CH 1

The approaches of Industrial

Relations
 Learning objectives
• Understand the different views of the
employment relationship and the interaction in
an IR System
• Explain the integral nature of the concept of
conflict, cooperation and regulations
• Identify the importantce and difficulties of
comparing industrial relations in different
countries.
• Appreciate the character of labour process
and labour market within capitalism and the
interrelationship between macro and micro
employment issues
• Industrial society is a complex and dynamic
society (consist of group, societies and
institution) they are interrelated, however
have different attitudes and perceptions. They
are also being influenced by external
environment.
• We cannot ignore the working aspect of
human being, as working hour dominate
most of our time.
There are different types of organizations:
1.Big organization, small organization, local or international.
2. They constitute of 3 main actors:
• Shareholder- represented by management, association of
employers. Always to gain as much profit and productivity.
• Employees- being represented by trade unions. To get good
salary and good working conditions
• Government; being represented by specialize government
agencies concern with workers, enterprise and their relationship.
Try create industrial harmony
Each of the actors above always conflicting between one another in
order to achieve their objectives.
3. Besides the above 3 main actors, in the present context
academicians have also considered another actor which can
also influence the nature of IR i.e Stakeholders.
• Does industrial harmony between the three
actors can be easily achieve particularly
between employees and management?.
• To moderate their conflict, the interference of
the government is crucial. Government
influence the relationship by introducing rules
and regulations and some code of industrial
harmony. Within the Malaysia contact, some
of the related rules are: industrial relation
acts, trade union acts, employment act, code
of Industrial harmony and etc. (pls. refer to
Ministry of HR website).
 Definition IR
• Industrial relations encompasses a set
of phenomena, both inside and outside
the workplace, concern with determining
and regulating employment relationship
 What is Industrial Relations?
A particular set of phenomena associated with
regulating the human activity of employment
• The making and administering of the
institutions and rules of work regulation
• Socio-industrial conflict (in all its forms) and
its resolution

• Explicit and implicit bargaining between

employees and employers
 Industrial Relations
• Much of Industrial Relations at lower
level of study place considerable
emphasis on factual approach.
- Author concentrated their efforts in
describing situations as they saw it
- they produce guide book rather than
theories and explanations. Eg.
Describing union structure, laws etc.
• In studying IR it is easier to study and to
discuss through ‘frame of reference’.
Frame of reference; each person perceive and
interpret events by mean of conceptual
structure of generalizations or contexts
postulate about what is essential,
assumptions as what is valuable, attitude
about what is possible and ideas about what
will work effectively.
It constitutes the frame of reference of that
person.
The nature of employment
organization
 Approaches to industrial
relations
Approaches to organisations

