question 73

Unions in Europe historically have held more influence in the workplace than unions have in the United States.

Question 74

A bargaining zone is the time period during which a third party is used to reach agreement on union disputes.

Question 75

The sources of many grievances include overtime rules, promotions, layoffs, and job assignments.

Question 76

Many of the negotiated labor-management agreements in the United States call for the use of an arbitrator to end labor disputes.

Question 77

A union shop agreement is illegal in states that have passed right-to-work laws.

Question 78

A union security clause in a labor-management agreement stipulates that employees who benefit from a union must either officially join or at least pay dues to the union.

Question 79

Under a union shop agreement, workers must belong to a union before they can be hired.

Question 80

The AFL-CIO has supported offshore outsourcing as a method of increasing work opportunities for union members.