Analysing the importance of communication between employers and employee

Employers needs to have a communication system with their employees as well as employees needs to communicate their requirements and their point of view not just about work itself but with topics related with that.

There are two levels where the relations between employees and employers take place: Individual relationship and collective relationships. Individuals relationship are related to their contract of employment and work conditions.

Trade Unions

Collective relationships some times are related with groups of employees and usually involve trade unions and an group of employers or individual employer. In this country, the body that represents trade unions is the Trades Union Congress (TUC). Employers collectively are represented by the Confederation of British Industry (CBI).

The number of disputes in this country is lower than the disputes in many other countries because the great number of trade unionists has never been on strike.

In order to solve everyday problems such as work without stimulation or complicated payment systems that generate dissatisfaction, they dealt with them by discussion, meetings and bargaining.

Example 1:

The Chinese trade union has noticed that its interests stem from both the increase of expansion of the membership base and membership dues. Unionisation in transnational corporations (TNCs) is the best option to achieve the interests of the union, which conducts popular mobilisation to neutralize non-operative organizations but turns a blind eye on labour interest violations in collaborative firms (Qingjun, 2010).

Example 2:

The Irish telecommunications restructuring, brought big changes to employment in the sector. The Communications Workers Union won bargaining credit in the principal subcontract supply firm. The employment of contingent employees brought new challenges reconciling the interests of people working on traditional employment contracts (Mackenzie, 2010).

Example 3:

The major impact of public sector pay and employment cutbacks in the countries of the EU and discusses their position as part of austerity packages. It starts with the outcomes in the countries first affected by the economic crisis. There is a need for austerity in the public sector on collective bargaining of different EU countries. “Policy conclusions are drawn regarding collective bargaining, public sector pay issues and pathways to fiscal consolidation in Europe that would be more effective in economic terms and more equitable in social terms” (Glassner 2010). 

Example 4:

José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, President from Spain, has reduced severance payouts, simplifying contracts and implementing temporary layoffs. How Zapatero attempted to reach the demands of Spain’s financial market, trade unions are discussed (Economist, 2010).

Example 5:

In Slovenia the trade union threats of further strikes and protests to change the proposals for reforming employment legislation and the system of pension. A rally was held by the Students’ Association of Slovenia protesting against new plans of increase tax on students’ employment and limited working hours. (Country Report, 2010)

Example 6:

In the UK, 455,200 working days were lost in 2009, due to 98 stoppages of work because of labour disputes. In 2009 strike action from the private and public sectors were spread, with 49 strikes in each sector. The three main disputes of labour are: stoppages, working days lost and workers involved (Hale, 2010).

Example 7:

“British Airways (LSE:BAY) announced yesterday that it will increase its flying schedule during trade union Unite’s planned five-day strike next week because more cabin crew than expected have worked as normal during this week’s industrial action” (Airline Industry Information, 2010).

Collective bargaining

Collective bargaining involves representatives of employees and employers getting together to bargain and discuss. It is possible that this negotiation may just involve two people, one employee and one employer. Normally, the human resource manager and a representative of the trade union have meetings every week. Some of the major issues bargaining involve inter-party negotiations; it can be from small groups on each side of the bargaining to more than 20 representatives’ employers and a similar number from trade unions. Talk and discussion is the best tool of employment relations.

Thanks to the Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service (Acas) work, there are good employment relations. They create cordial working relationships by encouraging managers to develop best practice and by providing training, guidelines and codes of conduct for managers and employees.

The bodies that represent employees and groups of trade unions are:

The Trades Union Congress

At the Annual Congress delegates from several unions meet together to debate and discuss general union policy. The TUC has a permanent body of national officials under the leadership of its president. 

The Confederation of British Industry

This body was created to give the employers views, opinions and feelings to government, trade unions, the media and other interested parties.

Relations between employees and employers refer to the communication that take place between representatives of managers and employees. More of the employee relations relate to employers and employees working together.

Discussions between employees and employers normally cover the following areas: payment, health and safety, disputes, hours to work, bonuses, work schedules, work environment and production target.

Example 8:

The equilibrium in evolutionary stable market is achievable through complete disintermediation of auctioneers if exist the option of bargaining-based supply chain contracting. The evolutionary dynamics of a market, caters both supply chain contracting and the scopes of auction-intermediation to a set of homogeneous buyers and sellers (Dutta, 2009)

Example 9:

The debt financing improved a firm’s bargaining position with a supplier. Because high levels of liquidity can encourage workers to raise their wage demands, a firm with external finance has a motivation to use the cash flow demands of debt service to improve its bargaining position with employees. Using the level of collective bargaining coverage to recognize changes in union bargaining power, strategic incentives from union bargaining, appear as a substantial impact on corporate financing decisions (Matsa, 2010).

Example 10:

The study of connections between negotiated wage settlements and union employment in the presence of foreign competition shocks. The fact that in an open economy such as Canada the price of exports and imports should represent pure demand shocks. For instance the specification wage of collective bargaining agreements from 1965 to 1983 (Abowd, 1993).

Example 11:

With the global financial crisis and the job security threat, some positive experiences of trade unions were often overshadowed in 2009. The difficult relationship between the unions and the Rudd federal government was a fact in the year. The return of Telstra to the bargaining table with unions generated a significant shift in the collective bargaining in 2009 (Brigden, 2010). 

Example 12:

Any other example of collective bargaining is the recent developments of employment relations in Japan. The period 2008-2009 had many changes. In September 2009, the Democratic Party of Japan was elected for the first time since 1955. The traditional Japanese employment relations system with long-term employment still applies to core workers in large firms, but their share has been diminishing in favour of the continual growth of atypical employment or non-regular employees (Suzuki, 2010).

Employer/employee relations

Successful relations between employers and employees involve a balance of interests. From the point of view of the employers, they matters about make profits and keep its employees motivated. From the point of view of the employees, it is about securing conditions and living standards. When working conditions are not favorable for employees it leads high levels of absenteeism, bad timekeeping and labourturnover and sometimes it can be seen as a form of poor working, slackness by individuals and deliberate time wasting. Usually those practices may be changed for friction, apathy, ignoring rules and complaints.

The forms of organized trade union action, including: a go slow, withdrawal of goodwill, working rigidly doing only tasks set out in a job description, go on strike and refusing to work overtime. These actions lead to reduce company profitability, festering discontent, problems for customers and reduce company profitability.