Permanent Strikes Case Study

Should Congress outlaw the use of "permanent replacements" During Strikes?

Advantages, Disadvantages and Alternatives to Public Sector Strikes

Charlie Morgan

University of Maryland University College

Adelphi, Maryland

Strike replacement occurs when employers hire or use individual to perform the work of employees on strike. In the United States, it is not unfair labor practice for employers to replace the striking workers with others in effort to carry on the company's business. Most other industrialized nations, however, do not allow permanent strike replacement. The United States is already unique among its trading partners in allowing permanent strike replacements and ban on permanent strike replacement would probably raise labor costs
By focusing on that feature, the law could prevent the use of a strike or the hiring of permanent replacements as an opportunistic behavior weapon designed to expropriate the other party's rents. Although several proxies could potentially be available to the courts or the NLRB, there are no clear guidelines or definitions that facilitate such
The NLRA imposes on the employer and the union a duty to bargain in good faith. This duty requires the parties to bargain to impasse over mandatory issues. Permissive issues can be brought to the bargaining table, but neither party is required to bargain over them. But a question that is likely be raised by the proposal of banning strike replacement workers would be, is whether the duty to bargain over the decision to hire permanent. The rationale for arguing that unions will, as opposed to the employer, be more likely to bargain over the striker replacement issue if given the initial legal entitlement, is based on the realities of the industrial relations process. First, the protection against striker replacement does not make the strike a "risk free" venture for the union. The adversity of doing without a paycheck and health insurance puts enormous pressure on the strikers to settle a dispute as soon as possible. Most American workers have no cushion, no money socked away to make house payments and car payments, to buy food or to pay doctors' bills. Second, unreasonable pressures or unwillingness to bargain over this issue could represent a matter of survival for the union. Workers have no incentive to make demands that will throw their employers into bankruptcy or otherwise cause permanent economic harm to their employers. The worker, after all, is dependent on the employer's long-term economic health. Workers realize