What Industrial Relations Is - Article Example

INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS Contents Introduction 2 Industrial relations 2 Industrial relations not an outdated topic 2 Three aspects of employment relationship 3 Indeterminacy 3 Inequality of employment relationship 3 Dynamism 3 Need to develop an analytical tool 4 Secret ballot method of recognizing the agents 4 Case study 4 The demerits of secret ballot method 5 Industrial relationship officer 5 Trade union rights 6 Case of transfer 7 Labor laws cases 7 Case of a news paper journalist 7 Conflict of Laws in Employment Contracts and Industrial Relations 8 EU industrial relations VS national industrial relationship comparative 8 Horizontal Interaction in international industrial relations 8 An Institutional Environment Approach to Industrial Relations 9 Conclusion 9 Bibliography 10 Introduction In this article we will discuss what industrial relations exactly is? We will explore different aspects and dimensions of it. There is growing impression that Industrial relations are a thing of the past where trade unions were rampant and labor laws were not clearly defined. Trade unions were usually synonymous with strikes and other unhealthy activities. Industrial relations were the concept which was relevant only for journalism. But in reality we cannot restrict the vast topic of industrial relations to mere trade union activities. It has many dimensions more related to a business student and society at large. We will discuss the role of industrial relations in the fast changing business world, modern work environment. We will explore its various rich aspects in the new and revitalized industrial relations approach. Industrial relations are supposed to bring harmony between the two relevant parties i.e. employees and employers. In this article we will try to analyze how harmonious this relationship is in the real modern world. Industrial relations In simple terms industrial relationships can be called multidisciplinary field that refers to the employment relationship. Sometimes it is also named employment relationship because of the negligible importance of non industrial employment relationship. But to consider it just as labor relations is an oversimplification because it has much more to it. Technically speaking Industrial relations defined in business terms as “Employer – employee relationships covered specifically under collective bargaining and industrial relations law.” Industrial relations not an outdated topic There are a number of researchers who assume that Industrial relations study has become obsolete and proposed closure of UK’s most study centers on the subject as (Darlington1 (ed.) (2009). They believe that academic industrial relations are obsolete and are no more required. It has been replaced and dealt better in newer subjects such as HRM, Human resource management and OB organizational behavior. These subjects deal with the human factor while industrial relations study focuses on the collective approach. Collective institutions and processes (trade unions, strike and collective bargaining. Three aspects of employment relationship Those who believe in industrial relation perspective identified three important aspects. They are as under. (Trevor Colling, 2010) Indeterminacy Inequality of employment relationship Dynamism Indeterminacy Indeterminacy in the sense, that unlike other contracts it does not involve physical exchange of goods and services for money. But the contract is made on the basis of the capacity to perform and produce the desirable and the potential to purchase those goods services. In the labor contract a worker or employee only sells his ability to work which is intangible which can only be materialized when the actual work is done and the worker is involved in the production process. A gap can exist between the perceived, expectation standard of performance and the actual one. Inequality of employment relationship Inequality exists in the relationship between the employee and employer. An employee is not usually in the circumstances to have the relationship on equal basis. Employee is burdened with the task of feeding himself and family. Employers are in a much better position to dictate their terms. They can very easily replace unwilling employees with either other people or technology. This inequality depends on the economic conditions and the skill level of the employees. During recession when there is plenty of labor force available it is easy to replace employees as compared to the growing economic conditions. Highly skilled labors are hard to replace as compared to unskilled or less skilled labor. Dynamism Dynamism is another important defining factor of employee relationship. We call it dynamic because cooperation and conflict both coexist in this relationship. The health of relationship depends on the degree of cooperation and conflict. This is what management is all about, using and deploying the workforce in effective and positive way which is beneficial for the organization. Employers cannot rely too heavily on the subjugation of workforce only they have to take strategic steps so that employees don’t exploit them when the opportunity arises. Need to develop an analytical tool To counter the misuse of the power by the employees and to avoid any threats and pressures from work groups we need to develop a thorough understanding. The employers need to understand and keep themselves up dated with the changing trends and characteristics of the employee relationship. They must develop their perspective accordingly for a healthy relationship. Secret ballot method of recognizing the agents In today’s industrial world competitive advantage of an industrial power depends on its scientific and technical human resource. A study was conducted in India to study the secret ballot method to recognize the bargaining agents in industrial organizations and its implications. (P.Venkatraman, 2007) The objective of the study was 1. To conduct an attitude survey of the employees, employers, leaders, trade unions, official of labor department towards identifying and analyzing the bargaining agents in industrial relations. 