Meaning, objectives, nature and Scope of Industrial Relations PDF

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Summary

Industrial relations encompasses a set of phenomena concerned with determining and regulating employment relationships. These relationships concern management and employees or among employees and their associations that characterize and grow out of employment. It is about maintaining harmonious rela...

Description

DEFINING IR • Industrial relations encompasses a set of phenomena concerned with determining and regulating employment relationships • These relationships concern management and employees or among employees and their associations that characterize and grow out of employment. • Industrial relations is about maintaining harmonious relations at the workplace

OBJECTIVES OF IR • • • • •

To develop healthy workplace relations To enhance economic status of workers To avoid industrial conflicts and their consequences To extend and maintain industrial democracy To provide an opportunity to the workers to have a say in the management decision making • To regulate production by minimizing conflicts • To provide a forum to the workers to solve their problems through mutual negotiations and consultations with management • To encourage trade unions in order to develop workers collective strength

NATURE OF IR •

IR arise out of employer employee relations

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IR is a web of rules: formed by the interaction of players players: management, labor, industry etc.

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IR is multi-dimensional: influenced by complex set of institutional economic & technological factors institutional,

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IR is dynamic and changing: keep pace with employee expectations trade unions, expectations, unions employer associations and other economic and social institutions of society

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IR is characterized by forces of conflict and compromise. Individual differences and disagreements resolved through constructive means.

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Govt influences and shapes IR: with its laws, rules, agreements through executive and judicial machinery

SCOPE OF IR • • • • •

Management/employer - Union relationship Management/employer- Employee relationship Employee-Union relationship Employee- Employee relationship Effect of extraneous factors like state, socio-political- economic factors on workplace relationships

Framework of Approaches to industrial relations

Pluralistic

Unitary

Marxist

Co-operation

Authoritarian

Conflict

Paternalism

Input Conflict C fli t (differences)

Conversion Institutions and processes

People management

Evolutionary Revolutionary

Output Regulation R l ti (rules)

Control of the labour process

Systems

UNITARY APPROACH (Harmony) • • • • • • • •

A unitary perspective dominates in the organization. This perspective may be the result of either authoritarian or paternalistic management styles IR is grounded in mutual cooperation, team work and shared goals. Work place conflict is seen as temporary aberration, resulting from poor management Unions are expected to cooperate with the management Management’s right to manage is accepted because there is no ‘we they” feeling Underlying assumption is that everyone benefits when the focus is on common interest and promotion of harmony Participation of Govt, tribunals and unions are not sought for achieving harmonious employee relation

PLURALISM APPROACH (Conflict) • •

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Pluralism is belief in the existence of more than one ruling principle, giving rise to a conflict of interests. The pluralist approach to IR accepts conflict between management and workers as inevitable but containable through various institutional arrangements ( like collective bargaining, conciliation and d arbitration bit ti etc) t ) and d is i in i fact f t considered id d essential ti l for f innovation i ti and growth. It perceives organizations as coalitions of competing interests , where h th management’s the t’ role l is i to t mediate di t among the th different diff t interest groups. It perceives trade unions as legitimate representative of employee i t interests t Employees join unions to protect their interests and influence decision making by the management. Unions thus balance the power between b t managementt and d employees. l I pluralistic In l li ti approach h a strong unions is not only desirable but necessary.

MARXIST APPROACH •

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Marxists like pluralists also regard conflict as inevitable but see it as a product of capitalistic society where as pluralist believe that the conflict is inevitable in all organizations For Marxists IR has wider meaning. For them conflict arises not because of rift between management and workers but because of the division in the society between those who own resources and those who have only labor to offer. Marxist approach thus focuses on the type of society in which an organization functions. Industrial conflict is thus equated with political and social unrest Trade Unions are seen both as labor reaction to exploitation by capitalists, as-well-as a weapon to bring about a revolutionary social change. Wage related disputes as secondary For them all strikes are political and they regard state intervention (via legislations and creation of Industrial Tribunals ) as supporting management’s interests, rather than ensuring a balance between the competing groups.

Unitary Assume • integrated group • common values, interests, objectives

Pluralistic

Marxist

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Sectional groups - coalesce •

Division of labour/capital

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different values, interests, objectives

social imbalance + inequalities power, wealth etc

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Nature of conflict • •

one authority /loyalty • irrational + fractional •

competitive authority /loyalty • (formal/informal) inevitable, rational, structural •

inherent in econ. & social systems disorder - precursor to change

compromise + agreement

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change society

legitimate internal, integral to workplace accepted role in econ & managerial relations

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employee response to capitalism

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mobilise, express class consciousness

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develop political awareness & activity

Conflict resolution •

coercion

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TU Role • • intrusive • • anachronistic • only accepted if forced •

OTHER APPROACHES OF INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS ( DIFFERENT SCHOOLS OF THOUGHT ) PSYCHOLOGICAL APPROACH • Differences in the perceptions of labor and management with factors influencing their relations i.e. wages, benefits, services and working conditions etc. • Dissatisfaction compels workers to turn aggressive and resort to strikes etc. SOCIOLOGICAL APPROACH • Sociological factors such as value system, customs and traditions etc. affect the relations between labor and management HUMAN RELATIONS APPROACH • Human behavior is influenced by feelings, sentiments and attitudes. Humans are motivated by variety of social and psychological factors . GANDHIAN APPROACH • Worker's right to strike in a peaceful and non-violent manner. Satyagrah- Non viol i l ent, t non- cooperation ti based b d on truth. t th GIRI APPROACH • Collective bargaining and joint negotiations be used to settle disp utes between labor and management. Outside interference to be avoided.

