Changing Nature of Employment Relationship and the Impact of Globalisation - Essay Example

There has been global convergence specifically in employment relations in the past few decades. These employment relations and practices have been noted to cut across borders of nations despite the disparities in diverse regions. This paper focuses on the changing nature of employment relationship and the impact of globalisation. In this case, issues of market deregulation, reregulation, international trade unionism, international agencies, global change and the changing nature of work are handled in this paper. (Bamber et. al, 2000) Past few decades have had various imperative changes made on employment relationship across the globe. This has been aimed at increasing overall flexibility, competitiveness and profitability among all stakeholders in business industry. It has however been noted that employers who have been on the forefront of making these changes hidden motives. This includes having more control in the managerial team and ensuring that the corollary of unions is overly reduced. (Harrod, 1992) This move has seen diverse strategies being put in place. These include situations where trade unions are out rightly de-recognised. Other steps that employers have been taking entail putting in place measures to substitute labour unions and structures that ensure that the unions are avoided altogether. This as earlier on cogently illustrated relates to the aim of ensuring that employers or management team within organisations have more control. This has resulted in a situation where employment relations that were previously inaugurated in various organisations being changed. This includes re-defining employment relations specifically linked to implicit social contracts within organisations. This resulted in a situation where union membership in organisations of diverse nationality across the globe had a sharp decline. (Brown, 1993) It is worth noting that the de-regulation of employment relationships resulted in decline in union membership in United States in the 1930s. This was from thirty three to twelve percent. In United Kingdom, union membership was ascertained to have declined from fifty two percent to forty percent. This occurred in the early nineties. The de-regulation or de-recognition of trade unions by individual employers was consequently accompanied by changes in workplace practices that were aimed at minimizing financial benefits of employees. In this case, individual employers put in place some compensation strategies such as incentives and premium payments that replaced the essence of having trade unions. This was also accompanied by redundancies where employers laid off staffs in order to reduce the bills. This also led to a situation where employers recruited multi-skilled staffs in order to cut costs of maintaining many employees. Individual employers across the globe gained unilateral control and changed essential aspects of employment terms and relations. (Dunlop, 1958) Part of the changes entailed deployment rules, disciplinary conduct for employees, labour and work intensity. Some employers severed majority of staffs and replaced them with highly learned young employees. (Kerr, Dunlop, Harbinson and Myers, 1960) All these strategies were geared to wards inculcating a culture at the workplace that is detached from unions. This therefore led to an overall change in employment relationships across the globe. This is considering the fact that some employers emulated the above practices from their global business partners, customers and suppliers. There are two diverse types of employment relations that are accredited by the Jamaican law. They include a case there is the contract for and contract of service. In contract of service, staffs are termed as employees within an organisation. The employees are hired for indefinite time span by employers. In this case, employees are provided for all the working materials and tools relevant to his or her job description or task that they have to handle. In the second type of employment relations that was termed as contract for service, there is a definite period for which the worker provides services. (Kochan, Katz and McKerzie, 1986) In this case, the contractor has his own materials and tools of carrying out his tasks and duties. The service providers in this type of employment relations are usually known as contractors. The contractors also have the role of managing their time and ensuring that the allocated work is accomplished within the duration set by the employer. There are various key diversities that are notable between the two types of employment relations. This relates so much to dependencies between the service provider and the employer or purchaser. In service for contract, the contractor is highly independent from the purchaser. This includes management of time and even what he does pertaining to other purchasers. (Dunlop, 1958) The purchaser does not concern himself with overall earnings for contractors from other purchasers. The purchaser also cannot evaluate the contractors’ tools and equipment but is more concerned with the overall service provided ensuring that it is quality and according to agreed terms. The purchaser in this case is not concerned with the way the contractor provides the service. The contractors as earlier on illustrated do not join unions. They also do not benefit from many statutory provisions such as health insurance, pension and severance payment. It is quite imperative to note that these benefits emanate from collective bargaining attained through labour unions. In the other type of employment relationship known as contract of service where there is very high dependencies between the employer and the employees. Research clearly demonstrates that globalization results in ad hoc employment relationships. These are also referred to as casual labourers. This group usually are not part of union, are at low levels of job ladder. They are normally never accorded any benefits such as pension that their permanent counterparts enjoy. (Meltz, 1990) Employers can opt to lay them off any time they wish since the time span of contract is never clear. Temporary staffs also fall in this category. In some incidences, some employers retain such staffs for quite a long time and this makes them to be regarded as permanent to some extent. This is basically carried out to minimise costs of having permanent staffs in organisations. (Eaton, 1996) According to the prima facie concept in Jamaica, labour unions are supposed to enrol forty percent of employees in an organisation. The staffs also have to be well defined. The government also has a role to play in the number of staffs who are finally eligible to join the unions. Majority of organisations take three to nine months to certify a union. In situations where the employer is not flexible, this certification can take up to one year. This is the same duration for contract employment that is fixed. Considering the delay mentioned above, it becomes very complicated for staffs on contract to join unions. This situation of lack of unionization in organisations makes it quite challenging to handle disputes between employers and employees. (Bamber et. al, 2000) According to the Labour Relations and Industrial Disputes Act (LRIDA) in Jamaica, arbitration in case of a dispute is only allowed to a worker who is part of a union. Non unionised staffs who seek help in case of dispute from the labour ministry