Industrial relations

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For the journal, see Industrial Relations (journal).

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Industrial relations or employment relations is the multidisciplinary academic field that studies the employment relationship;

employees
, labor/trade unions,
the state
.

The newer name, "Employment Relations" is increasingly taking precedence because "industrial relations" is often seen to have relatively narrow connotations.[2] Nevertheless, industrial relations has frequently been concerned with employment relationships in the broadest sense, including "non-industrial" employment relationships. This is sometimes seen as paralleling a trend in the separate but related discipline of human resource management.[3]

While some scholars regard or treat industrial/employment relations as synonymous with employee relations and

better source needed] Some academics, universities and other institutions regard human resource management as synonymous with one or more of the above disciplines,[5]
although this too is controversial.

Overview

Industrial relations examines various employment situations, not just ones with a unionized workforce. However, according to Bruce E. Kaufman, "To a large degree, most scholars regard trade unionism, collective bargaining and labour–management relations, and the national labour policy and labour law within which they are embedded, as the core subjects of the field."[6]

Initiated in the United States at end of the 19th century, it took off as a field in conjunction with the

management paradigm.[8]

Protest against industrial relations legislation in Melbourne in 2005.

Industrial relations has three faces: science building, problem solving, and ethical.

labour and social history, human resource management, political science, law
, and other areas.

Industrial relations scholarship assumes that labour markets are not perfectly competitive and thus, in contrast to mainstream

organizational behaviour, conflict is seen as a natural part of the employment relationship. Industrial relations scholars therefore frequently study the diverse institutional arrangements that characterize and shape the employment relationship—from norms and power structures on the shop floor, to employee voice mechanisms in the workplace, to collective bargaining arrangements at company, regional, or national level, to various levels of public policy and labour law regimes,[citation needed] to varieties of capitalism[10] (such as corporatism, social democracy, and neoliberalism
).

When labour markets are seen as imperfect, and when the employment relationship includes conflicts of interest, then one cannot rely on markets or

international labour standards, and other employment and labour laws and public policies.[13] These institutional interventions are all seen as methods for balancing the employment relationship to generate not only economic efficiency but also employee equity and voice.[14] In contrast, the Marxist
-inspired critical camp sees employer–employee conflicts of interest as sharply antagonistic and deeply embedded in the socio-political-economic system. From this perspective, the pursuit of a balanced employment relationship gives too much weight to employers' interests, and instead deep-seated structural reforms are needed to change the sharply antagonistic employment relationship that is inherent within capitalism. Militant trade unions are thus frequently supported.

History

Industrial relations has its roots in the

Sidney Webb and Beatrice Webb's Industrial Democracy (1897) being a key intellectual work.[16]
Industrial relations thus rejected the classical econ.

Institutionally, industrial relations was founded by

University of Wisconsin in 1920.[citation needed] Another scholarly pioneer in industrial relations and labour research was Robert F. Hoxie.[17] Early financial support for the field came from John D. Rockefeller Jr. who supported progressive labour–management relations in the aftermath of the bloody strike at a Rockefeller-owned coal mine in Colorado.[citation needed] In Britain, another progressive industrialist, Montague Burton, endowed chairs in industrial relations at the universities of Leeds, Cardiff, and Cambridge in 1929–1930.[18]

Beginning in the early 1930s there was a rapid increase in membership of

Second World War these were suppressed by the arbitration powers of the National War Labor Board.[20]

Cornell University School of Industrial and Labor Relations

However, as the Second World War drew to a close and in anticipation of a renewal of labour–management conflict after the war, there was a wave of creations of new academic institutes and degree programs that sought to analyse such conflicts and the role of collective bargaining.

Cornell University School of Industrial and Labor Relations, founded in 1945.[22][23] But counting various forms, there were over seventy-five others.[23] These included the Yale Labor and Management Center, directed by E. Wight Bakke, which began in 1945.[24] An influential industrial relations scholar in the 1940s and 1950s was Neil W. Chamberlain at Yale and Columbia universities.[25]

In the 1950s, industrial relations was formalized as a distinct academic discipline with the emergence in the UK of the so-called "Oxford school", including

Hugh Clegg,[26] and Alan Fox, Lord William McCarthy, Sir George Bain (all of whom taught at Nuffield College, Oxford), as well as Otto Kahn-Freund (Brasenose College, Oxford
).

Industrial relations was formed with a strong problem-solving orientation

Fair Labor Standards Act
.

By the early 21st century, the academic field of industrial relations was often described as being in crisis.[28] In academia, its traditional positions are threatened on one side by the dominance of mainstream economics and organizational behaviour, and on the other by postmodernism.

In policy-making circles, the industrial relations emphasis on institutional intervention is trumped by a neoliberal emphasis on the laissez-faire promotion of free markets. In practice, trade unions are declining and fewer companies have industrial relations functions.[citation needed] The number of academic programs in industrial relations is therefore shrinking, while fields such as human resource management and organizational behaviour grow.[29] The importance of this work, however, is stronger than ever, and the lessons of industrial relations remain vital. The challenge for industrial relations is to re-establish these connections with the broader academic, policy, and business worlds.

