Employees Relation

University Degree Business and Administrative studies

Employee Relations

Introduction

The purpose of this literature review is to create a framework of concepts and knowledge for understanding and analysing approaches to the subjective Employees relation. I will present this literature review based on Question 2. To give advantages of collective bargaining for both employers and employees and is there a future for collective bargaining in the new industrial climate? To present this question I will research use 4 different resources and provide brief summary of the background, analysing main critique and conclusion.

What is Collective Bargaining?

It is one way of minimizing conflict in the workplace.

It involves determining conditions of work and terms of employment through negotiations between employers and employee representatives, such as trade unions
These bodies represent the views of all their members and try to negotiate in their interests

Definitions

Collective bargaining in terms business/industrial relations & HR terms means negotiation between one or more trade unions and one or more employers or an employers’ organisation on the income and working conditions of the employees.

Ref: – Complete and Unabridged 6th Edition 2003. © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003

A contract ( Collective Agreement and Contract are used interchangeably) between the union acting as the bargaining agent and the employer, covering wages, hours of work, working conditions, benefits, rights of workers and union, and procedures to be followed in sett. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collective_bargainingling disputes and grievances)

Managing the relationships between employees and employers grows more complex and more critical every year

You need a strong relationship between employers and employees to navigate the human resource minefields of sexual harassment, employee threats of violence, equal employment opportunity, executive compensation, plant closing and relocations, and downsizing and workforce restructuring.

A good example of trade union reorganisation using collective bargaining is a story of a dying man and his 7 sons. The story in brief; the dying man laying in his bed asked his sons to come together because he wants to explain them something. He tells them to go and collect a tree stick each and break it into half and when they all achieve this exercise his then tells them to gather 7 sticks each and break it into half again, but the sons could not break the sticks as it was hard to break 7 sticks together. So therefore he proves his sons his point and tells them “look you are stronger when together and no one can break you, where as if you fight by yourself then anyone can break you.”

The moral of this story was terms of collective bargaining can only take place in an organisation in a form of group e.g. trade union.

1: Subject title: Wal-Mart wins court appeal in Canada.

Source anonymous: News paper; , Dublin: . Pg 18.

Available from:

() [Accessed on 2nd Dec. 08]

Main critique

The Supreme Court of Canada has denied an appeal by former workers at a Wal-Mart store in Quebec who argued that their freedoms of association rights were violated by the retail giant in 2005.

Almost 200 workers were terminated in ...

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The moral of this story was terms of collective bargaining can only take place in an organisation in a form of group e.g. trade union.

1: Subject title: Wal-Mart wins court appeal in Canada.

Source anonymous: News paper; , Dublin: . Pg 18.

Available from:

() [Accessed on 2nd Dec. 08]

Main critique

The Supreme Court of Canada has denied an appeal by former workers at a Wal-Mart store in Quebec who argued that their freedoms of association rights were violated by the retail giant in 2005.

Almost 200 workers were terminated in Jonquiere, Que., as a result of an abrupt store closure by the retail giant – shortly after the employees unionized with the United Food and Commercial Workers.

Although the right to collective bargaining is enshrined in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, six of the nine Justices set aside the appeal on a technical argument under the Quebec Labour Code.The supreme court of Canada said in a ruling yesterday that its decision would have a limited effect.

The ruling does not change workers’ ability to seek remedies against an employer that closes a store because of anti-union motives. It does affect whether employees can claim an advantage by saying they lost their jobs because they exercised collective-bargaining rights.

Conclusion

To conclude this critique I would fairly accept the way the news had been researched and written. The author needs to research in dept of the topic and not to make it too brief, so it’s rather more attractive and interesting topic to present and stated clearly the research aims and objectives, most importantly the conclusion of the news, as the article seem as if it was unfinished.

The theoretical methods highly recommended, as the findings of the study were brief. However the interpretation and recommendations of the author were fairly adequate and realistic which made an extreme precious as a guideline for further research for investigation.

The author presets disadvantages of collective bargaining for employees in this scenario as the court acknowledges that it had limited effects and therefore in result the ruling damaged the union’s efforts to organisation Walmart workers in Canada. Also this causes a threat to employees for getting dismissed for union activities.

Collective Bargaining: Disadvantages for employees: The main disadvantage of collective bargaining is that it is seen as depriving the individual worker of their individual liberty and voice, so therefore employees have no “real” involvement and does not take account of personal performance or individual effort (not getting what they can with own ability), so no individual reward.

Disadvantages for employers: most important disadvantages for employers are the loss of control, loss of absolute managerial prerogative. Also it is time consuming as it will involve intervention of outside party (trade union) and may results in agreement/decision that the management would not have wanted.

