Showing papers on "Industrial relations published in 2023"

Industry 4.0 and the Changing Employment Relations: A Case of the Indian Information Technology Industry

Abstract: This article aims to explore the dynamics of employment relations (ER) in the Indian information technology (IT) industry in the context of an ongoing technological revolution. The study utilises the grounded theory approach to draw insights from 32 professionals including project/product managers, senior management representatives and employees from junior to mid-career level currently working in the IT industry. Findings indicate that the following four forces drive the ER in the Indian IT industry: (1) labour laws, (2) compensation and HR, (3) unions and organisations, and (4) health and workplace security. Labour laws need to be updated to suit the requirements of knowledge-based professions. Compensation and HR management styles vary widely due to the disparity and heterogeneity of work. There is scope for a non-politicised union in the industry. The health and security of IT professionals need attention. Findings suggest the changing concepts of workspaces in IT, dilution of HR in IT due to increased outsourcing and the rise of independent workers in future. This article makes theoretical and conceptual contributions to the ER literature. It captures the driving forces of ER in the Indian IT industry. The article also contributes to decent work, convergence–divergence paradigm and outsourcing in Human Resource Management.

The Future of Unions and Worker Representation: The Digital Picket Line

Abstract: The Future of Unions and Worker Representation, written by Professor Anthony Forsyth, thoroughly examines four countries and industrial relations systems—Australia, the UK, the USA, and Italy—to assess and contrast their similarities and differences. The choice of these systems is not accidental. The author compares three industrial relations systems that are rooted in the common law and currently share a very fragmented collective bargaining structure with that of a civil law-based system that, despite recent attempts at decentralization, still maintains a more centralized structure. The interest of Anglophone scholars towards industrialized non-English speaking countries is relatively uncommon, making this element of the study original and valuable in itself in recent labour and industrial relations scholarship. In the book, Professor Forsyth offers a detailed and insightful description of the trends and developments in unionization and labour regulation in all four countries. His comparative analysis shows a deep understanding of the structures of their systems, their recent historical evolution, and the challenges they currently face, both shared and unique.

HRM solutions: a framework for small business owners to manage industrial relations while facilitating labour unionisation mitigation

Abstract: Purpose Small business owners require objective solutions to deal with threats of labour unionisation. This study aims to centre on a novel exploration for improving the leadership acumen of small business owners to address labour unionisation. Specifically, small business owners need a theoretical framework that uses best practices from human resource management (HRM) and industrial relations to provide solutions. Design/methodology/approach The design, methodology and approach reflect post-modernist epistemological and ontological perspectives for conducting systematic literature reviews. A systematic literature review revealed the relationship between small business owners’ leadership, positive industrial relations and HRM policies and procedures. To identify relevant studies in the review, the utilisation of several databases (EBSCO Database, including PsycINFO and Psych studies; Web of Science) and a mix of ranked journals from entrepreneurship, human resources, leadership and organisational behaviour. Findings The findings and results in this paper reflect the purpose, methodology and literature analysis culminating in 162,132,000 peer-reviewed studies. A total of 142 peer-reviewed studies met criterion for review. For example, the purpose of this review focused on labour unionisation mitigation for small businesses and HRM solutions. In doing so, the methodology allowed for identification of a novel research topic (i.e. how small business owners mitigate labour unionisation) worthy of further investigation. The sparse findings on labour unionisation mitigation represent small business owners' reticence in creating HRM policies and procedures. Originality/value This study contributes research implications for theory and practice by offering small business owners a theoretical framework to address labour unionisation. The framework, centring on HRM solutions, is grounded in social exchange theory to address the novel topic of labour unionisation mitigation in small businesses. This study results suggest that HRM solutions for small business owners provide competitive advantages for employee job satisfaction through a holistic industrial relations approach. In future research, examining other issues discussed in this study can influence the understanding of the relationship between small business owners and industrial relations to increase employee job satisfaction.

