Industrial Labour

From employer's perspective, unitary approach means:

☛ The staffing policies should be exercised to unify the efforts. They should motivate the employees.

☛ The objectives of the organization should be discussed with the employees.

☛ A reward system should exist to secure loyalty and commitment from the employees

☛ Line managers should take the responsibility of their team.

☛ Staff-management conflicts arise form lack of information and inadequate presentation of management policies.

☛ Personal objectives of the employees should be integrated with the overall objectives of the organization.

Lock out is a management's tool in which an employer prevents the workers from working. This is a pressure tactic used by the management.

A strike is a cessation of work, a refusal to work or to continue work by employees in combination or in concert with a common understanding, or a slow-down or other concerted activity on the part of employees designed to restrict or limit production for the purpose of compelling an employer to agree to terms or conditions of employment.

Job analysis is the process of studying and collecting information relating to operations and responsibilities of a specific job.

Job analysis is a systematic exploration of activities within a job. It is a basic technical procedure that is used to define duties and responsibilities and accountabilities of the job.

Each job has certain ability requirements associated with it. Job analysis is a process used to identify these requirements.

These activities include strike, lock outs, gherao etc which means putting up a fight with the management. Hence, they are called militant functions. They are carried out for following purposes:

a.) Rise in wages

b.) Rise in the status of workers

c.) Protection against injustice

Conciliators and mediation officers attempt to resolve differences between parties by offering the input of a neutral third party into the matters in dispute. They then file a report with the Minister.

Industrial relations are the relations between employees, employers, government and trade unions within the organizational structure.

The industrial relations system is a system of relationship between all the parties involved. A sound IR system will create an environment conducive for organizational growth and labour welfare.

The unitary approach believes that the employees and employers share the same objectives, interests and purposes. They work hand-in-hand for the betterment of the organizations. However, this system expects loyalty from the employees.

Importance of collective bargaining to employees:

☛ It increases the strength of employees as a group.

☛ It helps in boosting their self respect and level of motivation

☛ It increases their sense of responsibility

☛ It helps in reaching a quick and fair settlement for employee's issues.

Following are the main causes of industrial dispute:

i.) Wages/ Allowance/ Bonus/ Work Load

ii.) Leave/ Working hours/ Work conditions

iii.) Retrenchment/ Lay offs

iv.) Indiscipline/ Violence

Personnel Management is widely used few years back. The main task of PM was to maintain personal records of the employees of the organization. It was just a job to maintain the records (Database), sometime PM use to take care of the recruitment and joining formalities but never expected beyond that.

Human Resource Management takes care of all the aspect, right from

☛ Strategic planning

☛ Recruitment

☛ Joining formalities

☛ Induction

☛ Training

☛ Employee relationship

☛ Handling Employee Grievances

☛ Attrition

☛ Retention

☛ Exit Formalities

This kind of bargaining aims at achieving the consensus within the trade union and management group.

A collective agreement is an agreement in writing between an employer and the trade union representing employees of the employer which contains provisions respecting conditions of employment, rates of pay, hours of work, and the rights and obligations of the parties to the agreement. Ordinarily the agreement is for a definite period such as one, two or three years, but not less than twelve months. Under some conditions, amendments are made to agreements by mutual consent during the term of the agreement in order to deal with special circumstances.

Job is a collection of task to be performed everyday.

It is important to have an IR system in place

☛ To ensure that the workers are not over powered and used by the employer.

☛ To ensure that the workers do not blackmail the employers with unnecessary demand leading to a loss of production

☛ To ensure that the economy keeps growing

☛ To ensure that even if a problem arises, it is solved amicably.

Where the work of the same kind is carried out by two or more of sets of workers working during different periods of the day each of such sets is called RELAY and each of such periods is called SHIFT.

The unitary approach from employee's point of view means that:

☛ The purpose of a union is to act as a means of better communication between all the parties.

☛ All the parties should focus on good relationships and good working terms and conditions

☛ There should be flexibility in working practices.

☛ Employees should have a participation in workplace decisions. This promotes teamwork, creativity, problem solving abilities.

☛ Employees should have a feeling that the skills of their managers support them in their work.

CBA - Collective Bargaining Agreement is the result of collective bargaining procedure.

These agreements can be in one of the two forms:

☛ Procedural agreement

☛ Substantive agreement

Procedural agreements - They usually deal with the relationship between employees and employers to resolve individual and group issues. These are usually filed in the company's rule book.

Substantive agreements - This kind of an agreement deals with specific issues like basic pay, leave policy, bonus payment etc.