Unions Essay -- essays research papers

WHY HAVE UNIONS WITNESSED A DECLINE IN MEMBERSHIP IN RECENT YEARS? ITRODUCTION WHAT ARE UNIONS? UNIONS ARE INFLUENTIAL AND BROADLY BASED ORGANIZATIONS WHICH REPRESENT IT’S MEMBERS, WHO ARE USUALLY EMPLOYEE’S. THEY HAVE BEEN AROUND FOR A LONG IN AUSTRALIA AND EXPERIENCED MIXED RESPONSES FROM THE GENERAL PUBLIC AS WELL AS EMPLOYER’S. OBJECTIVES OF A UNION: THE PRIMARY OBJECTIVE OF A UNION IS TO PROVIDE OR IMPROVE THE WELL-BEING OF IT’S MEMBER’S. IT WAS FORMED TO COUNER THE SUPERIOR ECONOMIC POWER OF EMPLOYER’S. IT’S MOST IMPORTANT FUNCTION IS TO MAXIMISE WAGES AND SALARIES SUBJECT TO CERTAIN EMPLOYMENT CONSTAINTS AND TO RAISE THE ECONOMIC CONDITIONS UNDER WHICH WORK IS DONE. WHY DO EMPLOYEE’S JOIN UNONS? AN EMPLOYEE CAN BE MOTIVATED BY INSTUMENTAL CONSIDERATIONS, IDEOLOGICAL BELIEFS OR SIMPLY COMPULSION, BUT THERE SEEMS TO BE 3 MAJOR FACTORS THAT LEAD EMPLOYEES TO BE UNIONIZED: DISSATISFACTION WITH THE ECONOMIC ASPECTS OF THE JOB DESIRE TO INFLUENCETHOSE ASPECTS OF THE WORK ENVIRONMENT THROUGH UNION ORIENTATED MEANS BELIEF THAT BENEFITS OF UNIONISM OUTWEIGH EXPECTED COSTS MOST COMMONLY, EMPLOYEE’S JOIN BECAUSE OF THEIR COMMITTMENT TO THE VALUES OR PRINCIPLES OF UNIONISM. (INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS- A CONTEMPORARY ANALYSIS, DEERY S., PLOWMAN D., WALSH J. P 7.16) WHY ARE UNIONS WITNESSING DECLINE? THERE ARE MANY POSSIBLE REASONS TO SUGGEST THE DECLINE IN MEMBERSHIP BUT 3 FACTORS STAND OUT: 1.) CHANGING COMPOSITION OF EMPLOYMENT - PRIVATE AND PUBLIC SECTOR MOST OF THE EMPLOYMENT GROWTH THAT OCCURED IN THE AUSTRALIAN ECONOMY IN THE 80’S AND 90’S WAS CONFINED TO THE PRIVATE SECTOR WHOSE UNION DENSITY RATE OF 25 % WAS CONSIDERABLY LOWER THAN THAT OF THE PUBLIC SECTOR WHICH WAS 56 %. IT WAS ESTIMATED THAT PUBLIC ENPLOYMENT FELL ALMOST 8 %. - STUCTURAL CHANGES IN THE MIX OF INDUSTRIES, SECTORS AND OCCUPATIONS. A CONTINUING DECLINE IN THE MANUFACTURING SECTOR TO OTHER SECTORS IN THE INDUSTRY. THE PROLIFERATION OF NON REGULAR FORMS OF EMPLOYMENT, PARTICULARLY CASUAL JOBS AND SELF-EMPLOYMENTAT THE EXPENSE OF TRADITONAL FULL TIME JOBS. BUT UNIONS ARE SEEMED TO BE BLAMED FOR THE LOW LEVEL REPRESENTATION OF CASUALS. UNIONS DO NOT RECRUIT CASUALS AS ASSIDUOUSLY AS FULL TIMERS, BECAUSE UF THE HIGH ORGANIZATIONAL COSTS INVOLVED. - SIZE OF THE FIRMS 70 % OF SMALL WORKPLACES WITH 5-19 EMPLOYEE’S HAD NO UNION MEMBER’S COMPARED WITH ONLY 4 % OF LARGE WOR... ...AND THEREAFTER FROM 1901 UNTIL 1921 WHERE UNION MEMBERSHIP GREW FROM VIRTUALLY 0 TO MORE THAN HALF OF THE AUSTRALIAN WORKFORCE, AND AGAIN A SLUMP UNTIL 1924. AS RESTRUCTURING IS IMPORTANT AND VITAL TO UNION MOVEMENTS, IT IS TIME CONSUMING AND IS A PROCEDURE WHICH HAS TO BE SLOWLY PHASED IN, DUE TO THESE FACTORS IT IS REGARDEDAS LONG TERM AND CANNOT BE CORRECTED OVERNIGHT. TO CONCLUDE, WE HAVE LOOKED AT ALL THE REASONS CONTRIBUTING TO THE DECLINING UNION MEMBERS IN AUSTRALIA. IN SPECULATION IT CAN BE SEEN THAT WHEN THIS DECLINE STARTED, WHAT CONTRIBUTED TO THE DECLINE AND THE EFFECTS SUFFERED BY UNIONS BECAUSE OF THIS DECLINE. BY COMPARING AUSTRALIA’S MEMBERSHIP DECLINE TO THAT OF OTHER COUNTRIES FACED WITH THE SAME PROBLEMS, IT CAN BE SEEN THAT THE FALL OF MEMBERSHIP HAS BEEN MODERATE. AS THIS PAPER OUTLINES, ALL THE VARIOS CAUSES CONTRIBUTING TO THESE PROBLEMS AND THE DIFFERENT SECTORS IN THE INDUSTRY FROM WHICH THESE PROBLEMS ORIGINATE, IT IS SAFE TO SAY THAT UNIONS ARE FACED WITH A DIFFICULT TASK OF RESTRUCTURING, BUT AS IN THE PAST WHERE THERE HAS BEEN DECREASES AND INCREASES IN UNION MEMBERSHIP, TIME WILL SHOW THE UNPREDICTABLE SHIFTS IN UNION MEMBERSHIPS IN AUSTRALIA.

GEICO Culture: Nicely’s approach to the Four Functions of Management

