CHANGING ROLES OF PRINCIPAL ACTORS IN INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS , Study notes of Business Administration

Download CHANGING ROLES OF PRINCIPAL ACTORS IN INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS and more Study notes Business Administration in PDF only on Docsity! CHANGING ROLES OF PRINCIPAL ACTORS IN INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS After having learnt about the history of labour legislation and going through various industrial legislation and the Factories Act, which contains various provisions regarding health, safety and welfare of workers in factories it is imperative for us to analyse the present situation, after the globalization, liberalization and privitisation, with regard to the various provisions of law and the necessity to recast few of them to improve the industrial relations in India while taking into consideration industrial relation practices in other countries. In some countries like Japan and Germany, the Government‘s attitude to business and industry is one of partnership to promote the growth of the national economy. In others, for political reasons, the government views private business with suspicion. Unless the government‘s attitude towards private business is positive, little can be accomplished through changes in other spheres – which will then be no more than cosmetic. The government‘s role is changing. Strengthening of the forces of deregulation, denationalization and disinvestment is causing the state to gradually withdrawn from some social and economic sectors. Governments are increasingly under pressure to become facilitators rather than regulators and controllers. Legal reform is under way in many countries and overdue in several others. Madrid‘s (1994) analysis of the situation in Argentina provides the much needed caution for the state everywhere: The increase in the powers of employers is ‗giving a market authoritarian character to the employment relationship. As a result, the principles of labour law have faced a crisis with declining protection afforded to workers and the disregard, in fact or in law, of the guiding principles of the ILO‘. Rising employment, underemployment and inflation, fall in living standards, increasing disparity in incomes and growing imbalances in the development of different regions within a state are influencing some governments to adopt policies aimed at wooing domestic and foreign investment but wily-nily nullifying the accumulated social benefits and rights. Export-oriented production activities and zones where such firms are located are exempt by governments in several developing countries, such as Bangladesh, from the purview of certain labour laws and trade union and workers‘ rights. This is a matter of great concern. In Sri Lanka, the change in government escalated expectations about and components too became costlier. As a result, some domestic entrepreneurs had a 30 to 50 percent strategic cost disadvantage. Also, countries in dire need of foreign investment offer incentives that are attractive to foreign investors but considered detrimental to the interests of domestic investors. Privatization of Central and East European economies resulted in the emergence of employers as an interest group, distinct form the State. In Central and East European countries no separate employer function was officially recognized till 1989 since everybody was supposedly united in the construction of socialism. Industrial relations, taken for granted in pluralistic societies, did not exist. The prevailing ideology made no allowance for any possible conflicts of interests. Trade unions were anything but independent and were as a rule used to organize and administer social services and run personnel departments in the state enterprises. Now employers‘ organizations are emerging in these countries as elsewhere. The challenges before employers‘ organizations through out the world are many. The changes in the system of government and economic management, with emphasis on pluralism and economic liberalization, have thrust employers and their organizations into the centre stage of economic development debate and action. The role of the private sector as an engine of development has gained credibility. Recognition of this is one thing, but for the government to divest themselves of so me of the tools of power will take time. The struggle for true partnership in development will not be easy. (II)TRADE UNIONS: Over time the labour movement has changed from craft unionism to industrial unionism to enterprise unionism. Tiara argues, ‗one may graft stages of production technology and the labour movement on the Lazonick model of capitalist evolution‘. Production technology has changed from craft production, to mass production, to lean production, roughly co-varying with proprietary, managerial, and collective capitalism. As he argues further, ‗For lean production, workplace innovations are largely firm-specific and often carefully guarded as intellectual property. Productivity and gain sharing are maximized when employees put in long years of service and get involved in continuous Kaizen. To ensure employment security and improve terms of employment, the union is just as much concerned about the conditions of the firm as management. The union then becomes increasingly localized and autonomous. The ultimate localization of a union is an autonomous enterprise union. Enterprise unionism is one of the four pillars of the industrial relations system in Japan. The trend towards enterprise unionism is growing in the US too. At one time, bringing together workers across an entire industrial sector was considered essential to take wages out of competition and ensure the equitable distribution of wealth. Now, in several countries enterprise-based unionism is becoming the predominant form of union organization. Of course, enterprise- based unions do not exist in isolation and still are, in many cases, federated across sectors or industries and further, at a different level, into national centres. Union membership is declining in traditional industries in several countries. Union organization is becoming difficult in new industries. In the countries that have changed to democracy and are moving towards the market economy, the newly constituted trade unions are coming up against all manner of constraints, their difficulties aggravated by an excessive fragmentation which is scarcely conducive to the unity of ex-pression and participation so indispensable to these organizations if they aspire to play an effective part in the consolidation of trade union structures and policies and in the genuine participation in their economic and social life. Since the 1980s, as in the US, in Western Europe too unions have been on the defensive. In Japan as well, union density declined from 45.3 percent in 1947 to 24.2 percent in 1993. Shifts in employment patterns and the disinterest of non- union workers in unionization are the major determinants of decline in union density. The explanations for low or declining union density vary across countries even within Asia. Revolutionary changes in technology are shifting the locus of control away from blue-collar to white-collar workers and managers and the dramatic decline in employment intensity in many sectors of manufacturing is not only eroding the traditional base of the unions but also destabilizing the traditional trade union structures. The overall rate of unionization will decline, particularly as unions find it hard to become established in the type of small scale firms that are emerging. Organizing the unorganized in the small and tiny sectors will indeed be a major challenge for trade unions in the years ahead. The ongoing internet debate on trade unions in 2000 and some of the recent successes unions have had in countering employer militancy through cyber unionism and internet campaign provide useful pointers to the new challenges and opportunities before trade unions. Frenkel‘s (1993) analysis of the factors affecting trade union characteristics in nine countries in the Asia Pacific region tests several hypotheses and theoretical approaches. It portends little change in countries that follow state corporatist policies (e.g. China and Singapore), moderate change in countries which follow state exclusionary policies (Thailand, Malaysia and Hong Kong) and major changes in countries where state collaborative is nurtured with autonomous market bargained corporatism (New Zealand). The exceptions to his categorization, he notes, are Japan and Australia which, though they both follow state corporatist and state collaborative policies, may see only moderate change. In India, trade unions may be on the decline in old industries, and difficult to organize in new high-tech industries. But the vast untapped informal sector that accounts for 90 per cent of the main workers as per the 1991 census holds much promise for the resurgence of the trade union movement, should it take up more seriously the organizing of the labour force in the informal sector.