Beginning or End of Unions - Essay Example

Beginning or End of Unions Introduction Most of the people of the world share a similar notion that labour union is a special group of people working for the fulfilment of their own financial interest. Fundamentally, labour union is regarded as an organization of people, working for the benefit of its members and non-members along with providing immense benefits to the society as a whole. In recent days, it is often observed that the existence of labour unions is gradually diminishing. The reason behind this is that most of the individual workers have discarded the assistance of labour unions, having strong belief that the labour unions appear in their way of working and reduce potential capacities towards performing various activities efficiently (Bloom & Reenen, 2010). With this concern, the essay tends to analyse the past, present and future scenario of the labour unions. During this analysis, "For unions, where were they, where are they, and where do they need to go to remain or regain an active and viable organization in the 21st century” would be discussed. The Past, Present and Future of Unions Past The formation of labour unions had begun from the land of United States of America. In ancient times, several labourers visited America in search of a job. Observably, these people were offered with the job of servants or slaves. At that time, most of the unions were formed to provide the workers with certain benefits such as higher wages and appropriate working schedules. This fact can be illustrated with an example of an incident that took place in the year 1778. In this year, a group of individual printers in New York City had formed a union for demanding increased wages. During that time, the US was entering into an industrial society and this particular stage was named as Industrial Revolution. In this era, demands for labours were rapidly increasing. With the increase in labours, need for their protection from the employers had also increased. Finally, in the year 1837, the labour unions were granted with the legislation of meeting the needs of protecting the labours. This legislation was clearly defined, but the only drawback observed was that it contained a lengthy working schedule for the employees. Thus, in order to develop this crucial aspect of the legislation, several smaller labour unions united together to form a larger union. Therefore, Industrial Revolution was one of the major determinants of the formation of labour unions. The Industrial Revolution had brought about a new era, wherein more employees were required to get employed in various business organisations. With the increase in employees, labour unions also came into existence after experiencing critical challenges such as their non-acceptance by local and government bodies (Burawoy, 2010). Present The gradual decline of the labour unions since 1970s eventually made their existence in the modern day scenario quite limited. This declining fact of the labour unions can be viewed to get aligned with the increased level of globalisation and changing nature of industrial relations along with human resources. These eventually brought a huge change in the operations of the labour unions. In the modern context, the labour unions are denoted as those organizations that work for betterment and resolving several human resource associated issues such as wage hikes, bonuses and other non-financial facilities. It has also been viewed that in several countries, the existence of labour unions is gradually declining. One of the reasons might be considered as that most of the individual workers feel that they are losing their capacity of working through the involvement in labour unions (Khan et al., 2012). Apart from this, the formation of labour unions is still successful in providing the employees with fair justice from their employers. In this similar context, The National Labor Relations Act of 1935 had provided most of the workers in the US with the right to take the assistance of labour unions as a way to bargain with the employers for obtaining extra wages or payments on overtime working. In the year 2000, Union Network Federation (UNI) was introduced by the government of the US with the aim of forming an association with the employees so that their problems can be solved in accordance with the lawful guidelines allotted to them (Schramm, 2005). Thus, from the above explanation, it can be affirmed that despite the value of forming labour unions being diminished, it is still working for the betterment of the employees in terms of providing them with their desired benefits. Future From the analysis of past and present scenario of the labour unions, it is quite harder to estimate about determining their future prospects. Still, it can be estimated that the formation of labour unions has made especially the human resource (HR) professionals of business corporations to think in another way. The change in the operation of labour unions would force the managers to keep updated information about various trends such as on-going working style of the employees, coalition and the recruiting methods. It can also be stated that with the successful functionalities of labour unions despite of their diminution, the economic, political and social conditions of the organisations as well as the society might get impacted at large. As mentioned in the aforesaid section that the managers must keep track of the recruitment processes for maintaining better relation with the labour unions. In this frequently changing business setting, it might become necessary to enhance the recruitment processes as it can change the demographics of the employees working in different operational segments. Thus, taking into all these assumptions into concern, it can be stated that the labour unions must develop strong strategies for preventing the declining rate of the labour unions. Critical Evaluation of Effectiveness Of labour Unions Evidently, labour unions had a healthy relationship with the management of the organisations prior to World War II. The labour unions always work in association with the management or the employees so that proper effectiveness of the unions can be assessed. In ancient times of the evolution of labour unions, it was apparently observed that the management of the organisations does not desire to collide with the unions. This system has not yet completely improved. However, in the current scenario, the management or the employers are trying to associate or create healthy relations with the unions due to the reason that they need to alter according to the requirement and achieve sustainable position in the changing economic setting (Schneider & Stepp, n.d.). It was also mentioned