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Labor Laws and Unions

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Labor Laws and Unions
Sonny Williams
HRM/531
9/17/2012
Dennis Cashman

Abstract An organization can be unionized or not, but with not being unionized can cause some major problems, because the organization can have its own agenda to which it doesn’t want to be unionized or it could be that it wants to maintain fair law practices while being completely free of any collective bargaining agreement (CBA). In either case there are benefits and disadvantages to both.

When thinking of a company that wasn’t unionized. The one that comes to mind was Whole Foods. A company that is ran by its employees and is one of the biggest co-ops running today. Whole foods, has created a huge market for organic foods and for the companies that make those foods. The carry the best products along with some of the best customer service around. I also loved that it was started on a borrowed $45k back in 1978 and the business sense in me loves that they have come this far. Whole Foods has many obstacles related to be on top of the organic foods industry. The fair practice laws and employees rallying for unionization can be tuff ones to over come. The fair market act makes Whole foods and other companies treat employees fair with benefits and minimum pay, so if whole foods is making eight hundred dollars a square foot, which well above the industry standard. This could be a problem for Whole foods, because they have always kept less of its employees at full time. The practice keeps cost down and Whole Foods from paying full time cost and insurance.

There are many laws that could be broken. A law at the state level that could be broken is Whole Foods keeping their practices from changing by resorting to retaliatory measures to discourage union activity, which if found guilty could be a state level law or if threating measures were taken

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