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Business And Labor Unions: A Comparative Analysis

Decent Essays

The goal of business’s and labor unions is to make money for itself. But how can they do that and feel like both sides have the same advantage as the other? I propose that labor and business can best achieve their goals by making compromises with each other so that they can both reach an agreement they feel is fair. Those compromises could include cutting back on budgets and figuring out how business and labor could find a solution that could possibly benefit both, business and labor. Another compromise that business and labor could find a solution to is by not having their self-interest involved and making sure they don’t do anything that hurts the other. They do this by working together and following laws the government has for those types …show more content…

However, having an advantage over one or the other doesn’t do any good it only creates more problems. Dan Swiney stated in his 2005 interview “The low road is where somebody thinks of their immediate self-interest in solving their particular problem no matter what it costs to somebody else.” When either a business or labor union think of their self-interest and think of no regards to what it could do, it hurts the other. This makes neither organization come out in the end looking better than the other, it does the exact opposite. On page 225 in chapter 9 of section 1 it states “Benefits now make up 30 percent of workers’ compensation. This adds up to a large cost for employers – especially since benefits like health insurance are becoming expensive.” If labor unions made the compromise of paying 50/50 for fringe benefits then businesses could have that extra 20 percent to help labor unions or help the business that will in turn benefit the employees. In the cartoon in the unit 3 essay warmup it states “Gentlemen, nothing stands in the way of a final accord except that management wants profit maximization and the union wants moola.” By having both organizations negotiate and try to reach a conclusion they both feel is fair they achieve their goal of making money and in turn the business can benefit by having productive workers and …show more content…

If they don’t work together and try to find a resolution it only brings negative situations like sit-ins or strikes. However, because of government laws protecting the labor of America situations like that have diminished down. Just like how unions are beginning to diminish because of those laws that the government make. The government is like the arbiter between labor and business. Without these laws protecting business and labor there would be an increase in labor unions and increase in businesses strict unfair rules. Time in the 1800’s during the Industrial Revolution proved that because those laws did not exist. For example, this was because employers, or robber barons, would take advantage of workers by having extreme unfair wages or dangerous working conditions. However, the American labor union force and the American business force have come a long way since then. Like I stated earlier in the essay, this is proven because of the dwindling numbers in workers joining labor unions due to labor and business coming together and working in

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