in the above section that during the initial stage of Industrial Revolution, there was a high demand for labours. In that situation, the management needed to protect the employees, which eventually drove them to take the assistance of labour unions. Since then, both the parties are working in association with each other for ensuring effective operations of the business organisations. The history of the labour unions in the US represents that since the commencement of National Labor Relations Act, the labour unions had made the management of the organisations to collide with them in order to obtain economic gains. At the initial stage, it created huge complexities in the work of both the parties due to their diverged views and opinions (Freeman & Hilbrich, n.d.). The measurement of labour union and management relation is a complex task as it contains various HR related aspects to be covered in the analysis process. The other aspect, which can be viewed in the maintenance of the association persisting between the labour unions and the management, is the disagreement of their opinions. Since the ancient times, labour unions have been struggling for raising the wages of labour. In this present day context, the persisting relation between the management and the labour unions is found to be based upon the facet of collective bargaining in opposition to the employers. In this process, the labour unions bargain on raising the productivity of the individual workers with the management or the employers. Despite of being unacceptable towards the labour unions, management often takes the help of unions to ensure that the unfair labour practices are not practiced within the organisations. The unions discourage the conduct of unfair practices and thus, help the management to ensure that it is not prevalent within the organisations. It can be critically argued that the presence of labour unions in the organisations is a major threat to the management. It is obvious to the fact that with the altering business setting, pattern of working and other economic aspects also changes accordingly. Thus, it is highly required that the unions effectually adapt to these changes and make the employees to work for reaping significant benefits along with attaining predetermined organisational goals (Freeman & Hilbrich, n.d.). In the entire study of the labour unions and management, majority of the focus has been laid upon determining the unions to remain or regain an active and viable organisation in the 21st century. The management along with the employees are able to resolve a particular problem of the organisations, if they develop a healthy relationship between them. In the report of Federal Mediation & Conciliation Service (2009), it was stated that the middle person i.e. unions are the most successful intermediary to develop healthy and strong working association between the labours and the management (Federal Mediation & Conciliation Service, 2009). These unions often aid the management in recruiting along with selecting employees and most vitally providing trainings to them. It is worth mentioning that the management of several organisations are often viewed to take the assistance of unions for selecting right person at right place or position. Therefore, it can be affirmed that due to huge benefits provide by the labour unions, management considers them one of the significant bodies supporting it to perform various operational functions smoothly and error free. This eventually forms a healthy relation between the labour unions and the management of the organisations (Khan & et al., 2012). Recommendations and Conclusion Recommendations In the changing business environment and also the financial conditions, the labour unions must not confine their roles within the duties of negotiating with the employers concerning the benefits and the working rights of the individual employees. These tasks are not sufficient for attaining sustainable growth. Thus, in this situation, one of the strategies that can be followed is the arrangement of greater education and training opportunities. With greater advancement of technologies, it has become much important that the employees gain more knowledge and skills of working within the organisations. It is also believed that promotion of knowledge based workforce is a vital element for economic development and also for the security of employment. Education of employees will also enhance the strength and unity of the employees within the organisations (Khan et al., 2012). Thus, based upon these suggestions, it can be affirmed that through education as well as training, broader organisational development can be done, resulting in enhancing the effectiveness of the labour unions by a considerable extent. Conclusion Based on the above discussion and analysis concerning the status of labour unions in the past and present scenario, it can be affirmed that the labour unions are going towards diminution in this modern day context. Thus, for dealing with the problem and regaining the position of an active organisation in the 21st century, the labour unions must emphasise delivering quality and effective education along with training to the employees. It can be affirmed in this regard that if the employees are skilled and knowledgeable, they can work for the organisational benefits and also for their overall development. Evidently, at certain times, there does not lay any sort of healthy relationship between the unions and the management due to various reasons. For improving this relationship, unions must comply with the guidelines frame by the management and most significantly work towards the attainment of common organisational goals. Therefore, it can be concluded that the labour unions must maintain strong relationship with the management along with adapting to the changing economy for sustaining their position in the 21st century. References Bloom, N., & Reenen, J. V. (2010). Human resource management and productivity. National Bureau of Economic Research, 1-76. Burawoy, M. (2010). From Polanyi to Pollyanna: the false optimism of global labour studies. Global Labour Journal, 1 (2), 301-313. Federal Mediation & Conciliation Service. (2009). A winning combination building labour-management relationships. The Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service, 1-8. Khan, M. T., Khan, N. A., Ahmed, S., & Ali, M. (2012). Role of labour unions for human resource development (HRD). International Journal of Business and Behavioural Sciences, 2 (7), 23-31. Schneider, T. J. & Stepp, J. P. (n.d.). The evolution of U.S. labor-management relations. Characteristics of the Old Labor-Management Model, 1-6. Schramm, J. (2005). The future of unions. Workplace Visions, 4, 1-8. Read More