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Industrial Relations
The field of industrial relations looks at the relationship between management
and workers, particularly groups of workers represented by a union. Labor
relations is an important factor in analyzing "varieties of capitalism", such as
neocorporatism (or corporatism), social democracy, and neoliberalism (or
liberalism). Labor relations can take place on many levels, such as the
"shop-floor", the regional level, and the national level. The distribution of
power amongst these levels can greatly shape the way an economy functions.
Another key question when considering systems of labor relations is their
ability to adapt to change. This change can be technological (e.g., "What do we
do when an industry employing half the population becomes obsolete?"), economic
(e.g., "How do we respond to globalization?"), or political (e.g., "How
dependent is the system on a certain party or coalition holding
power?").Governments set the framework for labor relations through legislation
and regulation. Usually, employment law would cover issues such as minimum wages
and wrongful dismissal.Industrial relations is the equivalent term in Australia,
though in recent years the term workplace relations has also become common. This
has become a prominent issue of late as the Liberal Government introduced WorkChoices to gear the Australian economy for the future.
When studying the theories of industrial relations, there are three major
perspectives that contrast in their approach to the nature of workplace
relations. The three views are generally described as the unitary, pluralist and
Marxist perspectives. The Marxist perspective is sometimes referred to as the
Conflict Model. Each offers a particular perception of workplace relations and
will therefore interpret such events as workplace conflict, the role of trade
unions and job regulation very differently. In unitarism, the organisation is
perceived as an integrated and harmonious whole with the ideal of "one happy
family", where management and other members of the staff all share a common
purpose, emphasising mutual cooperation. Furthermore, unitarism has a
paternalistic approach where it demands loyalty of all employees, being
predominantly managerial in its emphasis and application.Consequently, trade
unions are deemed as unnecessary since the loyalty between trade unions and
organisations are considered mutually exclusive, where there can't be two sides
of industry. Conflict is perceived as disruptive and the pathological result of
agitators, interpersonal friction and communication breakdown. In pluralism the
organization is perceived as being made up of powerful and divergent sub-groups,
each with its own legitimate loyalties and with their own set of objectives and
leaders. In particular, the two predominant sub-groups of in the pluralistic
perspective are the management and trade unions. Consequently, the role of
management would lean less towards enforcing and controlling and more toward
persuasion and co-ordination. Trade unions are deemed as legitimate
representatives of employees, conflict is dealt by collective bargaining and is
viewed not necessarily as a bad thing and if managed could in fact be channeled
towards evolution and positive change.
This view of industrial relations looks the nature of the capitalist society,
where there is a fundamental division of interest between capital and labour,
and sees workplace relations against this background. This perspective sees
inequalities of power and economic wealth as having their roots in the nature of
the capitalist economic system. Conflict is therefore seen as inevitable and
trade unions are a natural response of workers to their exploitation by capital.
Whilst there may be periods of acquiescence, the Marxist view would be that
institutions of joint regulation would enhance rather limit managements position
as they presume the continuation of capitalism rather than challenge it.
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