Industrial Relation Theory - Essay Example

INDUSTRIAL RELATION THEORY MAY, 2010 Industrial relation can be defined in a broad sence as an interdisciplinary field that looks into every aspect of people who are at work. The field therefore is to include the study of individuals, and also groups of workers who may have organised themselves into unions or not (MIT OpenCourseWare,2006 ). The other aspects that should be looked into is how the employer and union organizations behave, the policies or legal frame works that control conditions in employment and economics issues in employment. Industrial relation has also been defined simply as a multidisciplinary field where relationship of employment is studied. Most of the theories of industrial relations are not broad enough to cover all the issues that are mentioned in these definitions. The lack of a comprehensive theory is actually a problem that has been in existance for along as has been manifested by different literature written on this subject. It has been noted for example that there is absence of an adequate theory of industrial relation and also the use of industrial relation is inadequate(Roderick,1999). When the presently existing theories are put under a crical review it is noticed that culture is not given the required weight as explanatory variables. (Boyd,2004). The state has also been a victim of exclusion in industrial relations theory. One of the authers who has written about the role of the state in in industrial relations is Antony Giles. In one of his writings entitled the “Industrial Relations Theory State and Politics” the auther expounds on the role of the state in industrial relations. The theme in this writing is the need to investigate the role of the state and to include it appropriately in the formulation of industrial relations. The state has been given several definitions in Dictionary.com where one of the definition is, a land build through conguest in which there is a single set of ideals and one set of rules being imposed forcefully. Other definitions given to the state are simply a political organization in a particular country, supreme civil power or simply the state is a government. The writer puts industrial relation into two categories, the first having those that are from the political science branch and who are being described as being concerned with political aspects of industrial relations. The political aspects noted are the ways in which labour policies are made and their administration process, the relationship within trade unions and the politics that exists between the trade unions, their respective employers and the state. The second group which the writer notes is composed of labour economist, specialist in labour laws, and main stream industrial relations researchers. These are interested in the effect of the activities of the state and their impacts on industrial relations. The writer points out that exclusion of issues raised by the first group by the second group results in an exclusion of very important questions that concerns industrial relations. The writer expounds on the problem of the state and their policies not being included in the most research done in America and Europe (the problem is higher in America than in Europe.) Several examples are noted in which state determinants were treated as outside variables. Some of the examples given are for the concept by William Foote Whyte and that of John Dunlops. The John Dunlops concept is described as being more ambiguous case of exogenization of the role played by the state. This concept is described in detail and its weakness is revealed because of the state role being sidelined. The writer notes that many other researchers in in­dustrial relations may not either use the human perspective or systems theory, but the way they define the boundaries of industrial relationship has similarity to the approach of Dunlop. It is noted that those have their specialization in labour laws and the labour economists do not examine the determinants of the state policy but rather they dwell entirely on the effects of the policies and political relationships. The historians have been praised for their contribution in making the development of public policies to be more understandable but are also as fighting hard in overcoming the temptation to develop explicit models but having success in just a few cases. The writer highlight the various justification that have been given for the above problem and shows how this justifications does not hold water. An example of the justification is the argument that there are quasi-autonomous industrial relation structures and processes that are best analyzed when they are put into isolation. Three reasons are given for the rejection of this argument. The first reason is that if an industrial relation has to have policies that are relevant it is necessary that there be a development of conception of development of the policies. The view of industrial relations being studied in relative isolation stands in an empirical ground that is extremely shaky as it is noted that in extremely capitalist governments there has been an increase in their involvement in industrial relations and this can not be ignored. Another point which has been put into focus is that the theoretical narrowness that has been caused through exclusion of the determinants of the state policies is compounded in the way the orthodox definitions of industrial relations puts a limit to the type of policies that are considered