The intricate systemic relationships between the labor market, labor relations, and human resources management in a pandemic context

Abstract: ABSTRACT The article analyzes how organizations interpret the systemic relationships among labor market and labor relations in their human resource management (HRM) strategies in the Covid-19 pandemic. Through a qualitative approach, four focus groups were carried out with 24 people managers, and interviews with four union representatives in cities at three regions in Brazil: Northeast (Fortaleza, CE), South, (Joinville, SC) and Central-West (Brasília, DF). The findings indicate knowledge gaps in the HRM areas about market and labor relations, similar HRM practices at different levels, institutionalized by a common repertoire; while the unions adapt to the new labor legislation. The pandemic context brought structural changes such as telework, adjustment to legislation and work organization; and behavioral including the health of workers. The study contributes theoretically by expanding the analysis of HRM under the institutional approach; methodologically it provides comparative research; and empirically illustrates HRM practices in different regions of the country.

British trade unionism in the 1980s reassessed. Are recurring assumptions about union membership and strikes flawed?

Abstract: This article questions the hypothesis, put forward by several historians and IR academics, that the 1980s decline in British union membership and strike frequency, was driven by major industrial defeats, a cultural shift away from collectivism, and the adverse effects of the Conservative Government’s anti-union legislation. In contrast, this paper argues that international economic developments, most notably the globalisation of manufacturing production, along with the British Conservative Government’s economic policies, which resulted in mass unemployment in heavily unionised areas of the economy, were the principal reasons for the declines in union membership and strike frequency during the 1980s. In support of this theory, my article draws upon extensive contemporaneous research, which I conducted when I worked in the Industrial Relations Research Unit at the University of Warwick in the late 1980s. This research illustrates how strike frequency and union membership fell in the early and mid-1980s, before membership stabilized, and the frequency of strikes relative to the number of unionised workplaces increased, during the short-lived economic upturn of the late 1980s.

Study on Employee Welfare Services and Schemes in a Small Size Organization

Abstract: Employee welfare is a term including various services, benefits and facilities offered to employees by the employers. The welfare measures need not be monetary but in any kind/forms. This includes items such as allowances, housing, transportation, medical insurance and food. Employee welfare also includes monitoring of working conditions, creation of industrial harmony through infrastructure for health, industrial relations and insurance against disease, accident and unemployment for the workers and their families. This study was carried for four months with the objective of understanding employee welfare services and schemes in the organization ,the relationship between employee welfare schemes and employee absenteeism , the facts regarding the employee welfare, and is there any relation between employee welfare and efficiency and productivity of the employee as well as organization. For this purpose , the primary and secondary data was collected. After conducting the research, it was found that due to implementations of various employee welfare schemes in the organization, the employees are much satisfied and happy with the organization

Critical remarks on the liberal understanding in sociological and legal studies of the phenomenon of labor in the information society

Abstract: The transformation of methods and means of production under the influence of the development of digital technologies has led to an increase in the interest of scientists in the problems of radically changing labor processes. In the sociological and legal studies of the liberal direction, the phenomenon of labor began to be studied separately in the context of the transition from the labor practices of an industrial society to the labor practices of an information (post-industrial) society. The main conclusions that were made as a result of studying the phenomenon of labor in a liberal way were: recognition of the liberating nature of information-type labor and its priority over industrial-type labor; endowing information labor with a characteristic of flexibility in comparison with the rigidity of labor in an industrial society. From a legal point of view, these conclusions created the preconditions for the deregulation (the elimination of protective norms and guarantees) of labor relations both for employees of the "endangered" industrial type and for "progressive" information employees. Within the framework of this publication, the author set a research task to cancel the four myths of the information society, which are most popular in liberal theories: 1) mass release of employees employed in industry, due to the computerization of production; 2) flexibility in the labor market is an integral part of the transformation of the traditional model of labor relations; 3) outsourcing is inherent only in industrial type production; 4) the release of a new product involves the release of employees due to the inability of the workforce to master modern methods of work. As a result of the critical analysis of these myths of the liberal doctrine, the author came to the conclusion that it is useless to establish distinctions in the very essence of the labor phenomenon. The author believes that the concept that allows convergence of all types of labor in state production chains is the theory of "community of labor" proposed by Karl Marx. For labor law, the presence of objective features of the implementation of labor processes means the need to deepen research on the differentiation of the legal regulation of labor of certain categories of employees, and not to deregulate labor relations.