2. To analyze the bad impact of trade union activities such as production losses, Man days loss.etc. 3. To provide corrective measures by implementing secret ballot method for recognizing bargaining agents in industrial relations. Case study An intensive in depth study was conducted of at least ten different organizations in India to analyze and study different micro and macro factors affecting multi union activities and rivalries that lead to single union situation at organizational level. Through this study different factors affecting single union situation were identified. Roles of the factors were also identified such as, political leaders, industrialist, and mangers in this evolution of a single situation. The methodology used was stratified sampling technique. The data was mainly collected through questionnaire, interviews and observation. Details of data collection and analysis of the study is as under. The respondents included in the study were Members and office bearers of the primary union in Tamilnadu Employees / workers Trade union leaders Employers, managers, employer’s federation leaders. Office bearers. Managers of Industrial organizations Officials of the department of labor Members and office bearers of the non-affiliated Unions Members and office bearers of the recognized trade unions in Tamilnadu. The demerits of secret ballot method Many biases such as caste, religion, community, region, money can play havoc by forking with Industrial organizations in a country like India. There can be a gap between term of recognition and term of collective bargaining which can give rise to many evils. Unrecognized unions will continue to exists and post threats to organized unions. Even in organized unions ruling party gets the lion’s share. Industrial relationship officer As we have analyzed industrial relationship is a very complex task. It has many angles for thought process. This delicate task needs to be handled carefully. (B.N.Raju, 2006). This is delicate because very high stakes are involved. Some companies hire professional industrial relationship executives for this task. The job of this executive is to maintain good friendly relationship with all the stakeholders. He should not only be well versed with the law but should be capable and competent enough to represent the company in trade unions, federations and other negotiable bodies. He should be diplomatic enough to safeguard the interest of the company without offending the employees. All this require deep thorough and in depth knowledge of not only the law but about the circumstances, culture, policies and practices. He should be able to build rapport with both the company officials and the workers. He acts as a bridge between the two concerned parties. The new trend in the organizations is of total quality management. It requires quality not only in production but in industrial relationship. The job of the industrial relations officer is to minimize the loss of Man days, strikes and other unhealthy activities of the trade unions. His job is to ensure smooth running of employer-employee relationship. Industrialist cannot take the risk of huge amount of money jeopardized just because of the desired behavior of the workers. With the growing trend of globalization demand for industrial relations officer is increasing. Parent companies don’t have the thorough knowledge of the laws of the land neither are they aware of the culture of the country. They need some local employee to bridge this gap. Generally there is also mistrust and lack of confidence also for foreign companies. Local employees believe that MNC’s believe in the strict hire and fire policy. This autocratic image or the actual practice of it can cost the company dearly. Hiring process require great deal of resources both in terms of effort, money and time. Each new employee needs some time to settle down besides that firing employees can be very demotivating. It in turn affects quality. Hence professional help of industrial relations officer is the need of the day. Trade union rights The relationship between the employer and the employee is far from harmonious. This can be understood by many cases that were filed under the Article 11. The scope of trade union rights is covered in the Article 11 (European courts of human rights, 2010) which states Article 11(freedom of assembly and association): “Everyone has the right to the freedom of peaceful assembly and to freedom of associations with others, including the rights to form and join trade unions for the protection of his interest.” The European court of human rights had published a fact sheet at the depth of the year 2010, in which a number of cases filed for trade union rights were discussed along with their respective verdicts. There is no dearth of such cases which gives us an insight into the kind of industrial relations. Case of transfer This case was filed in Turkey by V. Akat on 20.9.2005. The applicants alleged that their transfers were a result of their trade union membership. However the verdict given by the court was against them. Verdict said that the applicant’s status as civil servants made them eligible to be transferred to anywhere in performance of their duty for the public. The court observed that transfer to any place does not hinder their freedom of association to any union. The essence of freedom remains intact and does not prevent from engaging into any trade activity at any place. Labor laws cases Labor laws are very important for any country. Now we will take into consideration some Australian labor law and some of the cases filed there. It will help in analyzing the state of industrial relations