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Q:
The Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993 requires that private sector employers to provide eligible employees up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave if the firm has:
a. 25or more employees.
b. 50or more employees.
c. 100 or more employees.
d. 500 or more employees.
e. 1,000 or more employees.
Q:
The labor relations term for a one-time payment made to adjust wages which does not affect an employee's hourly base wage rate is:
a. Holiday pay.
b. Wage re-opener.
c. Vacation pay.
d. Lump-sum pay adjustment.
e. Spillover effect.
Q:
All of the following are group incentive plans except:
a. Improshare.
b. Scanlon plan.
c. Piece-rate plan.
d. Rucker plan.
e. Gainsharing programs.
Q:
The labor relations term written to permit wages to be renegotiated at a specified point in time during the term of the contract or whenever some predetermined event occurs is the:
a. Lump-sum pay adjustments.
b. Cost-of-living adjustment.
c. Wage re-opener.
d. Open-ended contract.
e. Spillover effect.
Q:
The labor relations term for a written clause in a labor agreement which adjusts wages in accordance with changes in the consumer price index at specified intervals during the contracts term is the:
a. Cost-of-living adjustment.
b. Wage re-opener.
c. Lump sum pay adjustments.
d. Wage spread.
e. Spillover effect.
Q:
The process of systematically securing information and facts about what employees do in various jobs is called:
a. Job evaluation.
b. Job description.
c. Job analysis.
d. Job survey.
e. Job specifications.
Q:
The relative influence of job evaluation can be seen in the ___________, which represents the internal distribution of the proposed or negotiated wage increase to the bargaining unit employees.
a. Skill-based pay
b. Skill pay differential
c. Wage spread
d. Managements ability to pay
e. Skill-based pay and wage spread
Q:
Under a cliff vesting schedule, an employee is considered fully vested after completing ____ years of service.
a. 10
b. 5
c. 15
d. 20
e. 30
Q:
One of the most popular group incentive plan for sharing labor cost savings is the:
a. Merit savings plan.
b. Profit sharing plan.
c. Piece rate plan.
d. Scanlon plan.
e. Premium pay plan.
Q:
The federal agency responsible for enforcement of the Family and Medical Leave Act is:
a. Family and Medical Leave Administration.
b. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
c. Department of Labor.
d. Federal Standards Board.
e. National Labor Relations Board.
Q:
Job factors used in evaluating jobs include skill, effort, responsibility, and working conditions in varying degrees depending on the type of organization.
a. True
b. False
Q:
The process of systematically securing information and facts about what employees do in various jobs is called a job description.
a. True
b. False
Q:
A major reason for a piece-rate compensation plan is that many production jobs are machine paced, so employees have limited control over the pace of work and thus the number of items produced during scheduled work hours.
a. True
b. False
Q:
A deferred wage increase is a method used to adjust employee base wage rates during the term of a labor agreement.
a. True
b. False
Q:
During economic downturns and recessions, management will often claim an inability to pay as a criterion for wage determination.
a. True
b. False
Q:
The term value added refers to the contribution of factors of production to the value of a final product or service.
a. True
b. False
Q:
Unions generally favor the use of an employee stock ownership plan (ESOP) as a basic pension plan for employees.
a. True
b. False
Q:
Unions often prefer defined contribution plans because it limits their financial obligations to fund the plan.
a. True
b. False
Q:
Union leaders often view management-exclusive job evaluation with disfavor because it tends to limit bargaining opportunities and freeze wage structure.
a. True
b. False
Q:
Most union labor agreements specify daily or weekly work schedules and most provide premium pay for hours worked beyond the normal hours.
a. True
b. False
Q:
A higher degree of labor intensiveness increases management negotiators' resistance to bargaining proposals designed to increase wage rates.
a. True
b. False
Q:
Supplemental unemployment benefits (SUB) are payments made by the federal government to unemployed workers during a layoff.
a. True
b. False
Q:
A Scanlon plan, Rucker plan, and Improshare plan are all examples of gain sharing plans.
