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dc.contributor.authorKaufman, B
dc.date.accessioned2018-09-05T22:02:29Z
dc.date.available2018-09-05T22:02:29Z
dc.date.issued2015
dc.identifier.issn0023-656X
dc.identifier.doi10.1080/0023656X.2016.1086547
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/10072/101988
dc.description.abstractWell known is that the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA, 1935) in the United States places a largely per se ban on nonunion employee representation (ER) groups which deal with employers over a term or condition of employment. Much less well known is that America’s other labor law, the Railway Labor Act (RLA, 1926), takes a different approach and permits employers to operate such councils and committees as long as they do not perform a collective bargaining function or interfere with workers’ free choice of a bargaining agent. Thus, under the RLA Delta Air Lines is able to operate what is today the closest living approximation to a 1920s-style ER plan while hundreds of other companies (e.g. Polaroid) under the jurisdiction of the NLRA have been forced over the years to disband similar groups on grounds they are a proscribed company union. No study to date has explored the history behind the RLA and NLRA’s divergent treatment of nonunion ER groups so this article takes a first look. The main part of the story covers the 1920–1935 period and examines the events, people, and experiences associated with company unions and ER in, respectively, the rail and manufacturing industries and why the legislative outcome in the former was a permissive stance on nonunion committees but prohibitive in the latter. The last part of the paper fast-forwards the RLA-NLRA story from the 1930s to contemporary law and practice in order to demonstrate how “history matters” when it comes to what employers can and cannot do with nonunion representation groups, such as works councils, participation and involvement committees, and dispute resolution forums.
dc.description.peerreviewedYes
dc.languageEnglish
dc.language.isoeng
dc.publisherRoutledge
dc.relation.ispartofpagefrom423
dc.relation.ispartofpageto458
dc.relation.ispartofissue4
dc.relation.ispartofjournalLabor History
dc.relation.ispartofvolume56
dc.subject.fieldofresearchIndustrial and employee relations
dc.subject.fieldofresearchHistorical studies
dc.subject.fieldofresearchHistory and philosophy of specific fields
dc.subject.fieldofresearchcode350504
dc.subject.fieldofresearchcode4303
dc.subject.fieldofresearchcode5002
dc.titleDivergent fates: company unions and employee involvement committees under the railway labor and national labor relations acts
dc.typeJournal article
dc.type.descriptionC1 - Articles
dc.type.codeC - Journal Articles
gro.facultyGriffith Business School, Dept of Employment Relations and Human Resources
gro.hasfulltextNo Full Text
gro.griffith.authorKaufman, Bruce


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