Employers Behaviour and Non-Unionism - Assignment Example

2504 words overall - 1795 words for Part A - 701 words for Part B Part A Question 1: First, non-unionism is not as simple as giving individual employee a voice and to think that transformation from unionized to non-unionized workforce can enhance cooperation and significantly reduce employee’s resistance to change is somewhat a bit inflated. In reality, unless the management truly value each and every employee, such gentle voice coming from one or few employees may not reach management or quickly ignored for lack of majority support. For instance, results of studies discussed by Dundon & Gollan (2007) suggest that informal dialogue with employees increase efficiency (p.1187) thus absence of such factor is the opposite. Even when represented by a consultative committee, employees in a large organization may still perceive their representation as useless as such consultations, without a legitimate union to worry about, are likely to occur after the management made its decision. Consequently, perceived and later disappointing individual employee representation may develop into militancy or resistance backed not by a legitimate union but team solidarity or large disillusioned workforce. Similarly, trust between employer and employees must be established and maintained otherwise the viability of non-unionised arrangement will suffer. For instance, the lack of voice or rather heard but not taken seriously may lead to perception that such arrangement is bias if not totally useless. Mistrust can also occur when management inert resistance to employees demands particularly when it involve finance and additional resources is discovered in management decisions that are clearly inconsistent with non-unionised arrangement. Such occurrences may also lead to perceptions that non-union voice arrangement is just pure union avoidance strategy and a hidden tactic to deprive employees of protective agency. For instance, employer hostility and revulsion to unionism according to some literature presented by Dundon & Gollan (2007) made them build sophisticated and “ruthless” (p. 1191) mechanisms such as non-union arrangements, social and cultural initiatives saintly dressed as programmes serving the interest of employees. Some of them may be superficially Catch-22 but they definitely have important strategic purpose such as extra cost in providing employee benefits just to avoid unionism and associated industrial actions and costly delays in production. Employer’s behaviour is greatly affected by business needs thus non-union arrangements are commonly viewed by business owners as economic utility and union-free management of employees’ behaviour. For instance, without non-union voice, an employee who has some objection about his work will likely seek, join, or form a union thus if there are for example hundreds of employees with objections, majority of employees will be members of a union that their employer should recognize whether they like or not. The concept of individual employee voice thus appears much more as an innovative strategy to avoid unionism than mutually beneficial approach. To succeed in making unopposed unpopular changes and economies in the workplace, such line of thinking must be accompanied by evidence supporting employers’ true intentions and commitment. This is because workplace change regardless of perception can never be achieved with deceit, a “blatant defensive strategy” (Butler 2009, p.204) such as exploitative employment arrangements and union avoidance or “stone walling union recognition” (Dundon & Gollan 2007, p.1194). The key however to non-unionism success is plain and simple active and genuine employee participation in decision making, two-way but open and unrestricted communication, reward systems that truly recognized employee performance and not mere cosmetic, and listening to employees’ criticism and consideration of their grievances as legitimate meeting agenda. Finally, since non-unionism involves all processes of people management, opportunity to voice out concerns, and employee satisfaction employers who selected this alternative should never attempt to decide by themselves otherwise they will achieved the opposite outcome mentioned earlier. Question 4: Non-unionism does not necessary mean that employees are left alone to decide or represent themselves as in the case of non-union employee representation or NER, employees can seek assistance from work councils. Aside from organisation and recognition issues, the hostility of English speaking nations over NER is due to the suppression of bargaining rights. Depending on the manager’s needs and preferences trade unions can still negotiate and administer collective agreements in a particular section of the workforce. In the United Kingdom for instance, both types of employee representation co-exist and based on prevailing economic needs, business organisations can opt for non-union consultation. Similarly, most employers in the United States enter into non-union arrangements and communicate with their employees directly. The Work Council in NER is about enhancing employee participation while giving employers an alternative way to handle employee grievances. Moreover, voice under the ICE Regulations in the UK for instance is not collective bargaining but information and consultation that union can take advantage to improve articulation of employees concerns. In non-union context, voice is an opportunity to express employees concern but does not necessarily mean that it would affect management decisions. Therefore, with the absence of such genuine “employee voice” there is still an alley for union represented negotiation. Moreover, voice