ROLES OF WORKERS, MANAGEMENT & GOVERNMENT

PARTIES TO IR EMPLOYERS

EMPLOYEES

EMPLOYEE ASSOCIATIONS

GOVERNMENT

EMPLOYER-EMPLOYEE RELATIONS

EMPLOYER ASSOCIATION

COURTS & TRIBUNALS

ROLE OF WORKERS WORKERS and their ORGANIZATIONS( Trade Unions or Associations) •

Trade unions nions have ha e a role of safeguarding safeg arding workers orkers interests

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Ensuring non-violation of worker’s rights

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TU is used for negotiating wage interests, better benefits and service conditions, concessions, more amenities and welfare schemes

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Structure of workers’ organization or trade unions differs from country to country

ROLE OF MANAGEMENT An organization is represented through officials designated in the organization structure for coordination of activities relating to: • • • • •

Administering employee benefits Regulating terms and condition of employment Providing welfare and social security benefits Coordination is done through graded hierarchical and formal communication channels of orders and directives Employer organizations regulate the terms and conditions of employment which affects the industrial relations of the unit.

ROLE OF GOVERNMENT •

Govt or state machinery regulates the relationship between between workers workers’ organizations and employers’ organizations.

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It does d it th through h: - The legislature-statutes and legislations, - The judiciary- labor courts/industrial tribunals - An executive machinery- that lays down rules, procedures and gives awards and monitors them

Dunlop’s model of Employment Relations

Dunlop’s model of Employment Relations ¾ IR system consists of three agents – management organizations, organizations workers and formal/informal ways they are organized and government agencies. ¾ These actors and their organizations are located within an environment – defined in terms of technology, labor and product markets, and the distribution of power in wider society as it impacts upon individuals and workplace. ¾ Thus it can be said that industrial relations is a social sub system subject to three environmental constraints. ¾ None of these actors could act in an autonomous or independent fashion. Instead they were shaped, at least to some extent, by their environment. ¾ Within this environment, actors interact with each other, negotiate and use economic/political power in process of determining rules that constitute the output of the industrial relations system. ¾ Output of these interactions is ‘Rules’ which govern the employment relationship. ¾ Dunlop emphasizes the core idea of systems by saying that the arrangements in the field of industrial relations may be regarded as a system in the sense that each of them more or less intimately affects each of the others so that they constitute a group of arrangements for dealing with certain matters and are collectivel ll ti l y responsible ibl for f certain t i results. lt

Dunlop’s model of Employment Relations Dunlop is of the opinion that this tripartite system is valid at all hierarchical levels, levels i.e. in the workshop, in the enterprise, in the economic branch, in the economy as a whole and internationally. Dunlop's model has found world-wide diffusion, although his assumptions are very simplified in several regards. ¾ First, it seems to be problematic to believe that the whole environment in which the relations of the three actors take place could be reduced to only three context factors, particularly when thinking of an international enterprise. In this connection a much more detailed investigation of the environmental influences on the actors and their interactions would seem to be required, e.g. by applying the strata-model of environmental considerations. ¾ The assumption of a homogenous value system for all three actors is illusonary. Such a pure harmony approach seems to be unrealistic. ¾ Furthermore, the actors in the Dunlop model are supposed to behave as homogeneous groups as regards their interests and their bargaining behaviour. Thi assumption This ti d does nott correspond d to t reality, lit t too, i which in hi h remarkable k bl differences in interests and positions can occur in individual groups of actors. ¾ Finally, the tripartite relation must be seen as a pure formal pattern when applying it to all hierarchical levels, levels because the factual quality of relations and processes at these levels can be very different, even contradictory.

Dunlop’s model of Employment Relations

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In the light of these arguments, arguments the international application of the Dunlop system needs to be critically viewed: the actors do not start from the same basic assumptions and values; the diversity in the position of the actors to each other is blurred, the divergence inside the individual actor groups cannot be grasped; the dynamics of structural relations (particularly in the development process) is not sufficiently presented and the model is not equally valid at all organizational levels of the economy

However, numerous empirical studies have show the model been partially or completely implemented. t must, however, be taken into consideration that all empirical research can only be seen as snapshots which relate to specific periods within an accelerated process of social and economic change. The nature and speed of such changes differ from country to country and from region to region. Compared with the original, relatively homogeneous initial situation the context conditions have become rather heterogeneous in the course of development and this applies as well to the labour relations themselves....