Create a Group Proposal in phases. At the end of each lesson, you will return to your Group Proposal paper to continue to add to it. At the end of the semester, you will have a completed Group Proposal for your Final Project (Lesson 12).
Your Group Proposal must be written using the APA Student format. You must have a cover and reference page. For Assignment 1, you will need a minimum of three (3) references. Be sure to develop a strong argument and support your statements with evidence from the course textbook and other professional sources (properly formatted in-text citations and references).
To begin the process of creating your Group Proposal, address the questions listed below. Do not write out the questions. Write your answers in a third-person APA narration, be concise, and articulate your ideas thoroughly. Upload your APA paper under Lesson 1 Assignment.
- What type of group is being created (psychoeducational, counseling, or psychotherapy)? Why (why is it needed)?
- How might the group structure be modified to fit the needs of members that would be a good fit for this group?
- What factors should be considered to help include a culturally diverse group?
Write the group proposal on psychoeducational
Group proposal subject will be on Teen Bullying.
Why is it needed? Prevent teen suicide.
This group will be modified for only teen attendees that way members can work and learn amongst peers.
Factors to be considered to include cultural diversity : teach group members of other cultures and their norms.
Full Answer Section
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- s. However, the union must also consider the risk of pushing wages so high that they lead to a significant reduction in consumer demand for the product, which could ultimately lead to job losses.
- Outcome: Often results in higher wages and benefits for unionized workers compared to other market structures, potentially leading to a "union wage premium."
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Oligopoly (Few Sellers):
- Employer's Bargaining Power: In an oligopoly, a few large firms dominate the market (e.g., auto industry, major airlines). These firms often have substantial market power, and while they compete, they might also engage in tacit or explicit collusion (though illegal) to maintain high profit margins. They may also be able to absorb some increased labor costs.
- Union's Bargaining Power: Unions in oligopolies can wield considerable power.
- Industry-wide Bargaining: If the union can organize workers across most or all major firms in the oligopoly, they can prevent individual employers from gaining a competitive advantage by paying lower wages. This leads to more standardized wage and benefit packages across the industry.
- Mutual Interdependence: A strike at one major firm can significantly disrupt the entire industry's output, giving the union leverage.
- "Ability to Pay": Oligopolistic firms often have higher profits than those in highly competitive markets, providing more "economic rent" for unions to bargain over.
- Outcome: Can lead to strong union contracts with high wages and benefits, often setting a pattern for the rest of the industry through "pattern bargaining."
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Perfect Competition (Many Small Sellers):
- Employer's Bargaining Power: In a perfectly competitive market, firms are "price-takers" and face intense pressure to minimize costs, including labor costs. Profit margins are typically very thin, and firms operate close to the margin of survival.
- Union's Bargaining Power: Unions generally have weaker bargaining power in perfectly competitive industries.
- Limited "Ability to Pay": Firms have little or no economic rent to share.
- Elastic Demand for Labor: If a union pushes wages too high, the firm may go out of business, reduce its workforce significantly, or move production to non-unionized areas, as it cannot easily pass on increased costs to consumers without losing market share.
- Difficulty Organizing: The large number of small, fragmented firms makes it challenging for a union to organize a significant portion of the industry.
- Outcome: Union wage gains are often modest, and aggressive demands can lead to job losses or even firm closures. The union's focus might shift more towards working conditions and job security.
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Monopolistic Competition (Many Sellers, Differentiated Products):
- Employer's Bargaining Power: Firms differentiate their products, giving them a small degree of market power (e.g., restaurants, clothing brands). They have some leeway with pricing, but still face significant competition from similar products.
- Union's Bargaining Power: Union power is intermediate. Firms have some ability to absorb higher costs due to their differentiated product, but they are still constrained by competition from substitutes.
- Outcome: Collective bargaining can lead to moderate wage gains, often influenced by the strength of the product's brand and the firm's ability to retain customers.
2. Labor Market Concentration (Monopsony - How many employers are there for a specific type of labor?)
- Monopsony (Single Buyer of Labor):
- Employer's Bargaining Power: A monopsonistic employer is the sole (or dominant) buyer of a particular type of labor in a given geographical area (e.g., a single large hospital in a rural town for nurses, or a major factory in a "company town"). This employer has significant power to set wages and terms of employment below what would prevail in a more competitive labor market. Individual workers have very few outside options.
- Union's Bargaining Power: Unions play a particularly critical role in monopsonistic labor markets. They act as a countervailing power to the employer's dominance. By organizing, workers gain the collective ability to withhold their labor (through a strike), forcing the employer to negotiate. Without a union, individual workers are at the mercy of the monopsonist's wage-setting power.
- Outcome: Collective bargaining in a monopsony can significantly improve worker wages, benefits, and working conditions, pushing them closer to the competitive equilibrium, where they might otherwise be suppressed. Unions can "level the playing field" and reduce wage markdowns.
Key Takeaways:
- Ability to Pay: Firms with greater market power (monopolies, oligopolies) often have higher profits or "economic rents" that unions can extract, leading to higher wage settlements.
- Elasticity of Demand: In competitive product markets, demand for the firm's product is highly elastic. If labor costs rise too much, the firm cannot easily pass them on and risks losing market share or going out of business, limiting union demands. In less competitive markets, demand is less elastic, allowing firms more flexibility.
- Employer's Vulnerability to Strikes: Firms in concentrated product markets (monopolies, oligopolies) are often more vulnerable to strikes because a disruption in their production can have a significant impact on their overall market.
- The Role of Unions as Countervailing Power: In markets where employers have significant power (especially monopsonies), unions become crucial for balancing power and improving workers' terms of employment.
In essence, the economic market structure defines the "pie" available for distribution and the relative leverage each side has in the bargaining process. Unions typically find greater success in industries with less product market competition and more concentrated labor markets (where they are the only significant seller of labor).
Sample Answer
The economic market for competition and concentration profoundly affects the outcome of collective bargaining by influencing the relative bargaining power of both the employer and the union. This power dynamic, in turn, dictates the wages, benefits, working conditions, and overall terms of the collective bargaining agreement.
Here's how different market structures play a role:
1. Product Market Concentration (How many firms sell the good/service?)