Social movement unionism in Spain's feminized precarious service sector: Criticism, cooperation and competition

Abstract: ‘Social movement unionism’ (SMU) has been suggested as a suitable strategy for union renewal in Spain, yet the literature on union renewal and SMU has two major shortcomings: (1) a lack of bottom-up studies, and (2) a lack of dialogue between industrial relations and social movement research. To redress these shortcomings, we make three contributions in this article: first, we provide evidence on the current opportunities for SMU in Spain's feminized precarious service sector; second, we apply a bottom-up intersectional approach to the study of SMU; and third, we bridge the research on industrial relations and on social movements by adopting a relational framework that looks at both union and non-union actors as key actors for union renewal. Our results show a landscape of co-existence, conflict, cooperation and competition between union and non-union actors, including established unions, radical grassroots unions and emerging forms of collective representation; however, if we are to develop SMU as a strategy for union renewal in post-Great Recession Spain, then there is still room for promoting deep coalition building between unions and novel forms of worker collectivism, as well as developing intersectional politics to reach non-traditional membership groups.

Communication and the first steps towards the electronification of labour relations?

Abstract: This academic paper deals with current changes to Slovak legislation in connection with the transposition of the European directive on transparent and predictable working conditions. Both authors primarily concentrate on two newly established rights related to communication between employees, employee representatives, and employers and the right to electronic communication in the business sphere between the subjects of social relations, including the right to feedback. We pay specific attention in particular to the expected impact on applied practice, which often corresponds to the authors' legal considerations of de lege ferenda. The key paradigm of the author's interpretation consists in the analysis of success in introducing a new model of communication into the more or less traditionalist approach between the subjects of labour relations, including the impact on their rights and legitimate interests.

Speaking Up: How Early Career Workers Engage in Fighting for Better Working Conditions by Joining Youth-Led Social Movement Organisations

Abstract: Abstract Learning from activism, usually informal and unrecognised, is an important component of industrial relations and a major learning source for individuals, organisations and society. Young workers who lack support from existing employee organisations may create their own. Based on studies of social movement organisations in highly diverse industrial relations systems (Austria, Spain’s Basque Region, Slovakia), this chapter presents a framework for analysing and comparing novel social movement organisations’ position within industrial relations systems. Each was founded because its national system did not adequately address challenges. Activism enables young people employed in workplaces unfavourable to learning, or unemployed, to compensate for what better workplaces offer. Youth-led social movement organisations generate important knowledge and practical skills, challenging established organisations, including trade unions, and renewing industrial relations structures.

New practices in industrial relations: radical unionism in the European periphery

Abstract: This chapter will address specifically the argument that we are seeing a new wave of radicalism and change within the labor movement and new groups of workers in Southern Europe. There is a set of interventions that have emerged prior to 2008 with regards to the precarious worker debate: these have argued that traditional forms of worker representation are not fit for purpose and that they are unable to represent, in any meaningful way, the nature of worker interests and realities in society. In addition, the process of de-regulation and the development of the gig economy has further challenged this trade union role. Nevertheless, the chapter will review these debates drawing from the Spanish case, but also various other Southern European contexts, and outline the new phenomena of there being more independent and minority union action.

