Employment Relations in Australia - Term Paper Example

Introduction Australian employment relations system has become more and more unitaristic especially in the last three decades. Unitarism is a state which has led to conditions of inequality among the workers and the employment relations have eventually deteriorated. Unitarism in a working environment assumes that the employees are to work as one happy family. All of them are required to work together having a shared mutual goal. The objectives and the purposes of the workers is the same and loyalty to the organisation is a key factor in unitary organisations. In addition to this, the trade unions are deemed not to be of necessity as this would bring conflicts which are a vise and would bring disruptions. From the perspective of the employees, they should be multi skilled, flexible and should focus on improvement of business processes. Their efficiency is required to de full time in every field that they may be required to work in. The unions that are to be recognised are only those which are going to further communication between staff groups and the company but not for fighting of rights and seemingly propaganda. In addition to this, good relations and decision making participation is enabled and this is done to improve performance, enhance innovativeness, promote creativity and this is expected to improve the conditions of employment. The conflicts in an organisation are in this believed to emanate from inadequacy on the communication of management policies and information lack The unitaristic approach in Australia is more fictitious as it assumes that the employees will have a common interest with that of the organisation and the employers and that is to focus on achieving maximum results, following company’s policies and adhering to their goals under all conditions. This opposes the thought propounded by Moore and Gardner on managerial prerogative, the validity of unitary in Australia is in question as the theory is only a lie that lies in the heart of HRM philosophy. The insistence on maintenance of a unitaristic state in organizations has gone far and wide to creating tensions in work places and is even believed that the employees no longer work out of good will, but out of lacking an alternative and have to bear the burden of following that which most of them do not believe in. and although they are involved in the decision making process, their interests do not supersede those of the organization and are therefore subordinate to them. Whenever there has been any tendency of formation of unions, measures have been taken, first to deal with those involved and then with disintegrating the unions as demonstrated by Plowman, David H. (2005) in Recruitment strategies and union exclusion in two Australian call centers. The result which is a case of inequality has led to controversies far reaching even to the policy makers who have not taken it to be a serious case. Their argument is that for a case where growth and development has occurred, this should not be taken as a problem but an avoidable circumstance. Inequality in itself is not a state of poverty, but it’s a situation where equal efforts are not rewarded the same to different employees. It is seen more to be way of discriminating between parties for one reason or the other, either as a punishment or it may go too far to be a bit personal where even benefits and bonuses are involved. This may take different forms; due to race, gender, age, ethnicity, or as a way to let one learn a lesson in obedience to a certain powerful external force. Discussion There has been means in which this has evolved over time, most of which has been innovative and varied over time. For instance, the workplace relationships and awards have shifted from being centralised to being decentralised and the joint negotiations, agreements and awards to being individualised, the permanent contracts on jobs are no longer applicable as contingent working environments have taken their place. This has diminished the collective bargaining power of the employees. Case like contract signings have gradually been eradicated as this would presumably bring about redundancies in the work place. The commissions’ influence on the working environment drastically reduced as they were no longer responsible for providing for the rewards and other agreements and this disintegrated the centralised wage rate regulations as well as reversing the arbitrations on the agreements that they handled. In addition to this, the agreements between the employees and the employers were now handled at the enterprise level. The workers are seemingly not involved in the making of the key decisions in their work places as unitarism would advocate and this adversely affects their performance in the work places. These have been the fiction behind the new approaches and management styles where commitment, multi skills and involvement are strictly being followed. The workers feel betrayed and blackmailed to work where situations which may seemingly favor them are twisted to work against them and cause tension in their work places. The worst part is that complains are seen as arguments and these are part of the things that are not tolerated. The employers seem to be on the same side as the company but the employees are left to suffer under the mercy of the harsh and unfavorable working conditions. There has been a reduction in job security as the contracts are no longer being honored and the decentralisation of obligations to enterprise level has caused fear and tension among workers. No one knows when the work day will end and if it does, there no questions to ask and no one to sue. It is believed that the objectives of the organisation will be the goals to achieve by all the workers. Workers who tend to form unions are blacklisted for replacement by those who have Unitarian tendencies. The effect of these is that, these implications are bound to repeat themselves through the workers finding themselves in the same conditions as their predecessors. This has had the effect of reduced performance. The workers’ stress levels have risen due to harsh working conditions and being overworked which has resulted from them lacking a definite job description and the encouragement to be multi skilled .the effect of this is that others may have a slow pace at work and others who may realise this will work