With the new job classification. These workers receive higher pay and greater job security, but the number of job classifications increased by one. New job classifications need not be created to gain flexibility in assignment. All received the same pay and retained their skilled trades identification under the contract. Thus, flexibility can be greater in practice than it may appear to be on paper.
Workers have important reasons for retaining their skilled trades identification.
State laws may specify criteria for apprentice and journeyman status in a particular trade, and workers may need their identity as electrician, pipe fitter, millwright, and so on, if they leave their present employer and seek a job on the open market. Lines of demarcation between trades within a particular plant are established by custom and past practice. In some cases, the plant culture and the degree of trust between the local union and plant management can offer as much flexibility as a formal change of rules. As a result. both parties may view the introduction of ANT as an opportunity to try to change the bargaining unit in their own favor. This appears to be the solution most likely to avoid controversies that would interfere with the implementation of ANT technology.