in the nation do not receive any notable help. This concept was borrowed from United States hence showing the impact of globalization on employment relationships. Various researchers have hotly debated on the assertion that there is a direct relationship between the convergence of industrialization and that of employment practices. Some scholars assert that labour laws in various nations play a great role in employment relations and unionization. (Medoff and Freeman, 1984) For instance, the existence of friendly laws of labour in Canada resulted in minimal employers’ resistance to unionisation. One of the aspects that all researchers agree on is the fact that trade unions, government and employers are key players in determination of employment relations in organisations. Some scholars therefore argue that the changes in employment relations in United States were brought about by the management teams in organisations. This includes aspects of recruiting innovative workers, decentralization, concession bargaining and minimization of union enrolment. (Kochan, Piore, and Locke, 1994) Some practices such as job security and higher remuneration packages have been put in place to substitute the need of trade unions. This clearly shows the impact of globalization at the management level in as far as employment relations are concerned. An example is given National Banking Company (NBC) in Jamaica that was part of labour unions for more than three decades. During this period, there were adversarial relations between the union and the employers. Later on another union came up and challenged the services of the former union. (Verma, 1992) This severed the industrial relations within the Company. Within a short time, the Company closed one of the plants that the former union represented and laid off all the staffs. When it was re-opened, there were new rules and regulations, remunerations. Some of the staffs were called back and within a very short time the organisation was union free. (Singh, 1999) Research was later on carried out in the same organisation concerning employees’ perceptions of contract employment and unions. The data that was collected from staffs showed that sixty percent asserted that contract employment led to better staff management relations, seventy percent said it led to better productivity, eighty eight percent said it led to more strict control by the management team in the organisation. Sixty five percent said it resulted in fairer remuneration, 82% said frequent dismissals reduced while 63% said that suspensions increased with contract employment. Majority of the staffs consented that contract work was noted to be tougher. This was a whooping 92%. Forty seven percent of the staffs said that there were improved relations among staffs after contract employment. (Voos, 1994) In general, it was evident that staffs preferred contract employment. Majority of the staffs who said that there were better off as contract workers were formerly non union members. This was ninety two percent. Former union members who said they preferred contract employment were seventy percent. It is quite imperative to note that only those staffs whose skills were quite central to the functioning of the organisation were re-employed. In this case, their skills were indispensable. It was also noted that unions were highly beneficial to casual staffs that were laid off since they had less job security. In this case, labour unions gave them more bargaining power than their permanent or more secure counterparts. Further analysis showed that in as much as the staffs said that contract employment had mutual benefits for staffs and employers, they felt that it was detrimental to the nation. This was more so since contract employment had resulted in many people losing their livelihoods. (Bamber et. al, 2000) Some of the factors that were analysed in the research included worker satisfaction, communication and organisational justice. Higher rating was given to satisfaction in overall work involvement, followed by employers listening and acting on production and employment issues and then staffs had the know how on steps to take in case they had any grievances. This was followed by the aspect of job satisfaction, and then employers listening to their grievances and finally the willingness to use laid down procedures in case of grievances. (Bamber, Lansbury and Wailes, 2004) As earlier on illustrated, the research also sought to find out the staffs’ perceptions of unions. After the data was analysed, it was quite evident that employees in NBC Company viewed unions as very effective in as far as business agency is concerned. This was the perception more than the idea that labour unions are political agents. Employees further elaborated that unions were highly concerned with the wages that workers were being given. The overall objective was protecting the incumbent staffs from being given wages that are below standard. This also included protecting staffs from oppressive working conditions. (Troy, 1992) It was also evident that workers or employees do not perceive unions as having other motives apart from protecting staffs. Majority of staffs considered the aspect of management competence as a venture to substitute unions and show employees that they actually do not need unions. Employees who had formerly joined labour unions were not disposed to the idea that unions were political agents. This also included acceptance of the allegation that unions had ulterior or alternative motives. Some of the staffs however considered unions to be quite undemocratic in nature. This was however a smaller percentage of overall respondents. (Harrod, 1992) Employees who were members of labour unions had more approval or favour to the unions than non members. They considered unions as being in a position to institute change that is socially based beyond the precincts of the workplace. This showed that given a chance, they would be willing to join unions. Generally, it was conceded that management team has proved competence as compared to leaders in labour unions. They however recommended changes that have to be implemented in unions if they are to become more effective. This was more so in relation to governance of unions, ensuring transparent operations, good structures that are democratic in nature. (Adams, Cowell and Singh, 1999) In conclusion, employment relations have gone through diverse changes over time. These changes have been put in place by employers or management teams in organisations. This has greatly been affected by the onset of globalization. Globlisation resulted in the shift from job security where incumbent employees had multiple benefits. These included health insurance cover and pension among other benefits. This resulted in change in employment practices and relations altogether. Majority of employers incorporated the aspect of contract employment. This is more advantageous to employers since they are able to evade giving employees benefits like pension, severity benefits and health among others. Employers are able to manipulate the time span of the contracts for the benefit of the organisations. The absence of unions has limited the aspect of collective bargaining among employees across the globe in their respective organisations. It is however evident that labour unions played a great role in employment relations that have been characterized by a one man show with ninety percent of benefits being accrued on employers’ side. Read More