Unitary Pluralistic Marxist

Authoritarian Co-operation Evolution

Paternalism Conflict Revolution

Approaches to industrial relations

Input Conversion Output

Institutions
Conflict Regulation
and
(differences) (rules)
processes

Human Systems Social action Control of

resource the labour
management process
Wider approaches to industrial relations

Labour market Comparative

 Unitary perspective
• Assumptions
– Capitalist society
– Integrated group of people within the work organization
– Common values, interests and objectives
• Nature of conflict and its resolution
– Irrational and aberrant ( straying from the path)
– If there is/are conflict, they are Frictional and personal
– Coercion (force) or paternalism (limiting freedom through regulation)
• Role of Trade Unions
– Intrusion from outside
– Historical anachronism (relating to a wrong period)
– Management only forced to accept trade unions in economic
relations
 Unitary view
Organization is:
• A group that united
• Having same objectives
• Single authority/kepatuhan yang satu
• common value, interest and objectives (nilai,
minat dan objektif yang sama)
• Managers have the right to manage,
managers have prerogative to make
decisions. Those who challange is not
rasional.
• The unitary perspective has a great deal
of support in industry and government.
Eg. Based on research the bulk of
British mgrs. Maintain a preference for
unitary in decision making. e,.g
pronounce hostility to the power of trade
unions, limited amount of personal
commitment to collective presentation.
• What is your view about Malaysia?
• So is in the government. For example in
UK unitary perspective play important
part in the UK IR Act 1971, one of the
aim of the act was to reduce the
incidence of what was termed ‘disruptive
and disorderly behavior’ by the use of
external legal control.
• What is your view about Malaysia?
• Unitary also has considerable support in
the academic sphere. A great deal of
work in human relations school fall into
this category- it emphasizes the
important of social relations in industry.
It stresses that conflict is the result of
poor social relations, to overcome they
suggest for ex. Better communication,
they ignore differences in interest the
source of conflict.
 to
• According to Fox this view of organization had
been abandon as incongruent with reality, but
it should not be discard lightly. It provide
subconscious foundation (the right to
manage) for mgrs seeking to maintain clear
distinction between those issues they prepare
to negotiate and those they are prepared only
to consult. Also appear to have provide the
basis for HRM (comment interest, culture and
values ideology within organization,
 Pluralist
perspective
• Assumptions
– Post-Capitalist society, where a relatively widespread distribution of
power and authority within the society, a separation of ownership
from mgt. a separation ,acceptance and institutionalization of political
and industrial conflict
– Coalescence of sectional groups within work organisation
– Differing values, interests and objectives
– Competitive authority/loyalty structures (formal & informal)
• Nature of conflict and its resolution
– Rational and inevitable
– Structural and institutionalized
– Compromise, negotiate and agreement
• Role of Trade Unions
– Legitimate and accepted in both economic and managerial relations
– Internal and integral to organization
Conflict result from industrial and
organizational factors.
1. Different roles of mgt. and employees
• Mgrs responsible for efficiency,
productivity and profitability
• Employees: more of personal term
(better pay ,good working conditions
and good job security.
2. Conflictual behavior result form:
• Specific situation (e.g the closure of
some part of organization and change to
new technology)
• general management principal (to cut
cost, increase profit and productivity)
According to Fox mutual independent of sectional
groups exist only “in the common interest in the
survival as a whole.
Pluralist also assume sometime normative divergencies
between the parties are not so fundamental or so
wide to be unbridgeable. Where each group prepared
to limit its claim and aspiration.
Resolution of the conflict is characterized by the need to
establish accepted institution and procedures which
achieve collaboration, through comprehensive,
codified systems of negotiated regulations.
THE NATURE OF IR
 Unitary: Human resource
management
Management or manipulation?
• Focus
– Strategic & integrated managerial approach to the
management of people
– HRM support for achieving business aims and objectives
• Mechanisms
– Individualism (human relations, organisational psychology)
– Integrating planning, monitoring and control of human
resources (not just employees)
– Securing employee commitment or organisation’s aims &
objectives (performance based rewards, employee
involvement)
 Unitary: Human resource
management
• Antara ciri-ciri HRM (Amstrong)
– Pekerja perlu diurus, secekap dan seketat mungkin, seperti
juga sumber-sumber lain supaya dapat memaksima nilai
tambah.
– Perlu ada satu sistem, bantu-membantu dalam bentuk
komunikasi - contoh: team briefing, dll.
– Penggunaan teknik penglibatan pekerja contoh: QCC
– Memberi penekanan terus terhadap qualiti contoh: TQM
– Flexible dalam penyusunan kerja - kos efektif dalam
penggunaan buruh.
– Penekanan terhadap temawork.
– Strategi latihan: Pekerja diberi latihan dalaman sendiri untuk
menyesuaikan dengan teknoligi yang digunakan, daripada
mengambil pekerja yang telah ada skill. Ini meningkatkan
pengantungan pekerja pada majikan dengan cara
mengasingkan mereka mengikut pekerjaan.
 Unitary: Human resource management
Berbagai contoh yang dapat kita lihat bagaimana pihak pengurusan
boleh menggunakan berbagai kaedah untuk mengekploitasikan
dan menurunkan tahap keupayaan buruh. Antara nya;
• Buruh, buruh hanya mahir dalam sebahagian dari proses kerja
tertentu contoh: hanya line tertentu.
• Flexible company, ada pekerja tetap - untuk jangkamasa
panjang. Pekerja kontrak sementara - ikut keperluan syarikat.
Dengan membahagi kan buruk kepada dua kategori berlakunya
proses divide and rule.
• Responsible autonomy: Satu kaedah pengurusan saintifik, di
mana pekerja diberi sedikit hak untuk mengawal kerja mereka
sendiri, tetapi ianya dalam bidang yang pengurusan lihat dapat
capai objektif organisasi dan dapat meningkat keberkesanan
organisasi - majikan lebih untung.
• Personal Control : dimana orang yang diatas bertanggung jawab
terhadap kerja dan aktibiti orang bawahan.
• Bureaucratic control: berasaskan polisi , peraturan dan undang-
undang di tempat kerja
 Pluralist: Input-output model
Input Conversion Output

CONFLICT RECONCILIATION REGULATION

Function: Conducted through: Rules:

Identify Differences 1. Processes 1. Substantive or
of interest procedural
2. Institutions
2. Internal or external
Types:
3. Levels to the organisation
1. Micro-level organisation
3. Varying degrees of
tensions
formality
2. Macro-level society
values & issues
Forms of expression:
1. Hidden individual
2. Overt constitutional
3. Industrial pressure
 Marxist: Control of the labour
process
B.M B.B.G BARANG PASARAN
CAPITALS
Mesin,
Alatan dan
Buruh

