Unfair Labor Practices for Employment and Labor Law -myassignmenthelp

Question: Discuss about theUnfair Labor Practices for Employment and Labor Law. Answer: The workplace is prone to conflicts and disagreements between parties in an employee employer relationship. The employment contract is not conclusive is containing all the rights and responsibilities of both parties and therefore, employees are not certain and this creates conflicts and disagreements resulting from the employer exercising discretion in the employment relationship. Disputes are likely to arise and defending such disputes requires a well thought out strategy and procedure. The first and initial step would be to reach out the employees and the union officials in order to resolve the matter amicably through an out of court settlement. An out of court settlement would involve all the parties involved in the dispute coming together through a conciliatory process. In the conciliation proceedings, a neutral party acceptable to all the parties involved in the dispute would be agreed upon who will attempt to solve the matter amicably in the circumstances. Where the parties do not solve the matter at this stage, then an attempt can be made at the Labour court to determine the matter conclusively (Weiler, 2009, p. 23). The other step is to establish whether the claimants are employees or prospective employees of the company. This can be established by examining the contracts of employment of the employees that they signed at the time of recruitment and selection. It is important to establish the status of a claimant, whether employee or not so as to avoid defending a claim that is frivolous. A prospective employee is a person who has gone through the stages of selection and recruitment with a company and is in the last stage of placement. After establishing the status of the claimants, the next action will be to establish their relation with the union, whether they are union sable members or prospective members of the union. The company will then respond to the unfair labour practice charge against it. The response is done by filing a defense stating the companys position in the dispute and a justification that the action complied with the provisions of Employment Act. Though it is advisable for employees to register and join a trade union, the employees should only join voluntarily and with their informed consent. The employees have a valid claim since they were not consulted if they wanted to voluntarily join the union or were members of a different trade union (Cihon Castagnera, 2017, p. 17). Employees have a right to join a trade union of their choice which was infringed upon in this scenario. The defenses that can be advanced by the company are that the employees were in breach of the agreement between the company and the union in which the employees are the direct beneficiaries and that the action the employees ignored to follow the internal mechanisms for resolving disputes of this nature. The employer should have involved employees in the negotiations with the union. Since the company is an employer according to sections 2(2), (6) and (7) of the Act, the action of not employing the prospective employees was not lawful. The union was at fault in requesting the company not to employ the three prospective employees. In this scenario, both the company and the union are at fault and are likely to be found liable. References Weiler, P. C. (2009)Governing the workplace: The future of labor and employment law Harvard University Press Cihon, P. J., Castagnera, J. O. (2017) Employment and labor law (9th ed.). Boston, MA: Cengage Learning