Amity Business School

INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS

Ms. JAYA AHUJA

FACULTY

ABS

Amity Business SchoolWhy are Employee Relations worth studying?

• For many people work is central in terms of time, money, identity, status, social relations

• Most of us experience work as employees – we have an employment relationship – between ourselves and those who employ us, and an employment status

• However many different interests at work (‘stakeholders’) – owners, shareholders, managers, employees, customers – all exert pressure on employment relationship

Amity Business SchoolWhy are Employee Relations

worth studying?

• For employers – the ‘labour question’ a central one

• Need labour to produce output

• Need to ensure labour does what employers want

• Need for control – of labour costs and activities - and need for welfare

• Tension – control v commitment

Amity Business SchoolHISTORY OF INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS

• Pre-industrial society (Agriculture)

• Industrial Revolution

Amity Business SchoolEARLY STAGES OF INDUSTRIALISATION

• Loss of freedom

• Unhygienic working conditions

• Employment of children

• Freedom of contract

• The pursuit of self-interest

Amity Business SchoolINDUSTRIAL RELATIONS

Relationship between Management and Labor or among Employees and their Organizations that characterize or grow out of employment.

Amity Business SchoolESSENTIALS

• Require two parties- labor and management.

• Both parties must work in spirit of co-operation, adjustment and accommodation.

• Certain rules are formed and adhered to for co-existence of the two parties.

Amity Business SchoolDEFINITION

Industrial Relations deal with either the relationship between the state and the employers and the workers’ organization or the relation between the occupational organizations themselves.

Amity Business SchoolINTRODUCTION

• Continuing work environment issues are creating pressures for more industrial relations reform.

• Higher productivity translates into higher wages, better jobs and improved job security.

• While all parties agree that conflict is inevitable, the problem is in obtaining consensus.

Amity Business School

Govt. Rules, Awards, Policies

INDUSTRIALRELATIONS

EMPLOYER EMPLOYEES

EMPLOYERS’ASSOCIATION

TRADE UNIONS

Amity Business SchoolKey Players

GOVERNMENT

INDEPENDENT 3RD PARTIES

EMPLOYEES EMPLOYERS

Amity Business SchoolPARTIES IN INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS

Three major parties: government, employerassociations and trade unions.

ARBITRATION The submission of a dispute to a third party for a binding decision

AWARDS Written determinations setting out the legally enforceable terms and conditions of employment.

Amity Business SchoolWHY EMPLOYEES JOIN UNIONS

Compulsion

Protection

Social pressure

Political beliefs

Solidarity

Tradition

Pay and conditions

Communication

Health and safety

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INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS PROCESS

• Collective bargaining

• Consent awards

• Arbitrated awards

Amity Business SchoolTraditional Adversarial I.R. System

Power

- Rights

- Interests

- Negative behaviours

- Information hoarding

Amity Business SchoolOBJECTIVES OF IR

• Understand the key strategic issues in industrial relations.

• Explain the unitary, pluralist and radical approaches to industrial relations.

• Appreciate the role of employers, trade unions and governments in industrial relations.

• Understand individual and collective bargaining, conciliation and arbitration.

Amity Business SchoolOBJECTIVES

• To maintain sound relations between employers and employees.

• To enhance the economic status of the workers.

• To regulate the production by minimizing industrial conflicts through state control.

• To provide an opportunity to the workers to have a say in the management and decision making.

Amity Business School

• To improve workers’ strength with a view to solve their problems through actual negotiations and consultation with the management.

• To encourage and develop Trade Unions in order to improve the workers’ collective strength.

• To avoid industrial conflicts and their consequences.

• To extend and maintain industrial democracy.

Amity Business SchoolFactors affecting industrial relations

• Institutional• Economic• Social• Technological• Psychological• Political• Enterprise-related factors• Global factors

Amity Business SchoolApproaches to Industrial Relations

• ‘My boat’ attitude

• ‘Shared boat attitude’

• ‘Our boat’ attitude

• ‘Your boat attitude’

- Fahlbeck

Amity Business SchoolApproaches to Industrial Relations

• Psychological

• Sociological

• Human Relations

• Socio-Ethical

• Gandhian

• System

Amity Business SchoolThe Industrial Relations ‘System’

• Dunlop pioneering work in 1950s developed from ‘social systems’ thinking of Talcott Parsons

• IR system a sub-set of economic system and largely self-contained and self-regulating

• Focus was national systems, so different countries developed own systems guided by governments

• Criticisms that concern with stability and ‘order’ ignored very real conflicts that could arise within systems

Amity Business SchoolJohn Dunlop and an Industrial Relations System

CONTEXTS ACTORS PROCESSES OUTCOMES

Economic Employers Pay and

Social Managers Collective Conditions

Legal Trade Unions Bargaining

Political Employees Legal Reg. Conflict

Techno – Customers* Less Conflict

Logical Shareholders*

Feedback

Shared Ideology

Amity Business SchoolTheoretical perspectives

• Unitary

• Pluralist

• Trusteeship

Amity Business SchoolUnitarism

Management & staff strive together for common purpose

- One source authority- Harmony & co-operation- Conflict is pathological, whether mischief or

misunderstanding- Unions unwelcome

Amity Business SchoolPluralism

Regards conflict as inevitable because employers and employees have conflicting interests.

• Trade unions are seen as legitimate representatives of employee interests.

• Sees stability in industrial relations as the product of concessions and compromises between management and unions.

Amity Business SchoolMarxism

Opposing interests of differentclasses. Asymmetry of power basedon ownership.

An employer can survive longer without labour than an employee can survive without work.However, employer can never secure total control or achieve complete power.

Amity Business SchoolESSENTIAL CONDITIONS FOR

SOUND INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS

Equity and fairness Power and authority Individualism and collectivism Integrity, trust and Transparency

Amity Business SchoolMAINTAINING INDUSTRIAL PEACE

• Establishment of machinery for prevention and settlement of industrial disputes.

• Government should be provided with requisite authority for settling the industrial disputes wherever necessary.

• Provision for the various committees to implement and evaluate the collective bargaining agreements, court orders & judgment etc.