2: Title: Economic and Industrial Democracy

Subject: Variable Pay and Collective Bargaining: A Cross-National Comparison of the Banking Sector

Source anonymous: Journal: Lisa library; Sage . Authors: Franz Traxler, Jim Arrowsmith, Kristine Nergaard and Joaquim M. Molins López-Rodó. Economic and Industrial Democracy 2008; 29; 406

Available from (http://0-eid.sagepub.com.lispac.lsbu.ac.uk/cgi/reprint/29/3/406) [Accessed on 1st Dec. 09]

Main critique

This article analyses the challenge of variable pay to collective bargaining, based on a cross-national comparison that takes banking organizations in Austria, Norway, Spain and the UK as representatives of Europe’s principal bargaining systems. The hypothesis is that the capacity of collective bargaining to govern variable pay varies with the bargaining system. As the findings show, articulated multi-employer bargaining is more able to govern variable pay than its unarticulated counterpart and single-employer bargaining. Within the case of articulated multi-employer bargaining, single-channel systems of employee workplace representation are superior to dual systems, all the more since the former equip the unions with selective incentives for membership.

Keywords: employee workplace representation, multi-employer bargaining, organized decentralization, pay flexibility, single-employer bargaining.

Conclusion

Concluding this journal critique I would add that the authors were straight to point, their proved to give good qualification of their research background, as their presented evidence of facts, logical appeals, experts opinions and examples. The readers they aimed at and appropriateness of the vocabulary were excellent and well presented for example their explained the study’s hypotheses and research design in the introduction so the reader clearly knowledge what investigations the authors will present through the journal.

The authors use many statistics to prove they point, and successfully achieve to indicate they source. However am not certain whether they should the reader trust that the statistics are accurate, or could they be the author’s invention because they are opposed to all the variable pay and the legalization of pay. However if the authors failed to provide sources for statistics, they would have casted doubts on the entire argument.

The author presents vital points of collective barging in relation to advantages for employees and employees; Collective Bargaining: Advantages for employees: The main advantage of collective bargaining is that the manager will not take a great deal of time in deciding on what action to take on an individual level. The employees have greater influence in the final decision the manager will take, there is also a chance of the employees getting what they demand. It allows collective strengths, and specialized trained experienced members to negotiate on your behalf.

Advantages for employers: provides an effective forum of participation to understand employees views, and enables organizations to control predict costs, saving time and resources. Helps commitment and motivation of employees, good communication process and means to resolve disputes and disagreements.

3: Title: Educational Administration Quarterly

Subject: Allocating Quality: Collective Bargaining Agreements and Administrative Discretion over Teacher Assignment

Source anonymous: journal: Lisa library: Sage (http://eaq.sagepub.com at Serials Department on December 3, 2009) author: Lora Cohen-Vogel and La'Tara Osborne-Lampkin.

Available from :( ) [Accessed 20th Nov. 09]

Main critique

School leaders argue that to make the improvements in both quality and equity that government mandates demand, they need more flexibility with regard to personnel Management— specifically, teacher assignment. According to some, such flexibility is onstrained by collective bargaining between teachers unions and school districts.

Purpose: To examine how collective bargaining agreements govern the assignment of teachers to schools and classrooms and whether any observed variation among the agreements is due to district demographics and/or performance.

Conclusion

The amount and kinds of support used to back up their major ideas were reasonable and logical for example transferring their finding into table’s diagrams and charts to help reader acknowledge the accurate percentages e.g. Average Enrolment for Districts That Do and Do Not Specify the Use of Teacher Performance in Selection Decisions.

One of the recommendations I would suggest; the authors force study and finding were only based on Florida Country, however I believe that they could have compared it with other country such as Britain to make the studies more Appling to more verities of readers. However the authors handling of biases or opposing opinions were emotional appealing.

4: Title: People resources

Subject: employment relation process

Source anonymous: E-Book; Lisa, Myilibrary: Written By: Pilbeam, Stephen; Corbridge, Marjorie Published By: Pearson Education UK in 2006

Available from: ()

[Accessed on 20th Nov. 09]

Main critique

Explaining the role employment relations processes have in the effective resourcing of organizations assess the key changes that have taken place in collective, bargaining, its structure and recent innovations, identify and explain the ways in which employment relations is managed in organizations that do not recognize trade unions, evaluate the contribution that employee involvement practices can make to organizational performance and appreciate the nature and process of employment relations negotiations.

Conclusion

The strengths of the author of this book are clearly expressed through his well and clearly explained the topics and sufficiently focused on employments relational and the step by step processes involved and the content truthfully fits the audience for example business studies students.

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