Z94.6 EMPLOYEE & INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS

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RAIDING (NO-RAIDING AGREEMENT). Term applied to a union’s attempt to enroll members belonging to another union or already covered by a collective bargaining agreement negotiated by another union, with the intent to usurp the other union’s bargaining relationship.

RAISE. The actual increase in any salary over a period of time, usually one year.

RANK AND FILE. Members of an organization, exclusive of officers, managers, and supervisors. In unions, refers to all members who are not officers and/or members of a committee or elected officials.

RANKING METHOD OF JOB EVALUATION. The simplest form of job evaluation. A whole job, job to job comparison, resulting in an ordering of jobs from highest to lowest.

RANKING METHOD OF JOB EVALUATION. Pay for work based on a set unit of time or productivity.

RATE CHANGE. An adjustment in a production standard.

RATE CUTTING. Term applied to a reduction by management of established incentive or time wage rates in the absence of comparable changes in job content, or any actions by companies in reducing wages.

RATE EROSION. A gradual development of rate incorrect ness resulting from gradual changes in job conditions without compensating adjustments in the job standard. (See LOOSE RATE.)

RATE RANGE. A range of rates for the same job, with the specific rates of individual workers within the range determined by merit, length of service, or a combination of various concepts of merit and length of service. Rate ranges may be set up with various degrees of formality and more or less rigid rules respecting the position within the range at which new workers are hired and the rules concerning their automatic or nonautomatic advancement to the maximum rate. The range may be expressed as a spread from a set minimum to a set maximum rate.

RATE SETTING. (1) The establishment of pay per unit for incentive work. (2) The establishment of a standard time.

RATIFICATION. Formal approval of a newly negotiated agreement by vote of the union members affected.

RATING. (See LEVELING, NORMALIZE) (SPEED RATING.)

RATING SCALE. A graphical means whereby employee qualities such as ambition, initiative, personality, performance, and potential may be evaluated against some predetermined standard. (Some times referred to as a Traditional Rating Scale).

REAL WAGES. Real wages are represented by the goods and services typically consumed by workers that can be purchased with money wages, i.e., real wages are an expression of the purchasing power of money wages. Over periods of time, changes in real wages are obtained by dividing indexes of money wages by an appropriate index of consumers’ prices.

RECALL. Process of bringing laid-off employees back to work, usually based on the same principles that govern order of layoff in inverse order (e.g., last worker laid off is first to be recalled). In union affairs, recall is a procedure for removing (disciplining) an officer by means of a member ship vote.

RECLASSIFICATION. Change in compensation grade or level of a given job or position resulting from changes in job duties, responsibilities, or working conditions.

RECOGNITION. (See UNION RECOGNITION.)

RECRUITMENT. Exploiting the sources of supply for applicants and providing potential employees.

RED CIRCLE RATE. Rate of pay higher than the contractual, or formally established, rate for a job. The special rate is usually attached to the incumbent worker, not to the job as such. This procedure is commonly used to protect long-service workers from a decline in earnings through no fault of their own. Also known as out-of-line rate, personalized rate, flagged rate.

REDUCTION IN FORCE. Layoff, or by attrition.

REEVALUATION. The process of review of evaluated jobs for the purpose of determining changes which may lead to a new job rate.

REFERENDUM. Process by which all members of a union vote, usually as individuals, for the election of officers, changes in union constitution, etc. as distinguished from decision-making through delegates assembled in convention.

REGIONAL DIFFERENTIAL. Differences in wage levels among several broad geographic subdivisions especially in the United States.

REGRESSION LINE. The line of best fit among an array of job scores in a job evaluation analysis designating a trend or relationship between the jobs.

REGULAR EMPLOYEE. Usually, a full-time employee who has fulfilled formal or informal probationary requirements, as distinguished from seasonal, part-time, probationary, and temporary employees.

REGULAR RATE. The rate of pay received by a worker for all hours of work performed at straight-time rates. Also refers to the rate of pay at which a worker is predominantly engaged when he/she is subject to assignments at varying rates.

REHIRE. (noun) A former employee returned to his/her job as a new employee. (verb) To reemploy a worker previously separated.

REINSTATEMENT. Restoration of an improperly discharged employee to his/her former job and to the rights formerly held by him/her.

RELEVANT LABOR MARKET. The geographical area from which a company obtains a large portion of its work force for a given occupational group.

RELIEF TIME. Time during which a worker is permitted to leave the workplace, usually for personal needs, with the place being taken by a substitute when necessary. (See REST PERIOD) (SPELLOUT.)

RELOCATION ALLOWANCE. Payment to employees of all or part of their expenses in moving to a new location, or a fixed allowance to be used for this purpose. (MOVING ALLOWANCE.)

RELOCATION REIMBURSEMENT. Payment for travel, meals, lodging and related expenses in connection with an employee’s move to another location.

