Peer Review 8, management homework help

PLEASE RESPOND TO THIS, I MUST COMPLETE A PEER REVIEW ON THE BELOW. Thanks

Please demonstrate critical thinking abilities. No fewer than 100 words for post.

For this response, should outside sources be used to support the content within the postings, proper in-text citations and correctly formatted references should be prepared consistent with the APA (6th edition). The list of references should be physically positioned at the end of the postings.

3. If merit pay is supposed to increase individual equity and unions are very concerned about equity, why do unions frequently oppose merit pay for their membership? Further, if given the choice, unions would prefer to implement a skill-based pay system rather than some form of gain-sharing plan, why?

I have never been involved in a union and I would say that 50% of the time, those that are complain about the amount of their dues with nothing to show for it, and the other 50% are grateful for the peace of mind that is given to know that someone has their back in the event of a work-related issue. What I want to know is, does union membership equal job satisfaction? “Despite a great deal of research over several decades, the answer to this question is still uncertain… the relationship between union membership and job satisfaction varies across countries and that unions matter only for certain aspects of job satisfaction—those that can more readily be changed by unions” (Hipp and Givan, 2015). As we will find in our text, due to internationalization, unions support pay-for-performance plans because studies have shown that there are linkages between performance based pay and worker productivity. “About 20 percent of all U.S. collective bargaining agreements permit some alternative reward system (e.g. lump sum, piece rate, gain sharing, profit sharing, skill-based pay)” (Milkovich et al., 2014, p.527). In other unionized firms, we might find more group-based measures because it benefits the union AND the workers. This is the premise of the gain-sharing plan, which is a design intended to align workers and managers to streamline operations and cut costs (Milkovich et al., p. 528). The chart in the Milkovich et al. (2014) text on page 528, Exhibit 15. 1 Union Perceptions of Gain Sharing, lists nine reasons for unions favoring gain sharing and nine reasons for opposing it. In thinking about teacher unions, I would add to the list of oppositions, that newer members have little to no input on the structure. “Teachers with little or no experience are the ones most liable to be left out of the majority coalition for several reasons… union contracts are often negotiated months or even years in advance of the school year for which they apply” (Winters, 2011). As a result, these teachers (who have likely replaced veteran teachers or more skilled teachers looking for better pay) have no idea what is going on and will rely heavily on the decisions of the union and the school administrators. The other downside to this is that, the union may suggest a larger differential between teachers who have advanced degrees and those that do not as a means to support a pay-for-performance plan. Because the teacher salary is so low in the first place, this may mean that the lower end of the spectrum may not receive a reasonable working wage from the get go and putting themselves in debt even further may not ever be worth it if the “larger” pay can’t even cover the student loans they would take out to get the advanced degree in the first place.

References:

Hipp, L. and Givan, R.K. (2015, September 1). What Do Unions Do? A Cross-National Reexamination of the Relationship between Unionization and Job Satisfaction. Social Forces 94(1), p. 349–377. DOI: 10.1093/sf/sov051

Milkovich, G., Newman, J., & Gerhart, B. (2014). Compensation (eleventh edition). New York, NY: McGraw Hill.

Winters, J. (2011, July 1). Teacher Salaries and Teacher Unions: A Spatial Econometric Approach. Industrial and Labor Relations Review (64)(4).