to be within the field boundaries. The practical research in industrial relations is further noted to be even narrower than the definitions. In the United States it is observed by the writer that although the definitions given to industrial relations seem to be broad, academic relations are narrowed to man power and collective bargaining. It has been observed by other writers that many researchers are not very conversant in this area of study and many of the conventional ideas which are applied in other disciplines find no room in the area of industrial relations and most of the time, are found to be of non-inspiring and unrealistic (Blumer, 2005). Industrial relations can in present time described as being in crisis where academic wise traditional positions are under threat on one side, mainstream economic dominance organizational behaviour and also not forgetting the effect of post modernism (Budd, 2004) The writer goes in-depth in expounding on the weakness of conceptual schemes which lack analytical content. There is a necessity of filling the two important gaps which are in literature that are derived from the orthodox definitions of industrial relations. The first is where attention is paid to unorganized workers and their relationship to the state. The second highlights the fact that orthodox conception of employment relationship put their focus on the level at which exchange take place while no attention is put on production level relations. To bring out the role of the state in industrial relations four theories have been discussed by the writer. The four theories are unitary theory, pluralism, elite theory and the class theory. In the unitary theory the state is seen to be monolithic and having sovereign authority. In the unitary perspective the state has two models of policy making that often appear implicitly in industrial relations literature, namely the rationale actor model and the systems theory. The three schools of industrial relations which are associated with unitary-rationalist view are techno-legal studies, economics and human relations. The human relations school is seen to ignore the state and its focus is on the workplace organizations. There are conflicts which arise but this are treated as simply as unfortunate consequences of malfunctioning of the organization, the existence that is blind and narrow. The economist and techno/legal shortcomings are also brought into limelight. There is also an association of the systems theory with unitary theory. In a unitary model the state when it comes into industrial relation is to protect the public interests and in particular where the interests conflict the smaller or private interests of employers or organized labour. It can therefore be seen that it is very important to invoke the public interest to support a particular proposal. This is the reason given for some elements of unitary approach being used by researchers who follow a unitary industrial relative perspective. State related theories can also be classified into three categories namely unitary, Marxist and pluralist (Wiljoy, 2009) A question is posed on the adequacy of unitary perspective by the writer. There is a highlight of the criticisms that have been received by the unitary perspective. One of the criticisms the writer brings into focus is the fact that rational decisions are not possible when one puts into consideration the constraints surrounding decision making. There has also been a demonstration that policy making processes do not function as if they were made by a single factor, but instead operate in a much complicated manner. Another conflict arises with the suggestion that there is a concrete identifiable national interest which off course the writer argues is not true. There is also an in-depth discussion on the pluralist perspective. In the pluralist aspect the state activity revolve around the proposition of group theory where public policy is an outcome of a process where conflicting interest groups compromise and reconcile. Two variants are noted to be used in industrial relation one being the public choice theory in which the industrial relation policy is held as being determined by political situation which involve politicians and civil servants who in contest of the competing demands and pressures emanating from business , organized labour and other groups. After a clear background the writer gives points where pluralism is open to criticism. Just to pick part of the writers argument, plurslist model requires an assumption of power and influence being roughly distributed evenly in both groups and individuals which in turn requires equal distribution of resources. This is not the case especially if advanced capitalist societies are put into consideration. Therefore the writer concludes that the pluralist model is inadequate. The elite perspective is also examined where the society is viewed as a pyramid. Due to this individuals are not equal participants in politics as access to power has restrictions. Elite theory is seen as being simply a radical extension of pluralism. It is observed by the writer that the elite theory is rarely applied in labour policy and two sub-disciplines that are predisposed to the elite theory namely political sociology and sociology of labour the writer notes are rarely regarded as being part of the mainstream industrial relations research. After an elaboration on the elite theory and its role in industrial relations a door is then opened for its criticism by the writer. One of