Unfair and Unsafe Labor Practices

Running head: UNFAIR AND UNSAFE LABOR PRACTICES
UNFAIR AND UNSAFE LABOR PRACTICES
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UNFAIR AND UNSAFE LABOR PRACTICES1
Introduction
Unfair labor practices are identified as actions performed by companies or unions who
are unlawful under the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) as well as other labor laws. The
NLRA offers employees the authority to act in amalgamation in order to improve the terms and
conditions of other employers by establishing union agencies or collaborating with other unions.
Unfair Labor Practices refer to dominating or offering unlawful aid of upkeep to a labor union
(Andrias, 2015). Such practice further refers to the discrimination towards employees in order to
encourage or dismay affiliation in labor organization or substituting labors who slowdown the
business operation to safeguard an unfair labor practice (Galiatsos, 2015). The thesis statement
of the essay is “U.S labor and employment law acts on basis of contract which unfairly favors
employers and undermines fundamental workplace authorities of workers.”
Discussion
U.S firms have violated Laborers Rights to Freedom of Association. U.S law allows
broad range of employer strategies which interfere with worker organizations. As per reports of
Andrias (2019), many American firms have been offering penalties which are too insignificant to
sufficiently deter workers from violating regulations, there are still prevalent extensive delays in
enforcement which have been threatening the effectiveness of already weak laws. As per reports,
nearly 50% of Wal-Mart merchandises come from overseas suppliers and has been charged of
paying off its executives in foreign companies to conceal these unfair labor practices (Secunda,
2018). In addition to this, Wal-Mart paid its laborers in its factory in Bangladesh with $37 per
month. However, as per reports, the conditions in the working settings showed severe lack of
safety and precautions (Hitchings-Hales, 2018). For example, in 2012 fire broke out in one

UNFAIR AND UNSAFE LABOR PRACTICES2
factory which resulted in the death of over 100 workers, while before that it killed over 32
workers.
On the other hand, similar unsafe and unfair labor practices have been found taking place
in U.S garment firms such as H&M and GAP (Sainato, 2019). As per reports, garment
associated global supply chains have been relentlessly offering critical jobs and insignificant
amount of wages to its women employee base, thus making them highly susceptible in global
value chains. In addition to, similar findings have been found by Hitchings-Hales (2018) who
claimed that renowned retailers resembling Marks and Spencer and Zara as well as Next have
been performing unfair and unsafe labor practices by exploiting cheap employment of Syrian
expatriates in one of the largest factories in Turkey. As per these findings, some child refugees
had been paid less than $1.24 an hour and further health and safety guidelines had been declined
for the sake of generating higher manufacture. In the view of Ibrahim (2017), these unsafe and
unfair labor practices have been identified as modern slavery which tends to result in human
trafficking along with widespread human abuse and exploitation. However, Gap Inc. has agreed
that gender-based workplace abuse and ill-treatment has been considered as major issue and an
appropriate subject for ILO action (Fisk & Rutter, 2015).
Even though major statutory protections have been beneficial for workers, union
associations started to destabilize since the 1980s. As per studies of Ibrahim (2017), U.S workers
have attained false sense of security from these conventionally established common law and
statutory protections. At the same time, organizations in the United States who showed
discontentment with expanded employee protections started depending on individual
employment settlement that has been external to the trade union setting in order to bring
resolution to workplace conflicts instead of seeking legal advice from courts. However, taking