2. Definition
• Industrial Relations is a discipline, that concerns
itself with the study of the relationships
between employer and the employee in an
organization , industry or a nation level.
• These relationships are shaped in the larger
context of societal, economic , political and
technological forces that are in existence.
5. Objectives of Industrial Relations
At the Industry level:
1. A healthy relationship between employer
and employee.
2. An environment free from dysfunctional
conflict between the parties.
3. Gains in productivity for mutual benefit.
4. Full utilization of available manpower .
5. Creation of a work environment that
reduces attrition.
6. Participative working on principles of
industrial democracy.
7. Enhancement in the quality of work life.
6. Conditions for Good Industrial Relations
1. The existence of strong, well-organized and democratic
employees unions to ensure equal bargaining power for
protection of employees interests relating to wages etc.
2. Strong and well organized employers federation to promote
and maintain uniform personnel policies among various
organizations.
3. Belief in the process of settlement of conflicts through
negotiation and collective bargaining.
4. Sound Personnel policies emanating from business strategies.
5. Top management support for industrial relations function.
6. Creating systems and machineries for employee engagement.
7. Well trained supervisors who understand the implications of
building harmonious workplace.
8. A systematic effort to institutionalize a culture of mutual trust,
respect and understanding.
7. Factors shaping the IR system in India
1. The colonial history.
2. Role of state – preventive and regulatory.
3. Association with ILO as a founder member.
4. Freedom movement with participation of labour in it.
5. Worker –centric state policies.
6. Import substitution policy- protection of domestic industries.
7. Trade unions- multiplicity and political affiliation.
8. Right to legislate on Labour- concurrent list.
8. The legal framework for IR in India
Four groups of Labour Laws affect the employment
relations:
1. Industrial Relations: ID Act, Industrial Employment
Standing Orders Act, Contract Labour Act.
2. Wages: Payment of Wages, Minimum Wages
3. Social Security: ESI Act,EPF Act, Maternity Benefit Act
4. Safety, Welfare and Working conditions : Factories Act,
Mines Act, Plantation Labour Act
9. Unitary view
1. Mutual cooperation, individual treatment, team work
and shared goals.
2. Work place conflict is temporary aberration, resulting
from poor management or workers not fitting in the
organization culture.
3. Union –less environment - Collective bargaining
viewed as anti – management.
4. Assumption: every one benefits when focus is on
common interest and promotion of harmony.
5. Conflict is unnecessary and destructive.
10. Pluralistic view- The Conflict Approach
1. Organizations are coalitions of competing interest.
Management’s role to mediate among different interest groups.
2. TUs are legitimate representatives of employee interests.
3. Stability is a product of concessions and compromises between
management and unions.
4. Conflict of management-unions is inevitable.
5. Strong union is inevitable and necessary.
6. Society’s interest protected by state intervention through laws
and tribunals.
7. Industrial conflicts are natural and need to be contained through
social mechanism of collective bargaining, conciliation and
arbitration.
.
11. Pluralistic view
3. Conflict in behaviour results form:
• Specific situation (e.g. closure of some part of
organization or change to new technology)
• managerial decisions (to cut cost, increase profit and
productivity)
12. 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)
13. System Approach- Dunlop’s Industrial Relations System
1. Prof. John T.Dunlop of Harvard University Industrial Relations
Systems (1958).
2. Purpose: ‘to provide tools of analysis to interpret and gain
understanding of the widest possible range of industrial
relations facts and practices.’
3. Broadened it from collective bargaining to the entire spectrum
of industrial relations.
4. Earlier frameworks tried to understand it in a fragmented way
fro perspectives of different disciplines (psycholology,
sociology, economics, and history and organization theory).
14. System Approach
Generalized 3 level Framework :
1. IR within an enterprise.
2. IR within the country and comparison with other countries.
3. IR in totality in course of economic development.
15. System Approach
Dunlop visualized IR as a systemic construct , as a sub system of
society
IR = f(a, t,m,p,i)
A= Actors
T= Technology
M= Market
P= Power
I = Ideological Context
Industrial Relations is regarded as comprising of ‘certain actors,
certain contexts, an ideology which binds the industrial relations
systems together, and a body of rules created to govern at the
work place and work community.’
17. Gandhian Approach:
Amitabha Sengupta
1. Concepts of trusteeship. Present capitalist order can be
transformed into an egalitarian one. Capitalist is to hold
industry in trust to the society.
