TRADE UNIONS

Role of trade unions

Role of trade unions

Thesis statement

“Efficient role played by trade unions hep in managing conflicts between the management and employees”

Introduction

Organizations are entities comprising several units with different people working at different capacities, having specific roles to perform, and responsible for various function. These people referred as the workforce or employees of an organization, interact with each other to exchange ideas and perform various tasks. This interaction is immensely important as the people work in collaboration for the collective benefit of the organization. However, difference is ideas is inevitable and hence can lead to conflicts. The management in an organization is likely to favour processes that lead to higher productivity while the workers may demand increased wages, flexible timings, increased benefits etc. When the goals of the management contradict with that of the workforce, it can create for an organization such as low employee morale and lack of productivity. However, if the conflicts are of a serious nature it may lead to strikes or lockouts, which can affect the workflow in an organization. An organization may suffer from a shortage of workers or disturbance in workflow, which can also affect its clientele. An organization experiencing problems in dealing with the conflicts between the management and employees will be unable to deliver the goods and services to its customers on time. This can create huge financial losses for an organisation and can also hamper it credibility in the market. An organization can also lose an edge over the competitors and hence lose its share in the market. Owing to these consequences, it is immensely important that there is a third party in between the management and the workforce to resolve conflicts. Trade unions in organization act as this third party, and enable an organization to resolve the conflicts among the management and the workforce.

Discussion

Organizational are complex and require understanding of all individuals for successful outcomes. Formerly in the industrial age, employee participation and involvement were given no importance, and it was widely believed that the management is solely responsible for making all the decisions. The idea was coined from the theory of Taylor and Ford, who believed that work specialization is necessary to improve the efficiency of labour in organization. According to them, division of labour to perform specialized tasks would reduce the frequency of errors while leading to superior quality products. Hence, labour force was confined to production work only. He also believed that the workers lack the intellectual ability to make sound decisions and hence, all the work that is required to be performed by the workers should be specified by the management (Rinehart, 1975, p. 44). This refers to confinement of the abilities of the workers and lack of empowerment. However, after a series of theories proposed by researchers, employees began to recognize the need for governing various aspects of their work. Their efforts led to the concept of collective barraging for making business in modern days successful. It holds that organizations are of various groups ...