REOPENING CLAUSE. Clause in a collective bargaining agreement stating the time or the circumstances under which negotiations can be requested, prior to the expiration of the contract. Reopenings are usually restricted to wage issues and, perhaps, other specified economic issues, not to the contract as a whole. (See WAGE REOPENING.)

REPORTING PAY. The amount of pay guaranteed to a worker who reports for work at the usual hour, without notification to the contrary, and finds no work available or is not given a job. Typically, pay for a minimum number of hours at regular rate is provided for in union agreements. (See CALL-IN PAY.)

REPRESENTATION ELECTION. Election conducted to determine by a majority vote of the employees in an appropriate unit, which, if any, union is desired as their exclusive representative. These elections are usually conducted by the National Labor Relations Board or by state labor relations agencies. (See BARGAINING UNIT.)

RESIDENCY PERIOD. The time an employee must perform a given job in order to have established seniority rights to that job or to have adequately prepared for progression to an advanced job for which the lesser job is a prerequisite.

RESIDUAL RIGHTS. The residual rights doctrine gives management the benefit of the doubt concerning rights and powers on which a contract is silent.

RESPONSIBILITY. The obligation of an employee to perform an assigned task to the best of his/her ability and in accordance with the directive of the supervisor and/or management.

REST PERIOD. Brief interruption in the workday, usually of 5 to 15 minutes duration, during which the worker rests, or takes refreshments without loss of pay. (See RELIEF TIME) (COFFEE BREAK, BREAK TIME.)

RESTRICTED JOB. Work limited by conditions beyond the control of the worker such as machine speed or process cycle time.

RETIREMENT. Withdrawal from working life or from a particular employment because of age, disability, etc., with an income. Normal retirement is retirement for age, presently at age 65. Early retirement is retirement prior to the normal retirement age. Disability retirement is retirement prior to the normal retirement age because of poor health or injury disabling the worker. Special early retirement-extra early retirement benefits provided under specified circumstances, e.g., involuntary separation. (See PENSION PLAN, SOCIAL SECURITY ACT.)

RETIREMENT PLAN. (See PENSION PLAN.)

RETRAINING (RETRAINING PROGRAM). Development of new skills for workers through a definite program, so that they are able to qualify for new or different work. A training program in which experienced employees are given additional training as a result of work rotation, technological changes, new and more difficult assignments, change in the nature of jobs, and reassignment of displaced, old or handicapped workers.

RETROACTIVE PAY. Past wages due for work performed during a prior time period such as may result from an adjustment in rates of compensation or settlement of a pay claim. Often called back pay.

REVENUE RECONCILIATION ACT OF 1993. In addition to raising individual tax rates, the Act extended the limitations on deductibles. For nonresidential real property placed in service on or after May 13, 1993, the 1993 Act extended from 31.5 to 39 years the recovery period (depreciation period) and reduced the annual tax deduction for such tax payers. Starting in 1994, the 1993 Act ends deductibility for club dues and limits to 50 per cent the portion of business-meal and entertainment costs; further, the tax law eliminates moving expense deductions for house-hunting trips, meals and temporary living expenses.

RIGHT-TO-WORK LAW. Term applied to state legislation which prohibits any contractual requirement that a worker join a union in order to get or keep a job, thus banning provisions in agreements requiring employees to become and remain union members (otherwise permissible under the Labor Management Relations Act). The law prohibits union shop agreements.

ROLE-PLAYING. A method for teaching principles affecting interpersonal relations by having subjects assume various roles during interaction.

ROLLING. (See BUMPING.)

ROTATING SHIFT. The system of rotating the crews where two or more shifts are worked in an establishment. This system is designed to distribute day and night work on an equal basis among the various workers. In some industries, where 7-day operations are common, the work schedules may be arranged so that workers are given different days off in each week. (See FIXED SHIFT, SPLIT SHIFT, SWING SHIFT.)

ROUND-THE-CLOCK OPERATIONS. (See CONTINUOUS OPERATIONS.)

ROYALTY. In relation to wages, the payment to union health and welfare funds, such as those benefiting members of the United Mine Workers and the American Federation of Musicians, although the term is not the official designation for such payments. In these cases, the application of the term stems, at least in part, from the fact that employer contributions are based on tons of coal mined and number of musical records produced. For some types of professional workers, such as musicians, singers, and writers, payment for work is frequently based on a percent of sales of the final product (book, article, or song). Such payments are referred to as royalties.

RUCKER PLAN. A productivity gainsharing plan based on the ratio of total labor costs to the value added revenue; i.e., sales, outside purchases. (See GAINSHARING.)

RUNAWAY RATE. A standard production rate which is considered “loose.” A standard which yields very high earnings when compared with earnings for a task of similar difficulty.

RUNAWAY SHOP. Term used by unions to characterize a business establishment which moves to evade union or state labor laws, or to reap a competitive advantage from low wage standards in another area, dismissing all or most of its regular employees in the process.

RUNOFF ELECTION. A second election conducted after the first produces no winner according to the rules. If more than two contenders were in the first contest, the runoff may be limited to the two highest. (See REPRESENTATION ELECTION)

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