a. True
b. False
Q:
The monetary value of employee benefits provided by unionized employers exceeds the value of employee benefits provided by nonunion employers.
a. True
b. False
Q:
Wage comparability is not given much importance in wage determination
a. True
b. False
Q:
Labor market wage surveys measure how the job content, method of payment, regularity of employment, supplemental unemployment benefits, vacations, pensions, and holidays vary from company to company.
a. True
b. False
Q:
If a union wishes to encourage solidarity within its membership at a particular firm, it should not negotiate for a two-tier pay plan.
a. True
b. False
Q:
Management prefers to include the union to conduct job evaluations for employees in a firm.
a. True
b. False
Q:
Contract language that specifies a newly hired employee will be paid less than other employees performing a similar job is referred to as a Two-Tier Wage plan.
a. True
b. False
Q:
Wages and other economic benefits represent income to employees, costs to an employer, and a basis for tax revenue to the government.
a. True
b. False
Q:
Skill-based pay (SBP) systems base compensation on the skills or knowledge an employee possesses that are valued by the employer.
a. True
b. False
Q:
Pressure from domestic and international competition has increased managements ability to simply pass increased labor costs on to the customer in the form of higher prices
a. True
b. False
Q:
Most unions consider gain sharing plans as an adequate substitute for traditional negotiated hourly wage gains in their labor contracts.
a. True
b. False
Q:
The majority of private sector employees participate in a profit sharing plan as incentive.
a. True
b. False
Q:
It is common for labor agreements to contain a cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) clause during the term of the contract.
a. True
b. False
Q:
The result of the calculation of any contract item that can be obtained by dividing the annual total cost of the item by the number of bargaining unit hours worked during the year is called the:
a. Roll-up factor.
b. Cents-per-hour wage increase.
c. Cents-per-hour cost.
d. Costing contract proposal.
e. Contract zone.
Q:
The area of overlap between the unions and managements bargaining ranges is called the:
a. Contract zone.
b. Bargaining range.
c. Target point.
d. Utility zone.
e. Intraorganizational bargaining.
Q:
The strategy which attempts to use the most recent contracts in the industry as the starting point for achieving further concessions is called:
a. Pattern bargaining.
b. Whipsaw bargaining.
c. Leapfrogging.
d. Collective bargaining.
e. Surface bargaining.
Q:
The strategy which involves a negotiating team attempting to extract large, similar concessions from multiple opponents is called:
a. Pattern bargaining.
b. Whipsaw bargaining.
c. Leapfrogging.
d. Collective bargaining.
e. Surface bargaining.
Q:
The activity whereby union and management officials attempt to resolve conflicts of interest by exchanging commitments in a manner intended to sustain and possibly enrich their continuing relationship is called:
a. Pattern bargaining.
b. Whipsaw bargaining.
c. Leapfrogging.
d. Collective bargaining.
e. Surface bargaining.
Q:
Actions such as changing the compensation or fringe-benefit package unilaterally during bargaining without having reached a good faith bargaining impasse are called:
a. Commission of unfair labor practices.
b. Imposing unreasonable conditions.
c. Unilateral changes in conditions.
d. Dilatory tactics.
e. Surface bargaining.
Q:
If an employer claims an inability to pay for a unions bargaining proposal, the union is entitled:
a. to receive stock options equal to the dollar amount the employer claims it is unable to pay.
b. to file an unfair labor practice against managements refusal to bargaining in good faith.
c. access to company financial information necessary to validate the employers inability to pay claim.
d. to the same percentage wage and benefit increase planned for managerial employees.
e. to declare a bad-faith bargaining impasse.
Q:
When would management officials probably prefer centralized (multi-plant) bargaining?
a. When the products at each plant are interdependent (Plant A's product is necessary for Plant B's product).
b. When the products at each plant are independent of each other (Plant A's product is not necessary to produce Plant B's product).
c. When both plants products are labor intensive
d. When neither plants products are labor intensive
e. When both plants products are independent and labor intensive
Q:
One party is willing to meet at length and confer but merely goes through the motions of bargaining. Proposals are made that cannot be accepted, an inflexible attitude on major issues is taken, and no alternative proposals are offered. This scenario best describes:
a. Bypassing the representative.
b. Dilatory tactics.
c. Imposing conditions.
d. Surface bargaining.
e. Intraorganizational bargaining.