the criticisms is on the version which views business and labour leaders as participating equally in the elite accommodation process which is just a reformation of pluralism. As much as the reformation is useful as it draws attention to policy making process aspects that are not readily accessible by standard methods, they are equally misleading just as in pluralist model for there is assumption of equality between groups. The fourth perspective that was under discussion was the class theory. This is described by the writer as making occasional appearance in industrial relations which were not welcome. In this theory the society is divided into classes which are defined by broad definitions and antagonism. In class theory state institutions are seen as being playing fields of class conflict (not pressure group competition or elite rivalry). Just as in the other three theories the class was thoroughly expounded as a stage is being set for its criticism. The class theory researchers are accused of ignoring the fact that their exist divisions in capitalist society, and instead they argue that linguist, regional. Sexual, regional and any other divisions are just but misleading distractions that are formed by bourgeoisie. Another weakness has been associated with class theorist is the fact that there is a failure to satisfactorily analyse the way in which biasness is entrenched in the policy making system (Martin, 1999). Apart from analyzing the four state involvements in industrial relation theories, the writer gives an overall discussion of all the four state theories. The unitarists and class theorists are seen to be concentrating on activities that are society based. On the other hand elite theorist put emphasis on context of organizations that are manned by the elites. The over view of the four theories makes them to be more understandable. The writer gives details in ways the state can be incorporated in industrial relation theories. When the economy and policy are separated, the result is the treatment of the state as a separate entity which is isolated from the economy. Due to the fact that the state is seen to be separated from the economy, attention is not paid to the important conditions that enable existence of capitalistic relations of production and exchange of goods and services. This brings about a situation where the state only comes into focus during the time of economic turmoil while its subordinate role in production is overlooked. There is need for the scope of the subject to be widened beyond traditional way where focus is put on formal institutions and where there exist a collective distribution of relations and instead there should be inclusion of state activities which play a role in shaping production relations and include the unorganized. There is need for a framework that will acknowledge the broad definition of industrial relations (Pot, 2000). The recommendations concerning the nature of the society and state-society relation that leads to orthodoxy into a substance interpretational difficulty. While a broad integrated framework is a step in the required direction the need of avoiding orthodoxy's other pitfalls. The writer used the top down method approach where the general topic is introduced and the small details are addressed in the preceding sections. There was use of sub headings which was appropriate because of the wideness of the issue being addressed. Direct citation was used in several occasions which were necessary in backing up the writers arguments. The writer has shown a deep understanding of the subject matter and the role of the state has been brought up very clearly. It is my strong belief that if recommendation given by the writer are put into consideration the journey to having an acceptable industrial relation theory will have progressed considerably. Other literature on industrial relations should also be equally considered. Last but not least recommendations given in academic circles should be adopted into government policies for them to be of any relevance. References Befort, Stephen F. and Budd, John W. 2009 . Invisible Hands, Invisible Objectives: Bringing Workplace Law and Public Policy Into Focus, Stanford University Press. Boyd, B.,2004. National Culture and Comparative Industrial Relations Theory Queen’s University of Belfast:Belfast BT7 1NN. Budd, W., 2004 Employment with a Human Face: Balancing Efficiency, Equity, and Voice, Cornell University Press. Dictionary.com. An ask.com serve Available at (Accessed on 15 May, 2010 ) Mead Project., 2007 Sociological Theory in Industrial Relations. Available at . (Accessed on 4 May, 2010 ) MIT OpenCourseWare.,2008 . Work, Employment, and Industrial Relations Theory Spring Available at (Accessed on 4 May, 2010 ) Pot, F., 2000..Employment Relations and National Culture. Cheltenham: Elgar. Robert Throop and Lloyd Gordon Ward. 2005 A Blumer Bibliography. Toronto: Mead Project Roderick, Martin. 1999 Mobilization Theory: A New Paradigm for Industrial Relations.Human Relations. 52 (9) Wiljoy P., 2009.Theories of Industrial Relations: Perspective theories. 04 Aug.. 4 May 2009 Available at . (Accessed on 4 May, 2010 ) N/B Some of the paragraphs may not be having any references because the major task was to summarise the material ( which is well over 30 pages). I have talked about the methodology in the second last paragraph in which I have mentioned the way the author structured his work Have now attempted to improve on the introduction and also defined the state. Read More