AN

ASSIGNMENT
ON
APPROACHES TO INDUSTRIAL RELATION

SUBMIT TO: PROF.ALPABEN MEHTA

DEPARTMENT OF LABOUR WELFARE,
SCHOOL OF SOCIAL SCIENCE,
GUJARAT UNIVERSITY,
AHMEDABAD.

SUBMIT BY;
NIKUNJ.B.PATEL
ROLL NO. 19
Jr.M.L.W.

 INTRODUCTION:

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 Industrial relations has become one of the most delicate and complex
problems of modern industrial society. Industrial progress is impossible
without cooperation of labors and harmonious relationships. Therefore, it
is in the interest of all to create and maintain good relations between
employees (labor) and employers (management).

The term ‘Industrial Relations’ comprises of two terms: ‘Industry’ and

‘Relations’. “Industry” refers to “any productive activity in which an
individual (or a group of individuals) is (are) engaged”. By “relations” we
mean “the relationships that exist within the industry between the
employer and his workmen.”

 DEFINATION:

1) Industrial Relation is a relation between employer and employees,

employees and employees and employees and trade unions. and
the “process by which people and their organizations interact at the
place of work to establish the terms and conditions of employment.”
- Industrial dispute Act 1947
2) The Oxford Dictionary defines industrial relations (IR) as the
"interaction between employers, employees, and the government;
and the institutions and associations through which such
interactions are mediated."

 APPROACHES TO INDUSTRIAL RELATION:

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 Several systematic attempts have been made by industrial
sociologists & industrial relations theories to develop theoretical
perspectives or approaches to analyze industrial relations & trade
unionism. It might be useful to examine some significant approaches to
the analysis of industrial relations in order to be able to develop an
appreciation of the alternative industrial perspectives. The seeds of what
has been termed as the Transformational Process Model are to be
found scattered of the approaches. Which are below:

1. The System Model (Dunlop’s approach)

2. The Pluralist Approach
3. Weber’s Social Action Approach
4. The Oxford Approach
5. The Industrial Sociology Approach
6. The Psychological Approach
7. The Marxist Approach
8. The Human Relations Approach
9. The Gandhian Approach
10. Human Resource Management Approach
11. The Unitary Approach
12. The Multidisciplinary Approach

1.The System Model (Dunlop’s approach):

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 One of the significant theories of industrial labor relations was put forth
by John Dunlop in the 1950s. According to Dunlop industrial relations
system consists of three agents – management organizations, workers and
formal/informal ways they are organized and government agencies. These
actors and their organizations are located within an environment – defined
in terms of technology, labor and product markets, and the distribution of
power in wider society as it impacts upon individuals and workplace. Within
this environment, actors interact with each other, negotiate and use
economic/political power in process of determining rules that constitute the
output of the industrial relations system. He proposed that three parties—
employers, labor unions, and government-- are the key actors in a modern
industrial relations system.

He also argued that none of these institutions could act in an

autonomous or independent fashion. Instead they were shaped, at least to
some extent, by their market, technological and political contexts.

2. The Pluralist Approach:

In pluralism the organization is perceived as being made up of powerful
and divergent sub-groups - management and trade unions. This approach
sees conflicts of interest and disagreements between managers and
workers over the distribution of profits as normal and inescapable.
Consequently, the role of management would lean less towards enforcing
and controlling and more toward persuasion and co-ordination. Trade
unions are deemed as legitimate representatives of employees. Conflict is
dealt by collective bargaining and is viewed not necessarily as a bad thing
and if managed could in fact be channeled towards evolution and positive
change.Realistic managers should accept conflict to occur. There is a

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 greater propensity for conflict rather than harmony. They should anticipate
and resolve this by securing agreed procedures for settling disputes.

The implications of this approach include:

 The firm should have industrial relations and personnel specialists

who advise managers and provide specialist services in respect of
staffing and matters relating to union consultation and negotiation.
 Independent external arbitrators should be used to assist in the
resolution of disputes.
 Union recognition should be encouraged and union representatives
given scope to carry out their representative duties.
 Comprehensive collective agreements should be negotiated with
unions.

