HRM307 Lecture Notes - Lecture 4: Cost Leadership

• School: University of Waterloo
• Department: Human Resources Management
• Course: HRM307
• Professor: Neil Murray

Document Summary

Efficiency means that goods and services are produced with the lowest possible amount of capital, labour, energy, and material resources. Productivity is a measure of how efficiently goods and services are produced. Unions prescribe measures such as additional investment in infrastructure and training and development of employees. Concession bargaining: negotiation over employer demands for reductions in wages and benefits: may take place under threat of business closure. Control of the workplace has been cited as a management objective that is important as efficiency: managers need control to reduce uncertainty or risk. Many employers believe a union will prevent them from achieving either or both of their objectives of productivity and maintaining control. Still possible for employer to take unilateral action in areas not covered in collective agreement: presence of union does(cid:374)"t eli(cid:373)i(cid:374)ate (cid:373)a(cid:374)age(cid:373)e(cid:374)ts right to (cid:373)a(cid:374)age. Labour relations strategy: how an employer deals with the unionization of its employees: ranging from acceptance to extreme opposition, eg.