Prepare 4-6 PowerPoint slides with speaker notes, for leadership on the history of the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) and the implications of the case, National Labor Relations Board v. General Motors Corp., 1963, for your business in relation to unfair labor practices.
Introduction
Not all human resource specialists will have to navigate situations with unions and management, but all human resource professionals need to think legally. By studying a seminal case between management and the union, National Labor Relations Board v. General Motors Corp., 1963, you will gain background knowledge about the agency model of union membership and what the court defines as unfair labor practices.
The habit of mind that you develop by studying and analyzing this case will serve you as you think about the legal ramifications of negotiations with employees and management on a wide range of issues.
Scenario
Your company is reviewing its approach to the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA). Your human resources team has been tasked with giving a presentation about the history of the NLRA that is appropriate for leaders as well as other human resource specialists, in order to prepare them for ongoing discussions about the issues presented by NLRA for your company.
Your Challenge
You are a human resource specialist who has been tasked to present the key points from this case to various small groups of company leaders and other human resource specialists so that they have the background to discuss how NLRA could impact your business.
Instructions
Based on key guidelines from the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), analyze National Labor Relations Board v. General Motors Corp., 1963. Prepare a 4–6-slide PowerPoint presentation explaining and analyzing key elements of the case.
Read the National Labor Relations Board v. General Motors Corp., 1963 case (attached), noting the bulleted elements below.
Review the IRAC strategy for analyzing cases and apply those steps in your study of this case.
Prepare 4–6 PowerPoint slides that address the following:
Introduction.
Summary of the events leading up to the case.
Analyze General Motors’ position in the case.
What was their position about whether an agency shop was considered an unfair labor practice? What was their rationale for their position?
Analyze the union’s position in the case.
What was their position about whether an agency shop was considered an unfair labor practice? What was their rationale for their position?
Analyze the role of the court in the case.
What is the effect of the court’s decision on all organizations and unions?
Analyze the relationship of the case with the NLRA.
Consider case assertions, evidence, and findings.
Evaluate the historical impact of this case on the union/management power struggle.
What was the relationship before the case? Who was considered the winner in this case? How did the case affect future challenges?
Assess how this case changed the relationship between management and all employees at GM, and in unionized organizations in general.
Academic Requirements
The deliverable for this assessment applies professional skills in Human Resources Management (HRM) to workplace situations which you will likely encounter in your day-to-day work in HRM. As part of your learning, we focus on the development of effective professional communication skills for the workplace.
Use short phrases that are clear, comprehensible, and free of jargon for each bullet point.
Include no more than three bullet points per slide if possible. Include APA-formatted in-text citations where appropriate
Ensure your presentation is relevant to and easily understood by everyone in the audience. Remember, you will be speaking to people of all levels in the company.
If you include a voice-over in lieu of presenter’s notes, your recording should be no longer than five minutes.
Your written communication should be free of errors that detract from the overall message.
Include an APA-formatted references slide at the end of the presentation, this is an additional slide at the end of the presentation, slide 7.
Competencies Measured
Competency 1: Apply legal thinking to human resource management issues in the workplace to ensure compliance.
Analyze both General Motor’s and the union’s position in the NLRB case.
Analyze the role of the court in the NLRB v. General Motors case.
Analyze the relationship of a case with the NLRA.
Competency 2: Evaluate the relationship between historical perspectives and events and the alignment of human resource management and the law.
Evaluate the historical impact of a case on the union/management power struggle.
Competency 3: Examine relationships between law, human resource management practices, and business activities.
Assess how a court decision changed the relationship between management and employees in a case, and in unionized organizations overall.
Competency 6: Communicate clearly, accurately, and professionally in the HR field.
Support main points, assertions, arguments, conclusions, or recommendations with relevant and credible evidence.
Apply APA style and formatting to scholarly writing.
Resources
NLRA History
Read the course file, Legal Background: Labor Unions (Attached), for a basic understanding of the topic for this assessment. This background information is intended to support your learning like a section of a textbook.
Working with Unions
Labor Laws and Cases
National Labor Relations Act of 1935 (Wagner Act).
The Wagner Act helped address the causes of labor disputes and the obstruction of interstate and foreign commerce. Also, this act created the National Labor Relations Board.
National Labor Relations Board v. General Motors Corp., 373 U.S. 734 (1963).
The focus of this case was to curb the notion of a closed shop.
Labor Management Relations Act of 1947 (Taft-Hartley Act).
Amended the National Labor Relations Act of 1935 to provide additional facilities for the mediation of labor disputes affecting commerce, to equalize legal responsibilities of labor organizations and employers.
Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act of 1959 (Landrum-Griffith Act).
This act provides for the reporting and disclosure of certain financial transactions and administrative practices of labor organizations and employers to prevent abuses as well as provide standards for the election of officers to labor organizations.
Unions
Herbert, W. A. (2019). Janus v AFSCME, Council 31: Judges will haunt you in the second gilded age. Relations Industrielles, 74(1), 162–173.
This article outlines out the case made serious changes for rules on public sector unions and open, closed, union, and agency shops.
National Labor Relations Board. (n.d.). Employer/union rights and obligations. Retrieved from https://www.nlrb.gov/rights-we-protect/rights/employer-union-rights-and-obligations
Web page with current descriptions of the rights and obligations of employers and unions.