3.Webber’s Social Action Approach:

The social action approach of Weber has laid considerable importance

to the question of control in the context of increasing rationalization and
bureaucratization. Closely related to Weber’s concern related to control in
organizations was his concern with “power of control and dispersal”. Thus a
trade union in the Weber’s scheme of things has both economic purposes
as well as the goal of involvement in political and power struggles. Some of
the major orientations in the Weberian approach have been to analyze the
impact of techno-economic and politico-organisational changes on trade
union structure and processes, to analyse the subjective interpretation of
workers’ approaches to trade unionism and finally to analyse the power of
various components of the industrial relations environment – government,
employers, trade unions and political parties. Thus the Weberian approach

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gives the theoretical and operational importance to “control” as well as to
the power struggle to control work organisations – a power struggle in
which all the actors in the industrial relations drama are caught up.

4.The Oxford Approach:

According to this approach, the industrial relations system is a study
of institutions of job regulations and the stress is on the substantive and
procedural rules as in Dunlop’s model. Flanders, the exponent of this
approach, considers every business enterprise as a social system of
production and distribution, which has a structured pattern of relationship.
The “institution of job regulation” is categorised by him as internal and
external – the former being an internal part of the industrial relations
system such as code of work rules, wage structure, internal procedure of
joint consultation, and grievance procedure. He views trade unions as an
external organisation and excludes collective agreements from the sphere
of internal regulation. According to him, collective bargaining is central to
the industrial relations system.

5.The Industrial Sociology Approach:

The industry is a social world in miniature having a community made
up of various individuals and groups with differing personalities,
families, education, emotions likes and dislikes etc.
Though the workers carry out their jobs in given industrial
environment, their work behavior is largely monitored by various social
factors. Further the social consequences of industrialization like
urbanization, social mobility, disintegration of family structure etc
influence the adjustment and development of IR and require a structural
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change in the basis IR systems as well.
Certain social evils like delinquency, gambling, drinking, drug-
addiction, stress and strain etc do influence worker’s efficiency and
productivity that in turn influence IR system as a whole.
The process of change and modernization of IR are complex in
character from a sociological perspective. such a perspective may be
useful in understanding and appreciation of diverse roles and
predictable attitudes of interests of groups in Industrial Relations.

6.The Psychological Approach:

The problems of IR have their origin in the perceptions of the
management, unions and the workers.
The conflicts between labour and management occur because every
group negatively perceives the behaviour of the other i.e. even the
honest intention of the other party so looked at with suspicion.
The problem is further aggravated by various factors like the income,
level of education, communication, values, beliefs, customs, goals of
persons and groups, prestige, power, status, recognition, security etc
are host factors both economic and non-economic which influence
perceptions unions and management towards each other.
Industrial peace is a result mainly of proper attitudes and
perception of the two parties.

7.The Marxist Approach:

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 This view of industrial relations is a byproduct of a theory of capitalist
society and social change. Marx argued that:

 Weakness and contradiction inherent in the capitalist system would

result in revolution and the ascendancy of socialism over capitalism.
 Capitalism would foster monopolies.
 Wages (costs to the capitalist) would be minimized to a subsistence
level.
 Capitalists and workers would compete/be in contention to win
ground and establish their constant win-lose struggles would be
evident.

This perspective focuses on the fundamental division of interest

between capital and labor, and sees workplace relations against this
background. It is concerned with the structure and nature of society and
assumes that the conflict in employment relationship is reflective of the
structure of the society. Conflict is therefore seen as inevitable and trade
unions are a natural response of workers to their exploitation by capital.

8.The Human Relations Approach:

Human resources are made up of living beings but not machines. They
need freedom of speech, of thought, of expression, of movement and of
control over the timings. This approach implies that the relationship
between employee and employer as between two human beings. The
term human relations include the relationship during the out of
employment situations.

In the words of Keith Davies, human relations are “the integration of

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people into a work situation that motivates them to work together
productively, cooperatively and with economic, psychological and social
satisfactions.” According to him, the goals of human relations are:

 To get people to produce,

 To cooperate through mutuality of interest, and
 To gain satisfaction from their relationships.

