Management Dynamics - Essay Example

? No part of the assignment/product has been written/produced for me by any other person except where collaboration has been authorised by the subject lecturer/tutor concerned. ? I am aware that this work may be reproduced and submitted to plagiarism detection software programs for the purpose of detecting possible plagiarism (which may retain a copy on its database for future plagiarism checking). Signature: ______________________________________ Employment Relations Employment relation refers to an economic exchange, an agreement that is established between the employees and employers in relation to the capacity of work or labour power.

Balnave and Maconachie (2007, p.2) contend that employment relation is deceptively simple, since there is a need for hiring employees in order to produce goods and services, and the employee is expected to undertake some task for payment. Nevertheless, the essay seeks to discuss the way Unitarist and Pluralist approaches to conflict, would be used in a situation of industrial action, which was taken by the Construction Forestry and Mining Employees Union in forming the Barangaroo picket line, and identify the approach that offers a better explanation.

The conflict that will be explored in this essay involved the Construction giant Lend lease as employers and the employees, who were members of a union, whereby the employers were expected to respect the rights of employees through improvement of job and income security in the building industry (Lend Lease, 2012, p 1). The employees had taken industrial action for a period of forty-eight hours on a Tuesday after unsuccessful bargaining that entailed an agreement that was to cover Lend Lease’s project management and construction business (ABC News, 2012, p. 1). The union was interested with ensuring equitability concerning employee pay and condition for employee of subcontractors on Lend Lease sites, and this included the Barangaroo project in Sydney (McIllroy, 2012, p. 1). The employers were also being condemned due to their failure in provision of jobs to apprentices in Australia, and the union was calling for better rights for contract as a way of dealing with Howe inquiry regarding job insecurity (ACTU, 2012, p.1). The case concerning Construction giant Lend lease as and its employees is an example of the multidimensional nature of employment relation that establishes a potential for a conflict to occur between parties involved.

In fact, the conflicts between employers and employees are termed as industrial conflicts, which relates to issues like; employment conditions, managerial prerogative, wages, social or political concerns. On the other hand, the nature of the employment relationship is depicted by the conflict manifestation, whereby the employees can bargain, hold balance of power, commitment and effort. It entails collective action such as withdrawal from work in situation of a strike, absenteeism, stop-works, while in other situation other s may decide to remain in work, but undermine the objective of the management through a go-slow or sabotage (Balnave & Maconachie, 2007, p.7). In order to resolve the situation that involve the conflict between employers and employees, there is a need to understand the frame of reference, which refers a person’