2. Character of production determined by the society, rather
than personal whim or greed.
3. Peaceful co-existence of capital and labour.
4. Workers should
1. Resolve conflicts through
a. non-violent, non –co-operation( satyagraha)
b. through collective action.
2. Avoid strikes in philanthropic institutions and essential
services.
3. Recourse to voluntary arbitration
5. Indian IR system influence by Gandhian approach-
example: peaceful settlement, arbitration etc.
18. 3- Tier Model of Kochan, Katz and Mckersie
Level Employer Unions Government
1. Long term
strategy &
Policy making
a. Business
strategy
b. investment
strategy
c. hr strategy
a. Political
strategy.
b. Representation
strategy.
c. Organization
strategy.
Macro-economic
and social policies.
2. Collective
bargaining and
Personnel
Policy
a. Personnel
policies
b. Negotiation
strategies
a. Collective
bargaining
strategy
Labour law and
administration
3. Workplace
and Individual
/organization
relationships
a. Supervisory
style
b. Worker
participation
c. Job design
d. Work
organization
a. Contract
administration
b. Worker
participation
c. Job design
d. Work
organization
a. Labour
standards
b. Workers
participation
c. Individual
rights.
19. 3- Tier Model of Kochan, Katz and Mckersie
1. It recognizes the inter-relationships among
activities at different levels.
2. It considers the effects of various strategic
decisions exert on different actors.
3. Effects of increased participation in workplace
decisions for IR.
4. Encourages analysis of the roles of different actors
in each other’s domains and activities.
21. Evolution of Industrial Relations in India
Four broad temporal phases :
1947-1965,
1966-1977;
1978-1990,
1991 till date
22. First Phase: 1947-1966
1st , 2nd & 3rd Five Year Plans
1. ‘Import -Substitution Industrialization’
2. ‘National capitalism ’
3. Economy grows @ 2%-3%/year.
4. Formation of large employment -intensive public
enterprises.
5. Largely centralized bargaining with static real
wages. Relative industrial peace.
6. Growth of public sector unionism. membership
trebled.
7. Tripartism became the norm.
8. wage setting conducted through setting up of
Wage Boards for several key industrial sectors.
9. Government controlled & regulated IR.
23. Second Phase: 1967- 1979
4th & 5th Five Year Plans
Political fragmentation , industrial stagnation and low
rates of employment growth.
1. Economic stagnation
2. Economy grows at @ 2%/year ; two oil price
shocks
3. Considerable slowdown in employment growth &
declining real wages.
4. Crisis in IR system: massive strikes & industrial
conflict, multiple unionism & decline in strength.
5. Government losing control over the IR system.
6. The declaration of Emergency – labour rights and
privileges withdrawn and right to strike suspended
from June 1975.
24. Third Phase: 1980 -1990
6th & 7th Five Year Plans
1. Initial domestic economic liberalization; economy
grows @ 5.7%/year.
2. Regional variation in economic development increases.
3. Variation in wage growth: skilled versus unskilled,
labour productivity increases, period of ‘jobless ’
growth.
4. Rise of 'independent ’ enterprise unionism, several
city/regional IR systems operating?
5. The trends of consumer nondurables firms starting to
subcontract and outsource their production to the
unorganized sector.
6. No overt changes in the labour law and labour market
policies except for the 1982 and 1984 amendments to
the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947,
7. Government slowly withdrawing from IR system?
25. Final Phase: 1991 till date
8th -12th Plan
Stabilization & Structural Adjustment Reforms:
1. Economy grows @ 6.2%-6.5%; Last five years ( 2004-
07) growing @ 7%-8%/year. Perhaps at 10% hence?
2. Regional variation increases massively.
3. Between 1999 & 2004: absolute number below
poverty line falls for the first time since independence.
4. Max growth in services: IT, IT-enabled services,‘hotels,
trade & restaurants restaurants’, but also in autos &,
ancillaries; more recently in overall manufacturing.
26. Final Phase: 1991 till date
8th -12th Plan
4. Greater decline in public sector employment.
5. The changing role of the State, competitive pressures of
globalization, technological changes, and changing work
organization, along with the resultant contractualisation
and outsourcing, impacted the employment relations
scenario in the country.
6. Change from a state-dominated industrial relations
system and centralized wage bargaining structure to a
more pluralistic and decentralized industrial relations
system.
7. Further, long term trends in industrial disputes and the
related/causative factors also witnessed during the
period.
