2.6 Industrial/employee relations

The role and responsibility of employee and employer representatives

• Employee representatives - trade unions

  • Trade union (labour union): organization of working people with the objective of improving the pay and working conditions of its members and providing them with support and legal services.
  • Industrial action measures taken by the workforce or trade union to put pressure on management to settle an industrial dispute in favor of employees.
  • Trade union recognition: when an employer formally agrees to conduct negotiations on pay and working conditions with a trade union rather than bargaining individually with each worker.

• Collective bargaining: negotiations between employees’ representatives (trade unions) and employers and their representatives on issues of common interest such as pay and conditions of work.

• Action taken by employees and employers

  • Measures used by union leaders to “encourage” employers to accept their demands for improvements in pay and conditions

  • Negotiations: methods by which people settle differences. It’s a process by which compromise/agreement is reached while avoiding argument and dispute. In any disagreement, individuals understandably aim to achieve the best possible outcome for their position (or perhaps an organization they represent).

  • Go slow: form of industrial action in which workers keep working, but at the minimum pace as demanded by their contract of employment.

  • Work to rule: form of industrial action in which employees refuse to do any work outside the precise terms of the employment contract. Overtime will not be worked all non-contractual cooperation will be withdrawn.

  • Overtime bans: industrial action in which workers refuse to work more than the contracted number of hours each week. During busy times of the year, this could lead to much lost output for the employer.

  • Strike action: the most extreme form of industrial action in which employees totally withdraw their labor for period of time. This may lead to production stopping completely. Strike action can lead to the business shutting down during the industrial action.

  • Employers

  • Negotiations: these aim to reach a compromise solution.

  • Public relations: using the media to try to gain public support for the employer’s position in the dispute.

  • Threats of redundancies: these threats would put pressure on unions to agree to a settlement of the dispute, but they might inflame opinions on the employees’ side and could be looked upon as “bullying” and lead to poor publicity for the employer.

  • Changes of contract: if employees are taking advantage of their employment contracts to work to rule/ban overtime, then new contracts could, when the old ones are due for renewal, be issued that insist on higher work rates or overtime working.

  • Closure of the business or the factory/office where the industrial dispute takes place would lead to redundancy for all the workers and no output and profit for the business owners.

  • Lock-outs: short-term closure of the business/factory to prevent employees from working and being paid.

Sources of conflict in the workplace

• Poor communication can result in a difference in communication styles or a failure to communicate.

  • Example: a manager reallocated an employee’s task to the employee’s colleague but failed to communicate this to the employee. This may cause the employee to feel rejected, which can lead to bad feelings between the two employees and the manager.

• Difference in personalities: employees come from different backgrounds and experiences, which play a role in shaping their personalities. When employees fail to understand or accept the differences in each other’s personalities, problems arise in the workplace.

• Different values: caused when a generational gap is present.

  • Young workers may possess different workplace values from those of older workers. The difference in values is not necessarily the cause of employee conflict in the workplace, but the failure to accept the differences is.

• Competition

  • Some businesses deliberately foster competitive environments to encourage workers or teams to out perform each other. When salary is linked to employee production, a workplace may experience strong competition between employees. Competition that is not properly managed for the good of the whole business can result in employees sabotaging efforts by other groups or not cooperating with them. This can create a hostile work environment, discouraging teamwork and promoting individualism.

Approaches to conflict resolution

• Single-union agreement: employer recognizes just one union for purposes of collective bargaining.

• No-strike agreement: unions sign an agreement with employers not to strike in exchange for greater involvement in decisions that affect the workforce.

• Conciliation: use of a third party in industrial disputes to encourage both employer and union to discuss an acceptable compromise solution.

  • Arbitration: resolving an industrial dispute by using an independent third party to judge and recommend an appropriate solution.

• Employee resistance to change

  • Interpretation of circumstances - fear of the unknown
  • Fear of failure
  • Self-interest - losing something of value
  • Misinformation - false beliefs about the need for change
  • Inertia

• Strategies for implementing, managing and controlling change

  • Understand what change means
  • Change management: planning, implementing, controlling and reviewing the movement of an organization from its current state to a new one.
  • Recognize the major causes of change
  • Understand the stages of the change process
  • Lead change, not just manage it
  • Use project champions
  • Project champion: person assigned to support and drive a project forward and who explains the benefits of change and assists and supports the team putting change into practice.
  • Use project groups or teams