9.The Gandhian Approach:

This approach to industrial relation is based upon fundamental principal
of truth, non-violance and non-possission. This approach presumes the
peaceful co-existance of capital and labour. Gandhiji emphasized that if
the employers follow the principal of trusteeship than there is no scope of
conflict of interest between labour and management, Gandhiji accepted
the workers right to strike,but cautioned that they should exercise this right
for a just cause and in a peaceful and non-violence manner and this
method should only be resorted when all methods failed in getting
employers response. He also appealed to the workers to behave as
trustees, not to regard the mill and machinery as belonging to the
exploiting agents but to regard them as their own, protect them and put to
the best use they can. In short, the theory of trusteeship is based on the
view that all forms of property and human accomplishments are gifts of
nature and as such, they belong not to any one individual but to society.
Gandhiji advocated the following rules to resolve industrial conflicts:

Workers should seek redressal of reasonable demands through collective

action.

 Trade unions should decide to go on strike talking ballot authority

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 from all workers and remain peaceful and use non-violent methods.
 Workers should avoid strikes to the possible extent.
 Strikes should be resorted to only as a last report.
 Workers should avoid formation of unions in philanthropical
organization.
 Workers should take recourse to voluntary arbitration to the possible
extent where direct settlement failed.

10.Human Resource Management Approach:

The term, human resource management (HRM) has become

increasingly used in the literature of personnel/industrial relations. The
term has been applied to a diverse range of management strategies and,
indeed, sometimes used simply as a more modern, and therefore more
acceptable, term for personnel or industrial relations management. Some
of the components of HRM are:

1. Human Resource Organisation;

2. Human Resource Planning;

3. Human Resource Systems;

4. Human Resource Development;

5. Human Resource Relationships;

6. Human Resource Utilisation;

7. Human Resource Accounting; And

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 8. Human Resource Audit.

This approach emphasises individualism and the direct relationship

between management and its employees. Quite clearly, therefore, it
questions the collective regulation basis of traditional industrial relations.

11.Unitary approach:
In unitarism, the organization is perceived as an integrated and
harmonious system viewed as one happy family. A core assumption of
unitary approach is that management and staff, and all members of the
organization share the same objectives, interests and purposes; thus
working together, hand-in-hand, towards the shared mutual goals.
Furthermore, unitarism has a paternalistic approach where it demands
loyalty of all employees. Trade unions are deemed as unnecessary and
conflict is perceived as disruptive.

a) From employee point of view, unitary approach means that:

 Working practices should be flexible. Individuals should be business
process improvement oriented, multi-skilled and ready to tackle with
efficiency whatever tasks are required.
 If a union is recognized, its role is that of a further means of
communication between groups of staff and the company.
 The emphasis is on good relationships and sound terms and
conditions of employment.
 Employee participation in workplace decisions is enabled. This helps
in empowering individuals in their roles and emphasizes team work,
innovation, creativity, discretion in problem-solving, quality and
improvement groups etc.

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  Employees should feel that the skills and expertise of managers
supports their endeavors.

b) From employer point of view, unitary approach means that:

 Staffing policies should try to unify effort, inspire and motivate

employees.
 The organization's wider objectives should be properly
communicated and discussed with staff.
 Reward systems should be so designed as to foster to secure loyalty
and commitment.
 Line managers should take ownership of their team/staffing
responsibilities.
 Staff-management conflicts - from the perspective of the unitary
framework - are seen as arising from lack of information, inadequate
presentation of management's policies.
 The personal objectives of every individual employed in the business
should be discussed with them and integrated with the
organization’s needs.

12.Multidisciplinary Approachss:

A multidisciplinary approach to problem solving involves drawing

appropriately from multiple disciplines to redefine problems outside of
normal boundaries and reach solutions based on a new understanding of
complex situations.

Multidisciplinary working is often seen as revolutionary by skill-

centred specialists but it is simply a fundamental expression of being

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guided by holism rather than reductionism, as described by Jan Smuts in
his 1926 book Holism and Evolution. One of the major barriers to the
multidisciplinary approach is the long established tradition of highly
focused professional practitioners cultivating a protective (and thus
restrictive) boundary around their area of expertise. This tradition has
sometimes been found not to work to the benefit of the wider public
interest, and the multidisciplinary approach has recently become of
interest to government agencies and some enlightened professional
bodies who recognise the advantages of systems thinking for complex
problem solving.

The use of the term 'multidisciplinary' has in recent years been

overtaken by the term 'interdisciplinary' (a Google ratio of 86:214 in mid-
August 2006) for what is essentially holistic working by another name. The
former term tends to relate to practitioner led working while the later term
tends to carry a more academic overtone.

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