Employee relations Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 5000 words

Employee relations - Essay ExampleThe model they suggest is a partnership between labour and management that would result in a high performance workplace with mutual gains for both the organisation and workers. (Betcherman et al., 1994 Guest, 1995 and Verma, 1995 cited in Bratton et al. 1999 334).Any changes that embroil society in the economic, social and political fields, not to speak of technological advancements will have inevitable consequences in the employer-employee relationship. Consequently, in Britain, mass unemployment of the 1980s and mixed legislations that curtailed union activities have had a marked effect on the bargaining power of labour because of the reduction in trade union membership and institutional protection. These developments corroborate Dunlops theory of industrial relations systems described below. However the trend is not unique to the United Kingdom and is attributable to increased ambition at the local, regional and global levels and heightened con sumer expectations.A trade union is defined as a continuous association of wage earners for the purpose of maintaining and improving the conditions of their employment. (Webb, Sydney & Webb, Beatrice cited in Trade Union). Does this mean that by definition, there is a conflict of interest between a trade union that represents its members and the organisation that employs those members as workers, more so if the organisation is in the public sector? The objective of this paper is to analyse the conundrum by taking recourse to theoretical bases and wherever possible their possible applications.1.2. John Dunlops theory of industrial relations systems In his 1958 classic, Industrial Relations Systems, John T. Dunlop, described the role of three principle actors in each industrial relations systems. They are, management organisations, workers (whether