In the mid-1930s, at the height of the Great Depression, there weren't many people with the foresight and courage to start up a new company. Yet the husband and wife team of Leo and Lillian Goodwin were up to the challenge. Confident that he could create a successful auto insurance business by marketing directly to carefully targeted customer groups, Leo Goodwin hammered out a business plan during his early career in Texas. In 1936, he put that plan into action, establishing the Government Employees Insurance Company–the company known and loved today as GEICO. Few people realize that GEICO was initially targeted to federal employees and certain categories of enlisted military officers. From the 1960’s to the early 90’s GEICO had other CEO’s in place but it was not until 1993 that the company began to change as a whole. In 1993, Olza â€Å"Tony† Nicely was named GEICO's new chairman, president and CEO, and worked to expand the customer base through a new four-company strategy. Along with it came an increased advertising budget which propelled GEICO toward much higher national visibility. In all successful corporations planning is essential. Planning is the first and most important step in the process of successfully managing a corporation. Planning activities determine an organization’s objectives and establish appropriate strategies for achieving them. The organizing, controlling, and leading functions of management are all derived from planning. All members of management in any organization must plan. Through plans managers are able to communicate their expectations and strategic plans to achieve corporate mission. Tony Nicely, GEICO’s CEO understands the importance of planning. Nicely is very involved in the planning process and stays abreast of the corporate business stance as well as how each functional department plans to achieve corporate goals. Nicely meets with top management to develop plans for the upcoming year. The decisions and plans made by top level management are communicated to mid-level management in the form of business level plans. Mid-level management is responsible for creating functional level plans where. The use of this systematic approach to planning ensures that each level of the hierarchy within an organization understands the corporate mission and their role in achieving it. GEICO’s planning is centered around its 7 operating principles: * Respect: Respect, support and provide opportunity for all associates. * Service: Be fanatics for outstanding customer service. * Low-Cost: Be the low-cost provider. * Integrity: Operate with uncompromising integrity. * Discipline: Maintain a disciplined balance sheet. Profitable Growth: Make an underwriting profit while achieving optimum growth. * Invest: Invest for total return. Organizing The second function of management is organization. We need to organize everything we need in order to achieve our goal. We need to find people who will work on that project and we need to gather resources which we need to reach our goal. Once we organize everything we can move to the third function of four functions of management. Creates a structure of task and authority relationships that supports attainment of organizational goals. Organizing is the process of structuring both human and physical resources to accomplish organizational objectives. Thus, organizing involves dividing tasks into jobs, delegating authority, determing the appropriate bases for departmentalizing hoibsm and deciding the optimum numbers of jobs in each department. Leading The third function is directing or leading. We need to lead people to use the resources we prepared in the second function. Leading is probably the hardest function of all four. We need to know our people in order to lead them correctly Controlling The last function is controlling. This one is as any other of the four functions of management very important. We first must explain what controlling actually is. This is not just controlling over workers as one might think, this is also the controlling of your programs and your goal achievement at the end. This last function enables us to improve our skills and process in future by correcting errors that happened during this cycle.

Okonkwo’s Resistance to Change in Chinua Achebes Things...