Co-creating New Dancefloors Through a Parallel Organisation

Abstract: Across industries, union density is under great pressure from different forms of organisations and, in many ways, a more individualised working life. Employee relations within the public sector have undergone a transition due to privatisation, decentralisation, and the adoption of quality management approaches. Employee relations in Nordic countries are strongly embedded in national regulations and agreements. However, research on workplace development within the public sector rarely includes discussions of the union role. The Nordic model perspective acknowledges that the different social parties share interests and visions, and it promotes a collective effort when workplace development is sought. This paper poses the question of how public organisations can change the “boxing and dancing” behaviour in union–management relationships through the establishment of a parallel organisation (PO). The PO serves as a different organisational mode when the operating organisation is unable to successfully deal with certain prevailing issues, where knowledge rather than authority should determine decisions. The findings show that the PO creates a “dancefloor”, less confined by bureaucratic barriers, where unions and managers co-create new relations. In addition, participants experience more enhancement of their roles, and their focus towards developing their workplace collectively is more prominent. Our findings contribute to the industrial relations literature by proposing POs as a tool for building relations between unions and managers in a public organisation. Our paper also contributes to the PO literature by proposing that the inclusion of unions in a PO can be crucial when attempting to transfer outcomes into the operating organisation.

Employee Relations Today and Its Conundrums

Abstract: The world has moved on from industrial relations to employee relations. Enterprises have grown in complexity with technology outpacing people. People in enterprises today are multi-generational and have grown equally complex as well as facing bewildering choices before them. Mere engagement tools stopped giving effective results. How to reach into their inner selves help them understand themselves and their choices to act upon is the role of line and HR today.

The Perspectives of Legal Regulations and Employee Voice: Insights from Sweden

Abstract: This chapter examines the legal regulations and the balance of collective and individual employee voice within the Swedish labour law model. Employee voice is exercised almost exclusively through the labour unions in Sweden. Employees receive information, are consulted, and are part of codetermination/joint decision-making only through the unions and employee participation in unions. The Swedish labour unions are tenacious in retaining this power and privilege. This chapter first presents the development of the Swedish (and Nordic) labour law model based on single-channel employee voice. Collective bargaining, industrial action, and codetermination as between employers and labour unions are next addressed. The structure of labour unions and the relationship to the members are then set out. Employee grievances are taken up as an example of individual employee voice in action, demonstrating the monopoly on power the unions have with respect to individual employee grievances. The lack of access to justice mechanisms that could enable individual employee voice, particularly with respect to issues of grievances, including questions such as discrimination, underscores the privilege that the labour law model in Sweden has created between the social partners.

Regulating the gig economy: promises and limits of social dialogue in Switzerland

Abstract: In Switzerland, labour market regulation traditionally takes place through collective bargaining and social dialogue, based on decentralized and consensual relations between trade unions and employers' associations. The legal and political debates related to the gig economy do not question the existing model of industrial relations. More precisely, it is assumed that gig economy issues can be tackled in the present framework of labour law, social protection and social dialogue. Nonetheless, the three case studies on cleaning, bike delivery and transportation explored in this chapter show that social dialogue at firm or sector level is faced with difficulties and does not (yet) properly address issues related to the gig economy. Thus, while this model has shown high resilience in the face of financial and economic globalization, evidence suggests that in relation to the gig economy social partners need a stronger support from public authorities. Also, long-standing trade unions need to develop innovative strategies that would enhance gig workers' capacity to organize and negotiate.

Class, union membership, and organizational commitment: A multilevel analysis of 28 countries

Abstract: This article studies how organizational commitment is shaped by individual and macro-level factors. Drawing upon data from the 2015 International Social Survey Program (ISSP) and using multilevel modeling, the article shows that workers have less organizational commitment than employers. The article also presents evidence indicating that strong trade unions are positively correlated with organizational commitment. Finally, contrary to the hypothesis derived from previous studies, cross-level interactions suggest that in countries with strong corporatist industrial relations (IR) institutions, union members have lower levels of organizational commitment than non-union members. The article discusses how the findings contribute to the literature on class, neo-corporatism, and power resources. In addition, it reflects on how the findings contribute to the recent debate on the ‘neoliberal convergence’ of IR systems.

