Collective Bargaining and the Quality of Work: The Views of Local Union Activists
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[Excerpt] The purpose of the present study was to assess the views of local union officers and activists on these matters. Specifically, the study was designed to answer the following questions: Do local union leaders and members see so-called quality of work issues as equal in importance to the more traditional issues of collective bargaining? Do they tend to agree or disagree on these ratings of importance? Do they see quality of work issues as more integrative; that is, as those on which the goals of management and the union are pretty much the same? Is the collective bargaining process perceived to be (a) effectively responding to the goals which are rated as being most important; (b) more effective on issues on which there is general agreement regarding their importance than on those where larger individual differences exist; and (c) more effective on issues that are perceived to be more distributive than integrative? Do these individuals feel that quality of work issues should be handled through bargaining, or do they feel the need for new approaches to union-management relations? In particular, are there issues which are viewed as important, but as not being handled effectively through collective bargaining, and, thus, as holding strong potential for joint programs of organizational change?