The Goal: Changing the mandatory break times – Unions perspective

The Goal: Changing the mandatory break times – Unions perspective

B: Ensure that the negotiated contract is respected
D: Reject the change of policy requested by Bearington
A: Have a stable working environment for the union members in the company
Click on the icons on the arrows to see assumptions and injections
C: Ensure satisfactory labor conditions for the company
D': Grant the change of policy requested by Bearington

In order to Have a stable working environment for the union members in the company I must Ensure that the negotiated contract is respected and in order to Ensure that the negotiated contract is respected I must Reject the change of policy requested by Bearington. But, in order to Have a stable working environment for the union members in the company I must also Ensure satisfactory labor conditions for the company and in order to Ensure satisfactory labor conditions for the company I must Grant the change of policy requested by Bearington. I can't both Reject the change of policy requested by Bearington and Grant the change of policy requested by Bearington.

RelationAssumption(s)Injection(s)
D-D'1. The suggested change of policy is the only policy, which can fulfil the specific purpose.1. If there is another policy, which will also enable Bearington to utilize their bottleneck capacity without granting this specific change, such a policy would solve the problem (e.g. staggering the lunch breaks, instead of disallowing breaks when the machine is idle).
B-D1. When you grant a change to a contract, you also allow every other part of the contract to be questioned without negotations.1. Coming up with a formalized way of handling future proposed changes, could provide comfort that making one change, does not simultaneously allow a lot of other changes (Alex could not guarantee that this would be the only change, and he didn't come up with any answers to this concern)
C-D'1. The change of policy is important for the competitiveness of the company.1. The conflict can be solved if the union representative can convience Alex that the requested change will have no impact on their competitiveness (this is not the case).
A-B1. Workers rights are secured by companies following the agreements in the contract.1. Ideally contracts can be substituted by trust, however this seems like an unrealistic assumption in the company at that time.
A-C1. If the company doesn't have satisfactory labor conditions, they might choose to relocate the plant to another area that has or competition will ultimately force the plant to close.1. This assumption is hard to challenge when Bearington has a bad financial record. (Ultimately, this was the argument given to the union president)