State policy in the sphere of legal regulation of labor under conditions of digitalization of economy

Abstract: Digitalization creates new challenges for public policy in the regulation of labor relations. The purpose of the article is to identify the most complex problems associated with the introduction of information and communication technologies in labor relations, and to outline ways of their legislative solution. For this purpose the analysis of Russian and foreign scientific literature, labor legislation, judicial practice, documents of the International Labor Organization, including those adopted in 2020 in response to threats to labor relations caused by the COVID-19 pandemic is used. The inefficient use of already available electronic resources for the implementation of electronic case management is noted. The idea of the need to extend modern technology not only to the electronic exchange of documents, but also to their creation, storage, processing is supported. It is concluded that it is inexpedient to use an enhanced electronic signature of an employee in labor relations, in connection with which it is proposed to use special digital platforms supported by the state. It is proposed to gradually get rid of the practice of duplicating electronic and traditional “paper” records management. Relationships formed in the process of application of distant labor contain all the classical features of the employment relationship, which is facilitated by the employer’s use of modern means of control over the behavior of the employee. Digital technologies create new opportunities for the use of labor resources and make it possible to include new forms of employment in the scope of labor legislation, where to a greater or lesser degree there is economic, organizational dependence of the executor (employee) on the customer (employer), based on innovative means of control and management, as well as the dependant’s need for traditional means of social protection. Differentiation and decentralization of legal regulation is proposed to maintain the stability of labor relations.

Employee Relations in India: Current Context and Emerging Paradigm

Abstract: Employee relations in India has been changing with the changing context. The industry has come a long way since independence. The paradigm has changed at an even faster pace over the last decade due to fundamental shifts in technology and socio-economic factors. The onslaught of COVID also brought in tectonic shifts in this field. Rise in the proportion of middle-class, democratisation of information technology, automation and industrial revolution 2.0, focus on ESG, steps towards improving the ease of doing business are other important changes driving the paradigm shifts in employee relations. The industry is now moving from restrictive industrial relations (IR) practices to more collaborative and progressive practices that look at workers and unions as partners rather than adversaries. The article discusses a case in point, Deepak Fertilisers and Petrochemicals Corporation Limited, where progressive IR practices have shown demonstrable results in the changing context.

A Critical Industrial Relations Approach to Understanding Contemporary Worker Uprising

Abstract: Consistent with our calls for critical approaches to traditional Industrial Relations questions, we argue that it is important to consider whether the “major upsurge in union organizing” is more accurately framed as a continuation of long-running democracy fights against systemic inequity and injustice. Thus, we bring focus to “whole worker” organizing, as well as the structural limitations of our labor laws and institutions, to illuminate counter-narratives to the way we tell stories about contemporary worker organizing.

Two Decades of Industrial Disputation at an Indian Auto Plant: Lean Production versus Local Cultural Values

Abstract: This case study finds that disrespect by international expatriate managers towards local employees triggered long-term industrial unrest in the Indian subsidiary of the global car maker Toyota. Whilst innovative production models and their tools provide economic advantage to the company, the interaction of the application of the lean production model within the context of host country institutions often creates workplace disputation and unrest due to unilateralism and managerial hegemonies that overrides local customs and norms. The power of multinational enterprises to override or ignore institutional resistance and to inflict disrespect towards the local workforce can result in worker resistance, a lack of trust, and ongoing industrial unrest. This case study demonstrates how a lack of respect of local customs and workers grievances had long-lasting consequences in terms of the subsequent conflict and a poor industrial relations climate at the production plant in India.

The Future of Fixed-term Employment in India

Abstract: The industrial relations (IR) environment in India and its labour market, have been undergoing significant transformations in multiple domains for around two decades after the economic liberalization. Gillan and Lambert (2013) observe several restructurings at the workplace level in the country. These include, among others, farming out job functions or services to any third party through outsourcing, engaging contract labour in the organized sector, the tendency among managers to avoid acknowledging the right of trade unions to collectively bargain and the prevalence of voluntary retirement schemes for having numerical flexibility of the workforce.