Q:
Which of the following does NOT pertain to new employer bargaining obligations?
a. The desire of the owner to operate on a nonunion basis
b. The degree of change in the firm's operation brought about by new ownership
c. Whether most employees remain the same after the ownership change
d. Whether the firm remains in the same location after the ownership change
e. All of these pertain to successor (new) employer bargaining obligations
Q:
The hard bargaining approach developed by a vice president at GE meant to circumvent the union was found to be a violation of good faith bargaining primarily because it attempted to bypass the employees exclusive bargaining agent was called:
a. Boulwarism
b. Gomperism
c. Interdependent bargaining.
d. Intensity bargaining.
e. Mutual-gain bargaining.
Q:
Which one of the following should not be a relevant consideration when selecting members for a management negotiating team?
a. Whether the individual occupies a line or staff managerial position within the firm
b. Perceived need for an individual's skills and abilities
c. Political considerations
d. Having a sense of humor.
e. Consciousness of social cues.
Q:
In the Chamberlain and Kuhn bargaining power model, one partys bargaining power can be conceptualized as equal to the other partys cost of _____ the proposed settlement terms divided by their cost of _____ to such terms.
a. Agreeing with; disagreeing
b. Disagreeing with; agreeing
c. Seeking to arbitrate; seeking to mediate
d. Seeking to mediate; seeking to arbitrate
e. Aagreeing with; seeking to arbitrate
Q:
Under the bargaining power model, when is the union's bargaining power increased?
a. It costs more for management to disagree than agree with the union
b. It costs more for management to agree than to disagree with the union
c. It costs more for the union to agree than disagree with management
d. It costs less for the union to agree than disagree with management
e. It costs less for management to disagree than to agree with the union
Q:
Which one of the following would not be a characteristic of a distributive bargaining approach?
Win-lose negotiations results.
a. A focus on maximizing your own party's interests
b. A focus on cost/benefit analysis to determine the acceptability of contract proposals
c. An attempt to structure communication patterns during negotiations to maintain focus on your own party's proposals
d. An effort to identify multiple alternatives capable of achieving a mutually satisfactory bargaining outcome rather than focusing on narrowing the gap between each party's established position on issues in dispute
e.
Q:
Integrative bargaining is also referred to as:
a. Distributive bargaining.
b. Interest-based bargaining.
c. Good-faith bargaining.
d. Intraorganizational bargaining.
e. Voluntary bargaining.
Q:
"Mandatory" bargaining subjects:
a. Compose the bulk of the bargaining agenda during labor contract negotiations.
b. Must be negotiated until agreement is reached if one party raises the issue.
c. Do not have to be negotiated if one party raises the issue.
d. Mandates that a federal mediator will resolve the differences between the parties if they cant reach agreement on one or more bargaining subjects.
e. Mandates that a federal mediator must approve the agreement.
Q:
The labor relations term for estimate of the total cents-per-hour costs of employer benefit items affected by a change in the straight-time hourly wage rate is the
a. Magnifier effect.
b. Acceleration factor.
c. Booster effect.
d. Roll-up factor.
e. Progressive cost factor.
Q:
Bargaining power is more likely to be an important determinant of negotiated outcomes in which one of the following approach to bargaining?
a. Distributive bargaining
b. Mutual gain bargaining
c. Intraorganizational bargaining
d. Interest-based bargaining
e. Win-win bargaining
Q:
The yearly cost of a one-cent-per-hour wage increase at a facility of 1,000 employees is:
a. $10,400.
b. $1,000.
c. $20,800.
d. $208,000.
e. $282,880.
Q:
Which one of the following is NOT a mandatory bargaining subject?
a. Tax deferred (e.g., 401[k]) savings plan.
b. Job promotion criteria and procedure.
c. Employee stock ownership plan.
d. Management unions
e. Lump-sum pay.