at moderate pace knowing that no one will leave the job area until all the work is completed and since this is supposed to work in the same way as our family units where people work together ,then the task is done by all. This has been a disadvantage to those who are efficient in their tasks and discourages their agility at work (Lansbury, Russell D, 2008) The new government since 1996 has brought about liberalisation that has changed the relations system and the privatization of systems has been prolonged. In addition to this, the tax system has greatly shifted from what it used to be, that is direct to being indirect plus making the warfare system to be more punitive. Rather than the government salvaging the situation, it has worsened it. (Dabscheck, J, 2007) The wages have reduced inadvertently. This has resulted from the policy adopted by the labour government to provide social facilities using the increased taxes. This has been a fiscal policy majorly aimed at reducing inflation levels in the country. Rather than reducing expenditure, the governments opts to further pressure the employees. This has had an unfair advantage over the workers who spend a lot of time in their job places, lack job security and are forced to dig deeper in their pockets to control the inflation of which there was another way of controlling this inflation. The wage to profit range has been noted to increase with time. The ratio of profit to total factor income has shifted over time. In 2002-2003, it was 54.4% and this had changed from the previous two decades: period ending 1979 which had 61.1%. This was a decline in the real wages and it has been doubted whether labor sufficiently compensated for the declining wages. The offset amount was taken by the government to cover up for supposedly social advantages, whereas this occurred at time when the government was being forced to do less. There has been a high rift in the wage disparity and this was caused by the occupational structure of jobs changing especially for full time high earning employees whose earnings have skyrocketed at a rate higher those of medium income earners. In addition to this, their jobs have been on permanent basis. This has been at the expense of the casual workers. (O'Donnell and O'Brien, 2002) In Pusey, (2003; 50), the labor market deregulation, the weakening of the trade unions and the rescheduling of the industrial systems have continuously led to job shedding. Inequality has been brought about by having a ‘two-tier’ labour market, whereby we have the skilled having full time job occupations which are on permanent basis, whereas the semi and unskilled suffer the fate of having their roles temporary as they are made part timers and given casual jobs. The effect of this is the continuous supply of workers to replace them. This has led to a disparity in the income earnings between workers in the same place. Much of this has been propagated indirectly by the government who relinquished their role of control to the market demand and supply forces which are subjective and sometimes inconsiderate. The workers have been forced to work for longer hours in order to meet the targets set by the organisation. This has not come with a reward or an increase in the wage rate .these institutions have emphasised on working like systems and giving out their best in achieving the objectives of the venture which have gradually been scaled upwards. The hiring is done on an agreement that the work conditions and decision making involves the bottom up approach, while in real terms, there is little or no provision for that. From the point that the layoffs in the operation level are impromptu, the decision making has been left in the hands of a few to monopolise the organisations. The unitaristic approach has been used to lure employees to work in these places by big promises which are unachievable in those conditions. Equality would call for honoring an agreement fully and not honouring it only on the points in which one party has an unfair advantage over the other and this is what is happening in Australia where every joint on the agreement that touches on the welfare of the employees being improved at the expense of increased profit is suppressed. The management has tended to air their stands not through themselves but through other non-union employees. This has come as strategy to marginalise the unions .the result has sometimes been a personal affair and rather than the individuals who lead these unions’ being replaced, they are rewarded by an increase in their wages and sometimes by promotion which has silenced them and made the union power to weaken as their grievance are ignored. The management hence chooses to make agreements with individual employees rather than unions. The result of this was a low density in the union such that their endeavor to vote out for the draft agreement did not go though which was their third round of negotiating agreements. (Wicks, J 2005) A system of managerial prerogative was maximised by the finance department which diminished the procedural justice of employees. The agreement making process to the management was seen as a way of developing a high performance corporate culture that required the employees to completely adopt action oriented for a win-win environment of which they were to get assistance in adjusting to the new environment failure to which their services were of no importance and their leave would be facilitated. To best achieve these cultural objectives, the employees were to abandon collective arrangements and adopt individual contracts. The problem with these Australian work place Agreements is that the rewards of those who agreed to follow this were much higher than for those who followed the collective agreement which was bonus of 15 percent. In addition to this inequality, the defaulters of this individualised approach had little if any of the appeal rights even if they failed to earn even the minimum rewards available for defaulters. (O'Donnell and O'Brien, 2000) This inequality was also seen where the employees would be denied their salaries due to underperformance whereas a high performing employee would be rewarded with a rapid progression of his salary or with or through the bonuses Summary a) Unitarism depicts a working environment under rules which govern a supposedly friendly environment where all the parties to an organisation have the