Theoretical perspectives

Industrial relations scholars such as Alan Fox have described three major theoretical perspectives or frameworks, that contrast in their understanding and analysis of workplace relations. The three views are generally known as unitarism, pluralism, and the radical or critical school. Each offers a particular perception of workplace relations and will, therefore, interpret such events as workplace conflict, the role of unions and job regulation differently. The perspective of the critical school is sometimes referred to as the

Marxist theories, although they are not limited to these.[citation needed
]

Pluralist perspective

In pluralism, the organization is perceived as being made up of powerful and[citation needed] divergent sub-groups, each with its own legitimate interests[30] and loyalties and with their own set of objectives and leaders. In particular, the two predominant sub-groups in the pluralist perspective are the management and trade unions. The pluralist perspective also supports that conflict is inherent in dealing with industrial relations since different sub-groups have different opinions in the day-to-day operations.[citation needed] Consequently, the role of management would lean less towards enforcing and controlling and more toward persuasion and coordination.[citation needed] Trade unions are deemed legitimate representatives of employees,[30] conflict is resolved through collective bargaining and is viewed not necessarily as a bad thing and, if managed, could, in fact, be channeled towards evolution and positive change.

Unitarist perspective

In unitarism, the organization is perceived as an integrated and harmonious whole with the idea of "one happy family" in which management and other members of the staff all share a common purpose by emphasizing mutual co-operation.[31] Furthermore, unitarism has a paternalistic approach: it demands loyalty of all employees[31] and is managerial in its emphasis and application.[32] Consequently, trade unions are deemed unnecessary[33] since the loyalty between employees and organizations are considered mutually exclusive, and there cannot be two sides of industry.[citation needed] Conflict is perceived as destructive and[citation needed] the result of poor management.[34]

Radical or critical perspective

This view of industrial relations looks at 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.[citation needed] Conflict is therefore seen as a natural outcome of capitalism, thus it is inevitable and trade unions are a natural response of workers[31] 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 than limit management's position as they presume the continuation of capitalism rather than challenge it.[citation needed]

Labor relations

This section is an excerpt from Labor relations.[edit]
Vancouver Labour Temple during the general strike in 1918

labor history that studies the human relations with regard to work in its broadest sense and how this connects to questions of social inequality. It explicitly encompasses unregulated, historical, and non-Western forms of labor. Here, labor relations define "for or with whom one works and under what rules. These rules (implicit or explicit, written or unwritten) determine the type of work, type and amount of remuneration, working hours, degrees of physical and psychological strain, as well as the degree of freedom and autonomy associated with the work."[35]
More specifically in a North American and strictly modern context, labor relations is the study and practice of managing
unionized employment situations. In academia, labor relations is frequently a sub-area within industrial relations, though scholars from many disciplines including economics, sociology, history, law, and political science also study labor unions and labor movements. In practice, labor relations is frequently a subarea within human resource management. Courses in labor relations typically cover labor history, labor law, union organizing, bargaining, contract administration, and important contemporary topics.[36]

In the United States, labor relations in most of the private sector is regulated by the
National Labor Relations Act. Labor relations in the railroad and airline industries are regulated by the Railway Labor Act. Public sector labor relations is regulated by the Civil Service Reform Act of 1978 and various pieces of state legislation. In other countries, labor relations might be regulated by law or tradition. An important professional association for United States labor relations scholars and practitioners is the Labor and Employment Relations Association
.

References

  1. ^ Ackers 2002; Kaufman 2004, p. 94.
  2. ^ Lewis, Thornhill & Saunders 2003, p. 3.
  3. ^ Banfield & Kay 2008, p. 114.
  4. ISBN 978-0-7386-0125-0
    .
  5. ^ Rose 2008.
  6. ^ a b Kaufman 2008, p. 31.
  7. ^ Ackers 2002.
  8. ^ Taras 2008, p. 124.
  9. ^ Kaufman 2004, p. 94.
  10. ^ Hamann & Kelly 2008, p. 129.
  11. ^ Budd & Bhave 2008.
  12. ^ Budd & Bhave 2008, p. 104.
  13. ^ Befort & Budd 2009.
  14. ^ Budd 2004.
  15. ^ Kaufman 2004, pp. 15–16.
  16. ^ Farnham 2008.
  17. ^ Kuhn, Lewin & McNulty 1983, p. 157.
  18. ^ Sigsworth 1990, p. 124.
  19. ^ Kaufman 1993, pp. 61–62.
  20. ^ Kaufman 1993, p. 62.
  21. ^ Kaufman 1993, pp. 61–67, 80–81.
  22. ^ Kaufman 1993, p. 63.
  23. ^ a b Fine, Benjamin (9 February 1947). "Growth and Variety of University Programs in Labor Studies Shown in a Survey". The New York Times. p. E9. Retrieved 14 July 2018.
  24. ^ Porter, Russell (15 July 1946). "Behavior Studied for Labor Peace". The New York Times. p. 23. Retrieved 14 July 2018.
  25. ^ Kuhn, Lewin & McNulty 1983.
  26. ^ Ackers & Wilkinson 2005, p. 446.
  27. ^ Kaufman 1993, p. 187.
  28. ^ Ackers 2002; Kaufman 2004; Whalen 2008.
  29. ^ Kaufman 1993, pp. 189, 192.
  30. ^ a b Calveley et al. 2017, p. 290.
  31. ^ a b c Zhang 2014, p. 228.
  32. ^ Barchiesi 2014, p. 243.
  33. ^ Budd & Bhave 2008, pp. 92–93, 103.
  34. ^ Budd & Bhave 2008, p. 103.
  35. ^ Karin Hofmeester et al. (2015) The Global Collaboratory on the History of Labour Relations, 1500-2000: Background, Set-Up, Taxonomy, and Applications (IISH Dataverse).
  36. ^ John W. Budd (2010) Labor Relations: Striking a Balance, 3rd ed. (Boston: McGraw-Hill/Irwin).

Bibliography

Further reading

External links
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