Q:
In anticipating union bargaining proposals, management can consider all the following factors except
a. Recent negotiations settlements.
b. Reviewing the proceedings of a national unions convention.
c. Collective bargaining agreements negotiated by other firms in the same geographical region.
d. Potential future grievances.
e. Gathering information from formal information sources.
Q:
Which one of the following bargaining tactics would be least likely to be used by either union or management negotiators because of the high credibility risks involved?
a. Attempting to appear more firmly committed to one's bargaining position than they are
b. Deliberate deception or falsification of information
c. Painting a picture of the economic loss to the other side
d. Imposing time pressure (e.g., strike deadline, proposal acceptance deadline)
e. Taking a recess during a negotiation meeting
Q:
The minimum concession acceptable by a party in a negotiation is called the:
a. End point.
b. Termination point.
c. Preference point.
d. Resistance point.
e. Break-even point.
Q:
The agreement which prohibits any union-represented bargaining unit from reaching a final contract settlement until all unions who bargain contracts with the same employer are willing to settle is called:
a. A Collective bargaining agreement.
b. A centralized agreement.
c. A supplemental agreement.
d. A zone of potential agreement.
e. A lock-in agreement.
Q:
Good faith bargaining essentially means each party must demonstrate a sincere and honest intent to reach a labor agreement and be reasonable in their bargaining positions, tactics and activities.
a. True
b. False
Q:
The target point is the union leaders realistic goal to work toward during negotiations.
a. True
b. False
Q:
The selection of the number and type of individuals who will make up the bargaining team for each party is not an important decision that can affect the outcome of negotiations.
a. True
b. False
Q:
The bargaining unit is the team formed by management to solve labor issues within the company.
a. True
b. False
Q:
A whipsaw bargaining strategy involves a negotiating team attempting to extract large, similar, concessions from multiple opponents.
a. True
b. False
Q:
A dispute between union and management representatives over what the terms and conditions of employment will be is termed an interest dispute.
a. True
b. False
Q:
Where there is substantial continuity in a unionized firm's operation after transfer of ownership occurs, the purchaser of the business would be classified as a new employer for the purpose of determining the employer's legal duty to bargain.
a. True
b. False
Q:
Approaching the bargaining process as a mutual problem-solving exercise is a characteristic of distributive bargaining.
a. True
b. False
Q:
It is unlawful for an employer to refuse to comply with a union's request to furnish information, such as basic financial information, which is relevant and necessary for the union to represent bargaining unit members in contract negotiations or grievance handling duties.
a. True
b. False
Q:
When a distributive bargaining approach is used to negotiate labor contract terms, the same party always wins (gains more) on every bargaining issue.
a. True
b. False
Q:
In some cases a specific, single action by an employer constitutes an unfair labor practice in bargaining, called a per se violation.
a. True
b. False
Q:
Possible government intervention in a labor dispute is a factor which could alter a union's or management's perception of their relative bargaining power in that labor dispute.
a. True
b. False
Q:
A profit-sharing plan represents a mandatory subject of bargaining.
a. True
b. False
Q:
Unions do not place upper limits on their bargaining ranges because they maintain, "nothing ventured, nothing gained."
a. True
b. False
Q:
Any failure to reach an agreement on contract language concerning a mandatory bargaining subject represents a violation of the duty to bargain in good faith.
a. True
b. False
Q:
"Voluntary" (also called permissive or non-mandatory) issues involve proposals which violate the law, and there is no legal duty to bargain over such an issue.
a. True
b. False
Q:
Smaller-sized (suggested size of nine) bargaining teams are generally preferable to larger bargaining teams to enhance bargaining effectiveness.
a. True
b. False
Q:
Generally, high unemployment reduces the union's cost of disagreeing with management because strikers could find it difficult to find employment at other firms.
a. True
b. False
Q:
Pattern bargaining is used to describe a situation where union or management negotiators informally attempt to extend a negotiated settlement from one group to another.
a. True
b. False
Q:
Gains made by a party using the distributive bargaining approach come at the expense of the other party.
a. True
b. False