• B.M = Barang Mentah

• B.B.G = Barang Boleh Guna
 Marxist ( Control of labour
process)
Proses Kawalan Buruh ( Control of labour process)
• Thomson mendefinasikan proses buruh ‘labour
process’ sebagai satu cara dimana bahan
• mentah ditukar oleh buruh dengan menggunakan
alat-alatan atau mesin, pertama kepada
• barang-barang untuk digunakan dan kemudian di
bawah sistem kapitalis ianya ditukar
• kepada barangan yang boleh ditukar didalam
pasaran.
• Thomson - Asas Theory ini ialah:
• 1. “Social Relation” yang wujud antara
pekerja – dimana ianya akan
menghasilkan keupayaan (kekuatan)
dan kapasiti ini diambil oleh kapitalis
sebagai satu jalan (cara) untuk
mengeluarkan barangan yang bernilai,
dan tidak secara langsung buruh juga
dianggap sebagai barangan (komoditi).
4 unsur wujud daripada teori ini:
– Perhubungan Buruh - modal satu bentuk ekploitasi
- keuntungan biasanya lebih pada modal.
– Logik timbun - tambah (acumulation) iaitu pemodal
akan cuba tingkatkan proses pengeluaran dan
turunkan kos pengeluaran.
– Tertingkat pengeluaran, bertambah faktor kawalan
sama ada secara am/khusus.
– Pemodal akan menggunakan berbagai kaedah
sistematik untuk mendapat kerjasama dan budi
bicara pekerja untuk meningkat pengeluaran
keuntungan lebih pada pemodal.
 Marxist: Control of the
labour process
• Focus
– The way ‘capital’ controls ‘labour’
• Mechanisms of management control
– Scientific management or deskilling
– Segmentation of labour (core & periphery)
– Bureaucratic control (policies, procedures & rules)
– Responsible autonomy (self-control or adoption of
management values as integral part of job?)
• Employee response
– Resistance (restrictive practices)
– Collectivism (joint regulation)
 System Approach
Originated by Dunlop, being subjected to
a variety of interpretation, uses and criticism. However they do not
invalidate the systems approach but they suggested accommodation and
Refinement. It is a broad based integrative model that sought to provide
tools of analysis to interpret and gain understanding the widest possible
range of IR facts and practices and to explain why particular rules are
establish in particular IR systems and how and why they change in
response to changes affecting the system.
This model sees IR as a subsystem of society distinct from but overlapping,
the economic and political subsystem
 System Approach
Four interrelated elements:
Actors- management, non-managerial employees and their representatives
And specialize government agencies concern with IR.
Context : influence and constraints on the decisions of the actors which
emanate from other parts of society, such as technology, market,
budgetary and the locus of power in the society..
Ideology; beliefs within the system which not only define the role of each
Actor or groups of actors but also define the view that they have of the role
of other actors in the system. If the view compatible-stable IR system and
other wise.
Rules; the regulatory framework, developed by a range of process and
presented in variety of forms which expresses the terms and nature of the
employment relationship.
System of industrial relations -
1
• Dunlop - Actors, working within contexts
(environment), developing a body of rules, held
together by an ideology
• System producing rules (IRS) and system
governed by rules (production)
• Naturally stable and orderly?
• Emphasis on roles rather than people
• Importance of environmental influences
System of industrial relations
-2
Industrial relations system (2)
Political Other levels of the
Environments Government and State Agencies Environments
Legal industrial relations
‘system’
Economic Attitudes
structure Roles Values
Interests Social
Cultural

Organisational Power Organisational

hierarchy of Choice hierarchy of
management management
Industrial relations system (1) Power
Attitudes Power Rule-making process Choice Attitudes
Values Choice Values
Interests Internal rules Interests
Output
Input
(substantive rules)
(conflict)
Roles Roles
Control/ Power
order Disorder

Productive system
Market Technology
Environments
WIDER APPROACH TO IR
 Comparative
approach
• Difference between:
– Comparative (analysing different countries)
– International (transnational institutions and phenomena)
• Importance of comparative approach
– Inform public policy debate
– Changing world economy
– Development of ‘fair’ international employment standards
• Problems of comparison
– Lack of common terminology and definitions
– Differences between stated institutional framework and
reality of actual practice
– Problems of transferability
 Convergence
• Logic of industrialisation
– All countries subject to same economic, technological and
market forces
– All need concentrated, disciplined workforce with new and
changing skills
– Similar government role in providing economic and social
infrastructure for industrialisation (competing for same
international investment)
• Modified convergence
– Countries at different stages of industrialisation
– Alternative solutions to common problems
– Regional based convergence
Divergence
• Distinctive value systems and cultural features
• Heterogeneity within national industrial relations
systems (decentralisation & flexibility)
• Different strategic choices by Government,
employers and unions at macro (society) and micro
(organisation) levels on nature, content and process
of employment relationship

• Political-economic framework of newer industrialised

countries versus pluralistic framework of older
industrialised countries