Working With Unions Now and in the Future

Assignment Introduction

Today’s social and economic conditions in the workplace differgreatly from when unions developed. Over time, changing societal andeconomic conditions have affected perspectives on the value a unionmight bring to the workplace, as well as what roles they might have inthe future. Laws and regulations dealing with compensation, benefits,and working conditions have been developed, which address many of theconcerns unions dealt with in the past.

Despite this, unions have continued. Private sector unionmembership has ebbed, but public sector unions are still robust in manyareas. This assignment calls for you to consider what issues publicsector unions are likely to face now and in the future, what perceivedvalue they might have in the workplace of the future, and how changingmindsets, societal values, and an evolving legal and regulatoryenvironment will impact public administrators seeking to workeffectively with public sector unions in the future.

Assignment Instructions

In previous assignments, you explored the development and evolutionof unions from past to present. In this assignment, you will reflectupon the continued evolution of unions into the future. In an 8–10-pagepaper, complete the following:

• Evaluate the workplace issues unions are likely to address now and in the future.
  • Provide examples to support your arguments.
• Evaluate how public and private sector unions are vieweddifferently today and how they may be viewed differently in terms ofrelevance and function in the future.
• Consider that historically, disputes between labor and managementhave been resolved in a contentious manner. Evaluate how disputeresolution between labor and management will evolve in the future, basedupon modern leadership theories and changing expectations oflabor-management relations in the workplace and society.
• Consider that when unions were initially formed, compensation andbenefits were largely unregulated by law. Analyze how evolvinglegislation and regulatory acts at the local, state, and federal levelshave affected the relevance of public sector unions.
  • Provide analysis of how the public sector union role in this area will evolve over time.

Submission Requirements

Your assignment should meet the following requirements:

• Written communication: Written communication should be free of errors that detract from the overall message.
• APA format: Resources andcitations must be formatted according to current APA style andformatting. When appropriate, use APA-formatted headings.
• Resources: Your ideas must be supported withrelevant scholarly sources that are dated within the past five years andare properly cited and referenced in current APA style. There is nominimum number of citations for this paper.
• Length of paper: 8–10 typed, double-spaced pages, not including the title page, references, and if included, an abstract.
• Font and font size: Times New Roman, 12 point.