The character of Okonkwo in Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart was driven by fear, a fear of change and losing his self-worth. He needed the village of Umuofia, his home, to remain untouched by time and progress because its system and structure were the measures by which he assigned worth and meaning in his own life. Okonkwo required this external order because of his childhood and a strained relationship with his father, which was also the root of his fears and subsequent drive for success. When the structure of Umuofia changed, as happens in society, Okonkwo was unable to adapt his methods of self-evaluation and ways of functioning in the world; the life he was determined to live could not survive a new environment and collapsed around†¦show more content†¦If he was accepted in the community, he was safe, respected, and successful, unlike his father, and his life had meaning. Okonkwo continually rejected the ways of his father, who was deeply indebted to other members of Umuofia, holding no titles, to the point where Okonkwo’s â€Å"whole life was dominated by fear, the fear of failure and of weakness† (16). He transferred his fears into the context of Umuofia and the traits that society valued, but what was really the driving force in his decisions â€Å"was the fear of himself, lest he should be found to resemble his father† (17). The values of Umuofia resembled the polar opposite of what Unoka was and Okonkwo twisted his motivations around in his mind and presented them to himself and the community as derived from Umuofia’s traditions. From this delusion, Okonkwo established his ultimate goal of becoming a revered member of the village, possessing many titles, and achieving anything necessary displaying his prominence in the community. The disparity between Okonkwo’s true motivations and his warped motivations lead Okonkwo to behave in ways which shocked other members of Umuofia with his apparent disregard for others, but which made sense to him as he saw weakness and Unoka in alternatives. When Ezeudu, a respected elder in Umuofia, informed Okonkwo that the village Oracle called for the killing of Okonkwo’s adopted son Ikemefuna, he asked Okonkwo not to take part. However, Okonkwo not only accompanied them,Show MoreRelatedPost-Colonial View on Things Fall Apart Essay1771 Words   |  8 PagesSociety in Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart (1958) The desire to conquer land that was previously unexplored has existed throughout history. This desire forced many indigenous societies, who were usually dominated technologically, to adapt to the teachings and overall system of the ‘superior’ conqueror nation with destruction as the only alternative. This causes a major impact on how a certain society functions, even after seeking independence from the foreigners. The rise and fall of indigenousRead MoreThe Struggle Between Tradition and Change1056 Words   |  5 PagesENGL 2112 October 17, 2012 In Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe, the reader is taken on a literary journey to a Nigerian tribe, the Umuofia, to experience first-hand the struggles of a warrior named Okonkwo. At first glance, the novel appears to be written for a very specific audience: scholars familiar with Nigerian history, traditions, and culture. However, upon further examination the novel reveals itself to be a striking chronicle of human experiences, universal themes, and timelessRead MoreThings Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe1324 Words   |  6 Pages Chinua Achebe chose to write his novels in English to reveal a deep response of his people to colonisation and to make that response understood to people all over the world. Things Fall Apart was written in English to teach people worldwide of the struggles he faced and the people of Nigeria faced growing up. Many authors and critics have written about Achebe’s ‘Things fall apart’ adding their valued opinion on what he was trying to say and his decision to write in English. In the followingRead MoreThings Fall Apart By Chinua