CHAPTER 6: Employee and Industry Relations

• INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS

  The term is synonymous and

  associated with collectives, such as

  mass movements of workers, trade

  unions, and others.
• EMPLOYEE RELATIONS

  The term revolves around a smaller

  subset of industries and goes

  beyond the collectives, such as

  trade unions.
• In more recent practices, the term

  "Employee Relations" generally focuses on

  the restrictions and agreements between

  the industry to its workers in various levels

  of collectivization, as a union or as an

  individual. Its main goal is to ossify the

  interest of its subjects toward the company's

  goals and aspirations.
• PSYCHOLOGICAL CONTRACT

  An intangible agreement between both

  parties binds the relationship between the

  employer and their employees.
• The set norms between employer and

  employee relationship provide the

  necessary environment for co-creating

  value for the workplace environment.
• Values such as justice,

  fairness, transparency, trust, dignity, and

  cooperation come into play in

  employee/employer dynamic.
• Job satisfaction is an instance where

  the dynamic is being studied.
• Employee satisfaction is measured through surveys

  regarding various aspects of their jobs and

  each employee's views regarding it.
• Gig Economy - where more and

  young workers are pushed to pursue

  part-time jobs because of the lack of wages

  relative to the demands of the current-day

  economy.
• Compliance

  The word itself conjures ideas of

  submission and power.
• Sources of power:

  ● Coercive - Punishment

  ● Remunerative - Financial reward

  ● Normative - Symbolic awards tied to

  values held by the company
• Forms of involvement:

  ● Alienative - Negative or antagonistic

  ● Calculative - Careful and thoughtful of choices

  ● Moral - Positive and in accordance

  with norms set by the company
• Commitment

  is about involvement or moral bond between

  employer and employee and sharing an

  optimistic view that leads to a mutually

  beneficial relationship.
• Attitudinal commitment-

  Commitment that can be

  distinguished with the psychological

  bond of the employer and employee

  that is held by common norms and

  values
• Behavioral commitment -

  Commitment that can be described

  as "going beyond expectations" or

  loyalty to the company
• COMMITMENT HAS 2 DISTINCT FORMS:

  1. Attitudinal Commitment
  2. Behavioral Commitment
• Communication between

  the employer and the employee is key to

  building the base of this relationship to

  ensure employee involvement is present in

  all aspects of this bond.
• teamwork, proactivity, and

  continuous improvement or what the

  Japanese call Kaizen
• Volatility exists in this interaction

  just like any human relationship outside the

  context of the organization.
• three different frames, and

  these are "unitarist," "pluralist," and "radical/

  Marxist" references,
• Unitarism

  As the term suggests, it is a view that

  assumes that companies and their

  employees are like-minded and thus, share

  various commonalities, such as norms and

  aspirations.
• Pluralism

  The difference between unitarism and

  pluralism is that pluralism looks into the

  diversity of individuals and acknowledges it.
• Class and exploitation of workers are the

  central notions behind the Radical/Marxist

  perspective. In a much simpler sense, the

  employer is seen as the evil that merely

  exploits workers for labor to derive surplus

  value, which is only accessible to the

  capitalists and not the laborers themselves.
• Outputs

  Dunlop sees outputs defined by substantive

  and procedural rules that manage the main

  characters or actors within an industrial

  environment.
• Substantive rules - Result of rules

  such as hourly wages.
• Procedural rules - Result of

  compromises about the system.
• Inputs

  Again, for Dunlop, there are three pillars

  that are the independent variables under

  "Inputs"; these are actors, contexts, and

  ideology.
• Actors

  ● A group comprised of laborers who

  are not part of the managerial level

  ● A group comprised of managers that

  may also include employee

  collectives

  ● Exogenous agencies that exist

  beyond the employee/employer

  relations, such as government

  agencies, national labor

  associations, and others.
• Contexts

  ● Market influence - Economics and

  the market play a huge part in

  industrial relations such as that of

  emerging market trends, a global

  competition that pressures firms to

  be more accommodating, and

  flexible to employee terms.

  ● Technological influence - The impact

  of disruptive innovation plays an

  important role in the system, such as

  that of drastic changes to production

  practices, which will force the

  industry to adapt to the skills sets,

  manpower requirement, and labor to

  achieve targets.
• Ideology

  It is simply the totality of values, beliefs,

  ideas, and more that are reinforced and

  shared by all actors across the different

  hierarchies.
• For the system to find a consensus, the

  inputs are turned to outputs with the help of

  a process in which actors are subjected.
• These processes include collective

  bargaining agreements in resolving the

  conflict by arriving at a consensus where

  both parties agree upon.