Textile Mills Case Study

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The Missed Opportunities The O.P. Henley Textile Mill had a significant divide between employees and management and the working conditions were poor. There would have been many opportunities to make improvements such as improved working conditions, training and promotion programs, communication, and the building of trust. Significant wage increases may not have been necessary as long as they were competitive for the local market. In fact, a well-structured profit or gain-sharing program, benefitting both parties, may have been sufficient.
Working Conditions Improving working conditions should have been the mill’s first priority because no other accommodation would have mattered if employees were not provided with a safe and respectful …show more content…

Innovation and identifying new opportunities will be necessary for survival. A key finding from a study by Givan and Hipp (2012) found that, in the United States, women are more likely to believe that unions improve job security and suggested that unions focus their efforts on women. This may be a factor in recent union successes in healthcare, particularly nursing, where the majority of workers are women. Benson (2010) argued that the unionization of nurses has allowed them to “retain pride in their profession” and to put a “curb on the authority of imperious management” (p. 303). In general, the heathcare industry is expected to be a target due to reform, concern over job security, pressure to reduce costs and improve quality, and recent National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) legislation, responsible for streamlining the election process (Budryk, 2015). Almost 80 percent of healthcare worker elections resulted in unionization in 2014, a ten-year success rate high for organizing efforts (Budryk, 2015). Unions will need to continue to identify new opportunities such as these and adapt their efforts to the situations of the modern American worker.
Conclusion
Although few employment situations exist in America today resembling the O.P. Henley Textile Mill, the story depicts an ideal scenario for organization and textbook strategy by the union representative. The mill displayed poor judgement in their response to the previously failed union attempts and forfeited the opportunity they had to improve working

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