Achebe1515 Words   |  7 PagesChange is a natural process that triggers the evolution of human societies; it is the continuous eradication of traditions that are replaced by the new. Chinua Achebe’s ‘Things Fall Apart’ (TFA), a novel written in 1958, explores the gradual transformation of the Ibo culture as a result of colonialism and also the attitudes the people of Umoufia developed when exposed to foreign ideologies; the change was either accepted or resisted. Peter Skrzynecki’s ‘Crossing The Red Sea’ (CRS) and ‘Feliks Skrzynecki’Read MoreCommentary on Passge (Page 124-125) of Things Fall Apart by Chnua Achebe1162 Words   |  5 PagesIn this passage of Things Fall Apart, by Chinua Achebe, the protagonist and main characters of the novel, Okonkwo, has just been sent into exile away from his land of Umuofia , Nigeria . The crime he has committed to receive such a punishment is the sin of murder. While he is attending a funeral for a man named, Ogbuefi Ezeudu, Okonkwo’s gun accidentally explodes and kills Ezeudu’s sixteen-year-old son. Killing a clansman is a crime against their earth goddess, thus, Okonkwo and his family are sentRead MoreAnalysis Of The Novel Things Fall Apart 1772 Words   |  8 Pages Authenticity of African Literature Introduction The novel â€Å"Things Fall Apart† focuses on the colonization history of Igbo, an ethnic group which was crashed by Christian culture. The main character of the novel, Okonkwo, embodied the sufferance of Igbo society as well as the decline of Igbo culture. The novel is written by Chinua Achebe who was born in Nigeria. Achebe lived in an English environment and thus he was proficient in writing EnglishRead MoreThings Fall Apart: Individuality vs. Nationality843 Words   |  4 Pagesthat appear in Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart, individuality versus nationality becomes a central topic as the story progresses and develops. With the invasion and colonization of the European missionaries, Okonkwo’s nationality and contributions to society are called into question. Achebe explains the idea of nationality over individuality by showing that society is the precursor to individuality. Examining the life of the protagonist, Okonkwo, before and after his resistan ce exemplifies thisRead MoreRelationship Between Character and Society in Things Fall Apart1322 Words   |  6 PagesSociety and its Characters Chinua Achebe’s novel Things Fall Apart tells the story of the African Igbo society which was dominated by European imperialism. Achebe uses his own personal knowledge of African culture to portray the Igbo tribes as a complex society with well-established beliefs and traditions. The heart of this novel is not in its context, however, but in its characters. Achebe creates complex characters to live in the vastly changing society of the Igbo tribes. It’s evident in theRead MoreEssay on Key Passage Commentary on Things Fall Apart1070 Words   |  5 Pagesconclusion to a chapter in Chinua Achebes Things Fall Apart, takes place after Okonkwos return to Umuofia. A new English missionary has been set up in the village and has caused a great divide between the villagers. The main purpose of the section is to describe some of these events and changes that have taken place in Umuofia since Okonkwos return. The passage is structured in three parts, each detailing about a differ ent aspect. The first section focuses on Okonkwos son Nwoyes conversion toRead More Resistance to Change in Chinua Achebes Things Fall Apart Essay1986 Words   |  8 Pages   Achebes novel Things Fall Apart chronicles the life of an individual whose carefully constructed world crumbles as his culture is assimilated into a colonizing society. This character, Okonkwo, is prestigious within his community, and in most respects views himself and is viewed by his neighbors as an honorable man. Yet for all his seeming honor, Okonwko self-destructs when his world begins to change. Although the value system held by Okonkwos village may differ somewhat from that held