Workplace industry - Essay Example

? Workplace Industry: The Challenges of ‘Women in Mining” The challenges encountered by ‘women in mining’ The workplace is probably the most common environment where various cultures, personalities, and policies come together to form a team for the betterment of the organization. It is evident that every organization has unique policies and strategies all synchronized towards achieving the goals of that particular organization. With diverse culture and management styles in today’s workplace, the employees, especially the women become more vulnerable to unfavourable policies, management, office culture, and labour (Blackard, 2000). This has especially affected women in occupations considered to be the domain of their male counterparts like the mining industry. This essay discusses the role of management in the work place, resistance and coping, and how these knowledge enables one to understand the challenges of ‘women in mining’ with reference to individual employees, frontline manages, and the unions. The role of management in the work place In most industrial relations, the role management plays is very important especially where the organization structure is broad and complex to the extent of containing numerous management lines. Blackard (2000) relates the complexity to how the management of the organization may categorize the management structure. The manner in which a given organization reacts to any incidence of flexibilities is more often than not dependent on the effectiveness of the management structure and the efficiency with which all the staff at the managerial level deliver their services. Flexibility in the workplace is vital as the modern market environment is stormier than never before and this leads mangers to rethink their strategies like establishing the role played by women in the managerial positions (Blackard, 2000).  Most organizations use three approaches in managing the affairs of their company, be it a physical company or a company operating on a virtual platform like the internet. When the management uses the trust approach, it either allows or restricts the employees’ within their workplace to operate with or without supervision. This approach depicts that the level of supervision a manager accords an employee is dependent on their trustworthiness. Other approaches used by some management include collective versus individualising approach, and structured versus unstructured approach (Blackard, 2000).  Women in the mining industry encounter this challenge in their respective workplaces in that some of their fellow employees show some element of distrust towards them. This approach is really discouraging as the some front managers and the mining firms in general take advantage of this level of distrust to infuse strict supervision on the women employees. The collective versus individualising approach deals with the extent to which women miners can participate in the formation and implementation of their union’s agenda. Most mining firms deny women the right to have representations in the unions. The structured approach entails the explicit nature of company policies as appertains to matters affecting women miners. It is obvious that some mining firms do not have policies that classify women specially and differently. This loophole enables other employees to discriminate against and assault women (Blackard, 2000).  Resistance and coping According to Gregory (2003), several mining firms are a hostile environment. This is especially so to the women in terms of the working conditions, the complicated company policies, and the strict disciplinary measures. The faint hearted do not have a place in the firms that require strong resistance and the ability to cope with these difficult conditions. Despite the many challenges that women miners face in these workplaces, most of them have developed a strong resistance and the ability to cope with harsh conditions in such harsh conditions. A classic example of this resistance shows up when most frontline managers summarily dismiss their juniors most of which are women. His discriminatory action has not in all cases succeeded despite the powers of the managers as many of such victims have always sought legal redress to fix their predicament. Some employees have however, lost their legal bid in their quest to fight for democracy and openness at the workplace. This has been especially so because of ruthless frontline managers and poor organization policies, which have always ensured the dismissal of employees fighting for their industrial democracy (Gregory, 2003).  Another factor of coping with the industry’s oppressive behaviour is the manipulation, ignoring, and the eventual banning of most workers unions in the mining industry. As concerns the workers unions, most women miners who have spearheaded the agenda of their workers unions have always met with strong and forceful resistance from the company. This retrogressive behaviour for women workers poses a strong challenge to women who have personal issues with their lives unlike their male counterparts (Blackard, 2000).  In conclusion, many women in the mining industry face a variety of challenges that ought to be gotten rid of sanity at the workplace and industrial democracy is to prevail in the modern world. Gregory (2003) suggests that all women should receive adequate maternity leave and possibly some time off in case of any complication with their reproductive health. The act of oppression and discriminating is especially rampant to ‘women in mining’ and other male dominated occupations. The world should come to the realization that women can equally perform as well as their male counterparts in virtually all careers and give the women a chance to play an active role both at the managerial level and at the union level (Gregory, 2003). Emotional and Aesthetic Labour It has become apparent that most organizations and companies in the modern world consider the outward look of individuals to be the determining factor of production. This has been especially so in the mining industry where the human resource managers have a tendency of recruiting sexually attractive women as opposed to gauging their competence. This has been a great disadvantage to the less attractive women who would have performed better had they been given the same opportunity (Gregory, 2003). The emotional perspective evident in most managers has an adverse effect towards women who at times grow weary due to the thought that the male managers view them as sex objects within the factory premises (Gregory, 2003). On the other hand women manager also show similar tendencies towards their female and male juniors, thus it would be appropriate to say that sexuality plays an important role as far as survival in the workplace is concerned. Some reports indicate that in certain mining industries, only the women who possess certain levels of aesthetic beauty become lucky to join and participate in the workers union affairs. Even if no woman gets representation from the union management, most employees and managers still look down upon women as the weaker sex with certain limitations. To some extent, organization policies may not be elaborate enough to address this thorny issue in most mining industries (Gregory, 2003).  According to Gregory (2003), the greatest nightmare to women comes from the frontline and human resource managers, who may accord various women special treatment, depending on the level of cooperation. Such incentives as rewards as incentives, promotion, and overtime do not always land on the deserved person as labour is conducted on an emotional and aesthetic basis more so to women who are ever anxious about their looks. The managers tend to ivade the women’s privacy by dictating on their workplace attire, hairstyle and general look. More often than not, the male counterparts, be it the managers, or fellow employees, normally solicit for sexual favours from women in exchange for workplace favours (Gregory, 2003). References Blackard, K. (2000). Managing change in a unionized workplace: Countervailing collaboration. Westport, Conn: Quorum. Gregory, R. F. (2003). Women and workplace discrimination: Overcoming barriers to gender equality. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers Univ. Press. Read More