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What Are "Good" Industrial Relations

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Submitted By sjem2002
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The importance of industrial relations is the key to the progress and success of an organization. The important benefit of them is to ensure continuity of production. This means continuous employment for all from the managers to the workers. Disputes are the reflections of the failure of basic human urges or motivations to secure adequate satisfaction or expression that are fully cured by good industrial relations. Strikes, lockouts, unfair tactics, and grievances are a few of the reflections of industrial unrest and do not appear in an atmosphere of the industrial calm. In the end “good” industrial relations depends on which theory you find more persuasive: unitarism, radicalism, or pluralism.

Unitarism is perceived as an integrated and harmonious system where the management, staff and all the members of the organization share the same objectives, interests, purposes and are viewed as one happy family. This single entity with a single authority has a loyalty structure which is considered paternalistic approaches were trade unions are deemed unnecessary and conflict is perceived as disruptive. Here management rights to manage are seen as legitimate and rational; and any opposition to management right to manage is seen as irrational. How long would the step ford wives syndrome last before it begins to crumble and fall apart?

On the other hand radicalism objects to the capitalistic source of power where the ownership and control extends beyond the corporate limits and into the labour market itself. This allows for certain fundamental rights as in the right to associate where the workers possibly can form trade unions and assert a degree of power through the process of collective bargaining; having compared to the unionism capitalistic system that has no intention to take over management. They learned to bargain within an institutional

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