from employers’ perspective is entirely dependent on the extent by which management can response and therefore reliant to both economic pressures and capacity of the organisation to cope with these challenges as in the case of FinanceCo in Butler (2009, p.203). Evidently, the power to represent employees is limited by different conditions. For instance, market pressures as well as the size and competitiveness can greatly affect organisational policies which in turn may trigger suppression of specific channels of employee voice. At this point, through information and consultation or the work council provided by NER, trade unions can learn valuable information about specific employees concern that can eventually use to represent specific employees that are being affected. According Dundon & Gollan (2007), trade unions and collective employee representation still exist in non-unionist arrangements (p.1184) and for this reason employees and employers are free to take both or combination of these options. The complementary existence of employee voice arrangement and trade unions may be found in the reality that voice on its own is not an effective business strategy. An evident Catch 22 in every sense considering the impact of individual voices with varying grievances and expectations and significant financial investments just to avoid collective representations and recognition of trade unions, trade unions can take advantage of work councils providing specific data on workplace issues. Similarly, employees caught in individual employee representation may seek assistance from trade unions whenever their employers fail to respond appropriately. By analysis, the existence of both is beneficial to employees but detrimental to employers who will face not one but virtually two parties in the negotiation table – the trade union and representative of disappointed “voice” enticed employees. In the study of voice channel choice in Britain between 1984 and 2001, it is interesting to note that majority of workplaces are increasingly becoming represented by union and non-union arrangements. The data suggest that there is indeed some considerations being given to trade union contrary to the belief that they are totally being avoided. The presence of hedge dual channel is a clear indication of the complementary role played by non-union voice and trade union in the eyes and minds of British employers. The significant increase in voice arrangement in the 1990s was also associated with employers’ strategic inclination as it appears that there is a balance representation in the workplace as indicated by two parties sharing almost similar percentage. Question 5: Treuren is implying that the role of the state in influencing industrial relations such as regulation of employment relationships, legislations concerning dispute resolution between employers and employees, state-sanctioned industrial agents such as trade unions, and others are not given much attention. This ubiquitous but invisible role of the state in Australian industrial theory is not clearly identified in literature. These include the meso and micro-level treatments being given to the state , generally descriptive , ignorance of the factors shaping the behaviour of the state, confusion between state and government, focus on tribunal system rather than explaining state activity and involvement in industrial relations. The relevance of Treuren (2000) argument to understanding the state and its role in industrial relations under the Fair Work Act 2009, may be explained by recognising that industrial relations is at the heart of capitalist society (p.87). Therefore, there is a mutual relationship between labour and capital which is vulnerable to conflict or tension as labour cannot exist without capital and capital cannot progress without actual labour which is generally represented by trade unions. The work of industrial relations then is to strike a balance between these two mutual dependent but opposing parties. The state, which by nature is interested in economic prosperity and obligated by the constitution, on other hand have no choice but to intervene and reconcile the competing parties. More importantly, to avoid the consequences of conflict such as union led industrial actions, maintain harmony among stakeholders, and ensure realisation of economic imperatives the state have to maintain the balance through regulation and appropriate labour and industry practices. The Fair Work Act 2009 is generally about protecting both side of the industry. For instance, it made some clear distinction between fair and unlawful termination as well as the nature of organisations that are subject to this law. In other words, the Fair Work Act 2009 is state intervention described by Treuner (2000) where government or state is exercising its power under the constitution and industrial laws. It includes detailed compliance and enforcement mechanisms specifically designed to provide employees and employers clear relational boundaries as well as providing unions with rights to represent employees. The relationship between Gerry Treuren’s arguments and industrial relations under the Fair Work Act 2009 can be explained by the evident role of the state and its activity on Australia’s industrial relations. The argument is mainly focused on the importance of understanding the theoretical and practical significance of the state in relation to issues surrounding industrial relations thus evident state intervention in Fair Works Act 2009 substantiate this controversy. There is indeed an indisputable relevance between Treuren’s argument and the Australia’s industrial relations more particularly in the state’s role described in the state-cognisant