Government and Public Sector Trade Unions - Essay Example

Allen Flanders (1970) says that the major functions of trade unions are 'Regulation' which is of government role, whose essence lies in rule making. As Flanders (1970) says "Union restrain the exercise of managerial authority in deploying, organizing and disciplining the labour force after it has been hired." Thus trade unions are considered not merely as economic organizations, but also as political institutions directed towards wresting control over managerial authority and moral institutions, which will uplift the weak, and downtrodden and render them the place, the dignity and justice they deserve.

Trade unions, everywhere, as organizations undertake a variety of activities termed as economical, political, social psychological, cultural etc. All these activities could be broadly put into three major categories such as collective bargaining or negotiations, industrial action and legal actions. Basically unions are inclined and always emphasize on compensations and try to obtain higher wages from employer, which results in grater share from profits at the expense of organization plays have to employee-employer relationship.

This relationship leads to conflict between management & employees as both adopting policies to each other (Gallie et. al. 1998; Kelly; 1998). Unions' voice through effective communication between management and employees and the resolution of employee grievances lead to improved relationship with employers (Freeman & Medoff, 1984). Union effects on employment relations depend on their monopoly and voice role. Future unions' relationship may lie on their emphasis on their voice role (Rubinstein 2001; Wachter 2003).

Bargaining arrangements mediate the relationship between unions and perception of employment relations for various reasons. Fernie and Matcalf (1995: 401) agree "the benefits from having a union representation the bulk of the labour force in a work force flow from greater voice and representativesness and less fragmentation of work place employee relations." Analyzing employer perceptions of employment relations in the Workplace Industrial Relations Survey (WIRS, 1990), Fernie et al. (1994:17) found "multi unionism contributes to inferior relations between management and labour.

" If workers are close substitute, employers could use fragmented bargaining arrangements to 'divide and rule' them (Horn and Wolinsky, 1988). If they are highly complementary this eventuality does not arise and separate unions or bargaining arrangements may promote better relations by providing voice arrangements for different groups of workers. Unions may obtain a premium where bargaining coverage in high or multiple unions are present (Forth & Millward, 2002). Management employee relations can be viewed as one dimension in what is usually regarded as the multifaceted concept of 'industrial relations climate'.

Now in a broader sense, the organizations controlled and managed by the governments directly or indirectly can be put into the category of public sector. This sector consists of pure government sectors like police, armed forces,