NCJ Number
94683
Date Published
1979
Length
331 pages
Annotation
Public-sector bargaining and membership in bargaining organizations are traced and compared with the growth of private-sector unions.
Abstract
Unions in the public sector, including the major postal unions and the Federal executive branch unions, including the American Federation of Government Employees, the National Federation of Federal Employees, and the National Treasury Employees Union, are examined. The concept of public management is addressed, and the need for legal specification of management responsibility is cited. Public-sector labor legislation is analyzed from an evolutionary point of view, and the dynamics of dispute resolution in the public sector are explored. Also addressed are the impact of collective bargaining on compensation in the public sector and the judicial response to public-sector arbitration. The future of collective bargaining in the public sector is said to be in its infancy; thus, it is much too soon for it to be deemed either a success or a failure. It is predicted that the treatment of individual rights in the public-sector court cases may have an increasing influence on similar cases in the private sector. It is suggested that the sooner government managers stop resisting the idea of collective bargaining by their employees, the sooner the employee bargaining organizations will recognize their own responsibilities to the general public. Public-sector labor relations in Canada are also investigated.