theory of industrial relations. For instance, if industrial relation is at the core of capitalism then the harmony between capital and labour must be maintained by the state. The invisibility of the state in Australian industrial relations for many years was due to earlier established regulations which were only challenged in 1992 by the Kenneth government. Secondly, attempts made outside Australia to explain industrial relations in the past were mostly patterned from irrelevant Anglo-American concepts. In other words, the state is always at the centre of industrial relations and in fact obligated to mediate, facilitate capitalist growth, and ensure realisation of economic imperatives. As evidenced by the continuing but more visible intervention, the state’s role Australian industrial relations is no longer vague as argued but clear and understandable. Part B Question 7: Collective bargaining is generally about collective relations where trade unions representing employees of a certain organisation play an important role. Similarly, the resulting bargaining agreement can be viewed as an agreement made by the employer and employees as represented by a trade union. The five dimension of bargaining follows the concept of bargaining structure that include considerations on the relevance of bargaining units (the employees who will be covered by an agreement) and bargaining levels (often decided by parties involved) that can be industry-wide, regional, district, or workplace specific. The bargaining structure thus determines which employees will be covered by the outcome of the negotiation as well as the extent union influence in the particular industry. Similarly, the structure will also specify the extent union and employees participation during the negotiation. The five dimension of bargaining include level of bargaining, bargaining agents, scope of bargaining, status of bargaining, and coverage of bargaining. The levels of bargaining or the extent of bargaining differs from industry to industry and mostly dependent on the needs. However, it can be simply viewed as the extent of bargaining in terms of workplace area that will be affected by the outcome of negotiation such as those working in plants alone or a particular area of the workplace or the entire industry. Bargaining agent are registered and legitimate trade unions representing at least one third of employees employed. It is the one responsible for raising industrial dispute by serving set of demands to the employer. In case the negotiation failed, the same agent will be responsible for serving the employer notice of strike and any action that will be taken by the union. The scope of bargaining on the other hand determines the scope or whether subjects in collective bargaining is mandatory, permissive, or not under any obligation. These also include some obligations given parties involved such as furnishing data or information relevant and necessary for complete and proper discussion. The status of bargaining, as the name implies, is the status of the negotiations being done. It can be defined generally by the level of agreement or disagreement and level of cooperation provided by each party. The coverage of bargaining however is the number of employees that will be covered by the outcome of the negotiation which may exceed union density in some cases. Appropriateness of the five dimensions of bargaining discussed earlier to Company A and B may be explained by distinguishing the organisations from its size or the number of employees employed. In terms of levels of bargaining, Company A may not qualify since it is non-unionised. However, if it does have trade union affiliation, then the level of bargaining may extend to other two outlets. In contrast, fully qualified Company B, the level of bargaining may extend to its 20 branches affecting 140 employees. The bargaining agent for Company B in this case is the trade union they belong which will represent them in case of dispute. Similarly, given that Company A opt to join a certain union, the same union will represent employees of the main salon and two other hairdressing outlets. The scope of bargaining for Company B will be determined by bargaining agent and the other party while the status may be monitored by the employees concern. Since there are only more than hundred employees in Company, the coverage of bargaining will be likely all employees. However, depending on the grievances or affected area in the dispute, it may be limited to specific branch or branches. Collective bargaining is more appropriate to organisations will large number of employees such as Company B that has over 50 employees. The advantage is that employees belonging to large organisations can bargain on issues central to their employment such as wages, hours of work, working environment, hiring and layoff procedures, and others which they cannot possibly do individually. With collective bargaining, employees can use their bargaining agent and benefit from the outcome with little or no effort. In terms of level, scope, and coverage of bargaining, it is more advantageous to be represented by a bargaining agent with tough reputation compared to individual or group representation that is not duly recognised by law or the employer. References: Butler P, (2009), Non-union employee representation: exploring the riddle of managerial strategy, Industrial Relations Journal, 40:3, pp. 198-214 Dundo T. & Gollan, (2007), Re-conceptualizing voice in the non-union workplace, The International Journal of Human Resource Management, 18:7, pp. 1182 – 1198 Treuren G, 2000, The Concept of the State In Australian Industrial Relations Theory, Labour & Industry, Vol. 11, No.2, pp. 75-98 Read More