HRM Practices in Nigeria: Employee Relations and Trade Unions

Abstract: Globalisation remains a strong trajectory for organisations to articulate a platform to formulate and introduce appropriate human resources management (HRM) practices to match the global and local context of their business. However, from the perspective of employee engagement, collective bargaining remains a panacea for the continued relevance of trade unions in the workplace. However, it would appear that the ineffectiveness of employees and employers in achieving stable and effective negotiations and thus establishing appropriate terms and conditions of employment has led to the recognition and introduction of institutions and mechanisms to ameliorate appropriate collective bargaining mechanisms. The chapter highlights collective bargaining (a well-established phenomenon) central to trade unionism, which has been subject to various contextual issues. It further demonstrates that the exercise of collective bargaining, on the one hand, is intimately linked with various forms of participation and workers’ rights to organise trade unions but, on the other hand, requires understanding the underlying political, socioeconomic, and cultural paradigm, which ultimately encourages the parties to the collective bargaining process and ultimately the implications for employee relations and trade unions. Finally, it highlights the view that collective bargaining is country-driven, capturing relevant country orientations, history, societal and economic forces, as well as the connectivity of these issues. In other words, the stakeholders in the employment relation settings should end the search for the one right collective bargaining strategy but rather should understand what in the context matters.

Creating a Significant Learning Experience When Introducing Labor Relations to Students

Abstract: Despite declines in private-sector union membership in the United States, labor relations remains an essential topic within the field of human resource management. However, most undergraduate students have little experience with labor unions, making it difficult to enhance learning by applying labor relations concepts to their prior experiences. The current lesson addresses this gap by teaching students about labor relations through the exploration of an authentic collective bargaining agreement (CBA) and an analysis of an actual work stoppage (i.e., strike or lockout). Students will learn about how different elements of the CBA influenced negotiations and factors that contributed to a work stoppage, leading to a basic understanding of how the human resource management decisions they make as managers can directly impact organizational outcomes. The lesson also serves as a tool for synthesizing content from throughout the semester in an undergraduate human resource management course.

Patterns in the Press Releases of Trade Unions: How to Use Structural Topic Models in the Field of Industrial Relations

Abstract: Quantitative text analysis and the use of large data sets have received only limited attention in the field of Industrial Relations. This is unfortunate, given the variety of opportunities and possibilities these methods can address. We demonstrate the use of one promising technique of quantitative text analysis – the Structural Topic Model (STM) – to test the Insider-Outsider theory. This technique allowed us to find underlying topics in a text corpus of nearly 2,000 German trade union press releases (from 2000 to 2014). We provide a step-by-step overview of how to use STM since we see this method as useful to the future of research in the field of Industrial Relations. Until now the methodological publications regarding STM mostly focus on the mathematics of the method and provide only aminimal discussion of their implementation. Instead, we provide a practical application of STM and apply this method to one of the most prominent theories in the field of Industrial Relations. Contrary to the original Insider-Outsider arguments, but in line with the current state of research, we show that unions do in fact use topics within their press releases which are relevant for both Insider and Outsider groups.

Workforce development in the context of digitalization of social and labor relations

Abstract: The article considers the main directions of labor force development in the conditions of digitalization of social and labor relations. The author defines the trends and prospects of the formation of labor legislation aimed at protecting vulnerable categories of the workforce. The current stage of labor force development in the domestic labor market is characterized by the complex nature of socio-economic relations, the lack of stable dynamics of sustainable economic growth and the increasing problems inherent in the economy under the regime of restrictions. Currently, the formation of labor legislation is continuing, the need for transformation of which was identified in the previous three years in connection with the problems that arose in companies in connection with the spread of "remote" and flexible formats of interaction between employer and employee and the digitalization of the Russian sectors of the economy. In this regard, there is an urgent need at the legislative level to streamline the regulation of the labor regime when transferring employees to a remote work format, coordination of tasks on the part of management, and monitoring of the activities of the workforce has become relevant. The purpose of this work is to identify the factors influencing the development of the workforce in modern conditions of transition to digital technologies. It is concluded that the digitalization of social and labor relations is a complex process, accompanied by the need to equip workplaces with modern digital equipment and train employees in digital literacy skills. Today, the demand for specialists with new digital skills in the domestic labor market is limited, workers of traditional professions are required, and the share of future industries in the Russian economy is still extremely small.