Labor Laws, Unions and Ford Motor Company
Fran Kirby
HRM/531
May 27th, 2011
Sherri Johnson
Labor Laws, Unions and Ford Motor Company
On June 20th, 1941 after a long and turbulent struggle by Henry Ford and Ford Motor Company against organized labor unions, Ford Motor Company signed its first contract with the United Automobile Workers of America and Congress of Industrial Organizations (UAW-CIO). This historic day has achievement has been radically changed from the early days of labor laws and unions (History, 2011).
One of the questions to ask is why Ford would allow the company to be unionized? The basic fact is that with little incentive to increase wages, Ford thought that it would survive without unions. However, union membership was beginning to take hold in Detroit at that time. Union representatives worked hard to gain access to Ford workers and basically unionized the shop by June 1941. Ford, realizing that many men were serving in WWII, accepted negotiation with the union for fear that there were not enough workers to staff the plants at that time to produce automobiles and military parts ordered from the government. If Ford were not to negotiate, strikes could have hampered their efforts to continue in business.
Today like many unions, the United Automotive Workers Union (UAW) is a strong operation that represents hundreds of thousands of workers with their main goal to improve pay, working conditions and benefits for their members. The union represents Ford workers through union representation at the bargaining table. This is where both management and the union negotiate terms of better contracts for workers and better gains for the company (Cascio, 2010).
Recently, an agreement was made between Ford and the UAW where a contract buyout arrangement was reached. In this agreement Ford workers could opt to leave the company and receive a variety of enticements. Some of the benefits were a departing employee could choose between...