same common goal. This has been seen as fictitious in a way as not everybody will have the mutual interest and a common goal. Unitarism has been depicted to bring about inequality in the employment relations system in many ways: b) The rules have seen the disintegration of trade unions and their voices have been shuttered and their rights denied, c) The workers participation in key decisions making and policy formulation has been denied or subsequently ignored even though this has been the agreement under unitaristic approach, d) Those who have followed the collective and not the individualised agreement approach have had their rights infringed including having their salaries sliced and them lacking an avenue of seeking justice. e) There has arisen a case of the rich getting richer and the poor getting ‘poorer’, this specifically addressing the disparity in their salaries and even the disparity in the rate of increase of their salaries and wages. f) There have arisen cases of job insecurity. The poor earners have ended up to be casual workers and there being a high demand for the jobs, the ones who are underperforming or not following the set rules to the tooth are replaced and this has been done unceremoniously. g) The unitaristic approach has had an in depth approach with the government relieving its duties to individual enterprises and leaving the market forces to operate. This decentralization approach has worked in favour of propagating inequality. h) Where the unionists would try to air their demand, some of them would have their salaries hiked and this was done to weaken the corporate strength of the employees by promoting others and demoting others. At the end of it all, whatever they fought for or believed in is suppressed. Annotated Bibliography Dabscheck, J (2007). The Struggle for Australian Industrial Relations, Oxford Press. This author talks about the new government’s approach since 1996 and the work of the author says that since then there has been liberalisation which has changed the privatisation and relations system which have been prolonged. Further, the system of taxation has to a great extent shifted form the way it used to be by adopting an indirect as opposed to the direct taxation system that was there before. The government has also made worse the warfare system where it has made it more punitive. Lansbury, Russell D (2008). "Workplace Change and Employment relations Reforms in Australia." Australian Review of Public Affairs. University of Sydney. Fundamentally Lansbury talks about the evolution of the workplace in Australia. This may refer to situations like awards and relationships in a work place changing from a centralised system to a decentralised one. Permanent contracts are reducing by day. Due to the changes in the contracting system in the work place it has become difficult for the employees to have a bargaining power in the process. Relations between the workers and their employers have ended up becoming handled in the enterprise level as a result of the changes. Workers are usually not being involved in the major decision making in the work place. Management styles where commitment, multi skills and involvement are strictly being followed instead. Thus, one can see the contribution of this author in this study. O'Brien J. and O'Donnell M. (2002) 'Individualism, Union Organization and Management Prerogatives in the Australian Public Service: 1983-2000', Labor and Industry, 12 (3): 103-122. This author writes that of late wages have gone down. The reason for this is the labour government’s provision of social amenities by the applying of higher taxes. The aim of the fiscal policy is to do away with the inflation that has persisted in this nation as opposed to the reduction of expenditure. The aim of the government is to further this pressure to the workers. The result of this is a negative effect to those workers spending a big portion of their time at work and also those who have no job security to have to spend more to reduce the impacts of high inflation. O'Donnell, M. and O'Brien, J. (2000) 'Performance-based Pay in the Australian Public Service' Review of Public Personnel Administration, xx, 2: 20-34. The author here talks about the way the reduction of the procedural justice to employees due to the system of the managerial prerogative. Here employees were forced to adopt an action oriented system failure to which their services would no longer be needed. They would be needed to seek assistance so as to adopt the new environment in their work culture. Individual types of contracts would be arranged for as regards employees and thus there would be no teams in the workplace. Those who followed the individualistic kind of contracts were more rewarded in comparison to those who did collective action approach. Plowman, David H. "Origins of a Debate: A reply to Segal." The Journal of Industrial Relations vol. 47(2005) 361-363 In the last three decades, according to the author, there have been a lot of changes in the work relations and the system has turned more unitaristic. Therefore, there has been more and more inequality among the employees and the relations in the employment have become bad. Trade unions have become more unnecessary in this kind of system as workers are called for to be more loyal to the organisation. Despite this, workers are calling for a system where they are more multi skilled, flexible and should focus on improvement of business processes. Lack of communication in the organisation is blamed to be the cause of all conflict at work according to this author. Reference list: Dabscheck, J (2007). The Struggle for Australian Industrial Relations, Oxford Press. Lansbury, Russell D (2008). "Workplace Change and Employment relations Reforms in Australia." Australian Review of Public Affairs. University of Sydney. O'Brien J. and O'Donnell M. (2002) 'Individualism, Union Organization and Management Prerogatives in the Australian Public Service: 1983-2000', Labor and Industry, 12 (3): 103-122. O'Donnell, M. and O'Brien, J. (2000) 'Performance-based Pay in the Australian Public Service' Review of Public Personnel Administration, xx, 2: 20-34. Plowman, David H. (2005) "Origins of a Debate: A reply to Segal." The Journal of Industrial Relations vol. 47. 361-363 Wicks, J, 2005, Social Policy Issues Paper 1: The Reality of Income Inequality in Australia, St Vincent de Paul Society Read More