PS496 Unit 9 Organizational Stress Paper Example

A Strike Vote in the Middle of the Pack: A PS496 Unit 9 Organizational Stress Paper

[Student Name]

Purdue University Global

PS496: Bachelor's Capstone in Industrial Organizational Psychology

Unit 9 Organizational Stress Paper

[Instructor Name]

[Date]

The writer, the cannery, the union local and every figure are composite and illustrative; the sources cited are real.

The Setting

Production workers at our cannery near Stockton, both year-round and seasonal, are represented by a Teamsters local. The contract runs three years and, this cycle, expired on July 31, the fourth week of the pack. Tomatoes cannot wait. Once harvested, they must be processed within hours, so a strike during the pack would leave growers with rotting fruit and the plant with idle evaporators. Both sides knew this, and so did everyone on the floor.

On July 24, members voted 81 percent in favor of authorizing a strike if talks failed. Negotiations continued past the deadline under a three-day extension, and a tentative agreement was reached on August 3. Members ratified it on August 9, 68 percent in favor.

As an HR coordinator, I work for management and was not at the bargaining table. My role during those weeks was to keep the plant running safely and to support employees through a stressful period without interfering with their right to organize and vote. Before talks began, all supervisors were briefed by the plant's labor counsel on what they could and could not say, including that they must not ask employees how they planned to vote.

Two Kinds of Stressors

LePine et al. (2005) tested a framework that separates challenge stressors, demands people tend to see as opportunities for growth or reward, such as high workload or responsibility, from hindrance stressors, demands people see as obstacles, such as role ambiguity, politics and red tape. Both kinds wore people down. Even so, demands of the challenge kind went along with more motivation and performance, while hindrance stressors were negatively related to both.

The pack itself is mostly a challenge stressor. Twelve-hour shifts, heat and volume are hard, but most workers expect them, and they bring overtime pay. The contract period added hindrance stressors on top: uncertainty about whether there would be a strike, conflicting rumors about replacement workers, questions about whether seasonal workers would be paid during a strike and confusion over whether the plant would shut down early.

The pack was the stress people signed up for; the contract weeks added stress they could do nothing about.

Signs of Strain

Several indicators rose in the two weeks around the deadline. Unplanned absences rose from about 3 percent of scheduled shifts to 6 percent. The employee assistance program, which usually receives two or three calls a month from the plant, received eleven in two weeks. Near-miss reports, which had risen after the new reporting cards from Unit 7, dropped for those two weeks, which leads told me reflected distraction rather than safety. Two line leads described crew members arguing on the line about the vote.

Ganster and Rosen (2013) reviewed research on work stress and health using the allostatic load model, which describes how repeated activation of the body's stress responses wears down physiological systems over time. They linked exposure to psychosocial stressors at work with a range of health outcomes and emphasized that the effects build through cumulative strain, not only through single events. A three-week contract fight in the middle of a season of twelve-hour shifts is the kind of layered exposure their review describes.

Divides Within the Membership

Tapia et al. (2025) studied two union locals during the 2019 national strike against General Motors. The locals looked alike, but members of one approved the agreement while members of the other rejected it. A survey conducted during the strike showed that general member satisfaction mattered for supporting the union's strategy, and case studies revealed what the authors called invisible divides, especially the share of workers who had transferred in from other plants, which shaped how members experienced the strike and the agreement.

Our plant had its own divide. Year-round workers, about 150, have seniority, benefits and pensions. Seasonal workers, about 620, have none of those, and many depend on the season's earnings for most of their yearly income. The ratification vote showed the divide: union stewards told me that year-round workers supported the agreement strongly, while many seasonal workers voted no, unhappy that the new seasonal wage rate rose less than the year-round rate. The engagement survey in Unit 6 had already shown lower engagement in areas with more first-year seasonal workers.

What the Plant Did, and Did Not, Do

Within the limits of the law and the labor counsel's guidance, the plant took several steps aimed at hindrance stressors, the kind most damaging to performance.

First, facts. The plant manager posted written answers, reviewed by counsel, to the factual questions workers raised most: what would happen to scheduled shifts during an extension, when pay would arrive and whether the season's end date had changed. Rumors about replacement workers were answered with a plain statement of the plant's plans.

Second, predictability. Schedules were posted a full week ahead during the contract weeks, instead of three days.

Third, support. The employee assistance program set up two on-site hours each week in August, in English and Spanish, and leads reminded crews it was confidential.

Fourth, restraint. Supervisors were told to stop crew-floor arguments about the vote only when they became threats or safety issues, not to take sides.

After the Agreement

Absences returned to normal within a week of ratification, and near-miss reporting recovered. But the seasonal wage issue did not go away. The return rate next July will show whether the divide hurt the plant's ability to bring people back.

What Leads Saw on the Floor

Line leads described the contract weeks as the hardest part of the season, harder than the August heat. One said her crew worked as hard as ever but stopped joking. Another said new seasonal hires kept asking him whether they would be paid if the plant shut, and he did not know, which made him feel he was failing them. Their accounts matched the framework: the work was no heavier, but the uncertainty sat on everyone.

Limits

I saw the contract period from the management side, and workers may not have told me what they told stewards. The indicators of strain are rough, and the season's heat peaked in the same weeks. The plant's steps may have reduced hindrance stress, but I cannot measure how much.

Conclusion

The contract fight added hindrance stressors to a season already full of challenge stressors. LePine and colleagues explain why the added uncertainty was more harmful than the workload, Ganster and Rosen show how layered stress affects health, and Tapia and colleagues show why divides within a membership, such as ours between seasonal and year-round workers, shape how people experience labor conflict. Facts, predictable schedules and on-site support eased the strain; the seasonal wage gap remains.

References

Ganster, D. C., & Rosen, C. C. (2013). Work stress and employee health: A multidisciplinary review. Journal of Management, 39(5), 1085-1122. https://doi.org/10.1177/0149206313475815

LePine, J. A., Podsakoff, N. P., & LePine, M. A. (2005). A meta-analytic test of the challenge stressor-hindrance stressor framework: An explanation for inconsistent relationships among stressors and performance. Academy of Management Journal, 48(5), 764-775. https://doi.org/10.5465/amj.2005.18803921

Tapia, M., Ibsen, C. L., Strolle, M., Lima Aranzaes, C., & DeOrtentiis, P. S. (2025). A tale of two locals: The strategic choice of a trade union during the 2019 GM-UAW strike and member satisfaction. ILR Review, 78(1), 123-154. https://doi.org/10.1177/00197939241290228