there. Most of the Australian adults are employees. They do employment not only to support themselves but also for social acceptance as adults. For them good performance for their employers is important because at the end of the day remunerated work is a social act. Australian labor law is very elaborate (Ron McCallum, 2008) for example, the work place relations Act (1996) is almost 1200 pages in length. In the past 30 years parliament has gone beyond the traditional role and has incorporated health and safety, discrimination in addition to remuneration and industrial relations. Case of a news paper journalist This case was mentioned in the same book. It’s about a news paper journalist, who was working in Canada, Mr. Stanley Climinister. After coming to Sydney he joined the trade union. The trade union won the award which bound the newspaper. Under the award, apart from misconduct, newspaper was supposed to give Stanley a two months termination notice or award him with two months’ salary upon termination. Upon his termination the company said that they are required to give either two months notice or two months’ salary in lieu of notice. They were relying on the award. But Mr. Stanley asserted that since he was brought from Canada to Sydney to join this job he deserved a greater time period of notice than two months considering his circumstances. Court gave its verdict in favor of Mr. Stanley. The court observed that Common Law contract of employment prescribed a longer period of notice than what was mentioned in the award. This allowed Mr. Stanley to take advantage of the more beneficial contact. Conflict of Laws in Employment Contracts and Industrial Relations When an employment contract involves two or more countries it should be identified first which law prevails or governs. (Blanpain, 2010). For example if an American company hires a person belonging to any other nationality say Belgium and any conflict arises in compensation or dismissal then which law is applicable. This is answered by Conflict of Law Rules. Every country has its own set of rules for such cases known as Private International Law. Industrial relations are mainly governed by legal norms that are classified as “collective norms”. They are different from private and public laws and they are beyond state control. EU industrial relations VS national industrial relationship comparative Due to increasing globalizations the relationship between national and international industrial relations is a matter of growing concern. (Mia Ronnmar, 2008). We cannot ignore the significance of the national level when emphasizing on institutional arrangements. In recent years researchers has stated that the trend is not of convergence but of diversity. Varieties of capitalism restrict us to critically analyze the different dimensions of European industrial relations development. Horizontal Interaction in international industrial relations There is growing need for each decision related to industrial relations to fit in the legal fabric. (Baron Gordon, 2008)But what we need to understand is that in matters of constitution real world cases or what we call “vertical effects” are of utmost importance in the analysis of horizontal interactions. We must take into consideration real time cases solved, public opinion and constitutional guidance before forming our opinion about it. An Institutional Environment Approach to Industrial Relations The study of industrial relations in the United States is rooted in the early works of the institutionalism in reaction to liberal economy (Charles J Whalen, 2008). The recent changes led to weakening of the labor institutions. In recent times there is an ideological shift. Autocracy, inequality and injustices are not tolerated any more. Institutional environment is not a specific theory but a way of thinking. It needs to be revitalized according to the changing trends. Conclusion We discussed different aspects and dimensions of industrial relationship. We identified the fact that industrial relation is very vast topic which cannot be restricted to only employee and employer relationship. But it includes as varied aspects as discrimination, inequality, injustices, goodwill, confidence, trust and a lot of other factors. In recent times we have come a long way in legalizing issues, making laws as elaborate as possible. After all this achievement still there are issues left to be settled. With the growing discrepancies among the employers and the employee, the relationship is still far from being harmonious. What we observe is that with changing trends there is a wide gap in the expectations from both the parties. As a result what we observe is a growing number of litigation. Lack of trust, confidence prevails. Yes in short I will say that the current state of industrial relationship is far from being harmonious. Which is definitely the desired environment by all concerning parties. Bibliography (Baron Gordon et al, 2008, judicial review in international perspective, Netherlands, Kluwer law international) (Blanpain, 2010, p 221, Comparative labor Laws and Industrial Relations in Industrialized Market, Netherlands, Kluwer Law international) (B.N. Raju,2006, Human Resource Management, New Delhi, Discovery publishing House) (Charles J Whalen, 2008, New Directions in the Study of Work and Employment, UK, Edward Elgar publishing limited) Darlington (ed.) (2009, quoted in Trevor Colling 2010,p 1). (European courts of human rights, 2010, UK, Press unit) (Mia Ronnmar, 2008, EU Industrial Relations VS. National Industrial Relations: Comparative and interdisciplinary perspectives, Netherlands, Walters Kluver) (P. Venkatraman, 2007, Industrial relationships, New Delhi, APH Publishing Corporation) (Ron Mccluum, 2008, Mccluum Top Work place relations Cases, Australia, Waler Kluvers) (Trevor Colling, Mike Terry, 2010, Industrial relations: theory and Practice, England, John Wiley & Sons) Read More