Trade Unions Are Irrelevant and Belong to the Past - Coursework Example

EMPLOYEE RELATIONS MANAGEMENT By Name Course Instructor Institution City/State Date Trade unions are irrelevant and belong to the past Introduction Unions have these days been shrinking, with regard to both power as well as membership, relatively steadily for five decades (Telegraph, 2010). Arguably, the 21st century unions have less power on the global society as compared to the power they had in the 19th century. Therefore are trade unions at the moment irrelevant? According to Buttigieg et al. (2014, p.7), trade unions have artificially increased the labour cost in countries like US, UK and Australia to the disadvantage of the economy. The towering salary as well as expensive “bonuses” the trade unions have acquired for their workforce has compelled employers to employ less local-based workforce, to shut down businesses when labour is excessively expensive, or to outsource employment to overseas countries; thus, time and again closing facilities in the country inducing layoffs (Thibodeau, 2012). The high cost of labour as well leads to high costs for products manufactured, hence making the company’s products uncompetitive in the local as well as global markets. All of such consequences according to Benson et al. (2008, p.121) bring about a harmful hit to federal as well as state economies. Trade unions arose at the time of industrial revolution as a means to combat the lengthy working hours, horrifying work conditions, lacklustre pay employers asked from employees, and child labour. Owing to the surplus of workforce those days, if an employee protested with regard to the conditions of work, hours, or pay the manager would just fire the employee and employ another person; therefore, back then unions seemed sensible (Fernie & Metcalf, 2005, p.131). In this regard the essay seeks to provide a critical analysis why trade unions are irrelevant and belong to the past. Critical Analysis The state as well as federal governments intervened (maybe unconstitutionally, but they did even so) and enacted rules to battle the setbacks observed during the industrial revolution. These days, there is a minimum wage outlined by federal government and scores of states have more munificent laws for minimum wage (Lavelle, 2010, p.59). Additionally, there are federal and state laws concerning child labour as well as work hours, safety as well as work conditions (OSHA). In a nutshell, the issues used to be addressed by the unions have at the moment been addressed by our governments. However, Schnabel and Wagner (2006, p.122) question why trade union continue fighting to exist, yet they are irrelevant. The reason for their continued existence is because they take a portion of employees’ checks to reimburse for their union workers, and senior officials in trade unions make inflated amounts of money without the knowledge of union members. In nearly all instances, an employee has to join a trade union in case the employees at the company are unionized. According to Cooper and Briggs (2009, p.102), the entity employee has no alternative, in so doing guaranteeing more money in the pockets of unions. In return for the money stolen from employee pay checks, union ruffians coerce the management hands by means of using strikes, sick-outs, and so forth. Fernie and Metcalf (2005, p.132) posits that a business can simply subsist with no employees for so long and afterward the management starts extorting from the coffers of its members. The employees receive more benefits or more cash and they believe the union care much about them; and neither employees nor the trade union are bothered that they are damaging their country. Both the employees as well as union cares about receiving juicier pay checks; thus, making unions to be an enormous business. To cap it all, unions do not only subsist in private industry where according to Thibodeau (2012) the outlay of increased payment packages is passed just to those entities who decide to carry out business with that corporation. No, nowadays, unions subsist in civil service, too, where workers in the government have their benefits as well as salary paid for by taxpayers. Therefore, when their compensation or salary package heightens, so does the load on all taxpayers. This makes union for government employees even more irrelevant as compared to most other trade unions. Cooper and Ellem (2008, p.541) protest that trade unions must go since they are absolutely irrelevant in nearly all businesses, and that are just concerned with getting improved compensation as well as higher irrelevant, the trade unions in reality harm the federal, state, and local economies by artificially increasing the labour cost. Regrettably, the community pays for those unnaturally high salaries–in private trade unions by means of higher service and product fees; in public unions, by means of high taxes. By compelling the public to believe they are in for stuff they do not earn, trade unions as well dry up the social structure of the country and assist promote the nanny government Owing to taxpayers’ burden; it is no shocker that trade unions have turned out to be the budget balancers target athwart the country. For instance, two of the most outspoken and public union conflicts are being waged by the governors of New Jersey as well as Wisconsin. According to Telegraph (2010), the unions caught up in such budget conflicts are fighting with determination to avert their teachers’ members from having to pay to their costs of health care. The state governors do not appear to be endeavouring to break unions’ apart, but only to amend the payment package to alleviate the load on taxpayers as well as balance the budget. If trade unions fail to observe the setback they are bringing about country, they must do what is best for the country, by just fading away. The Australian Perspective In their much-loved Labour party, the Australian trade unions have toiled over their "Buy Australian" crusade in vain. Their goal to cancel every WorkChoice has as well failed tremendously, given that our intelligent leaders esteemed the value of supple employment practices during the recession. Furthermore, the unions endeavour to get rid of the Australian Building and Construction Commission (ABCC) was in the same way dumped through common sense. Therefore, with regard to policy, it seems the union movement has less authority, but trade union proponents in Australia say that is only policy. Let's consider the numbers, and based on Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), in August 2008, the trade union had 1.8 million members, which is a 3% rise on the 1.7 million members in the previous year. All right, it is somewhat higher, but notably both years (2007 and 2008) just represent 19 percent of workers, so it is reasonably unaffected. Anyway, there are twinkles of optimism looming for the Australian union movement, and one of such is the increasing unemployment. Subsequent to a decade of scarcities in skills, Buttigieg et al. (2014, p.16) posits that the pendulum of power has swayed back to the employer. Anxious workers, looking for protection from soaring oppressors, will run into the temperate and friendly hug of the trade unions who will undoubtedly get rid of the rope from their necks of their members, and instead placing it around their modish pockets as they get back the 50 million Australian dollars they exhausted to overpower the Howard government (Cooper & Ellem, 2008, p.545). Yes, there is as well the new-fangled Fair Work Act, which offers delegates of trade union with more privileges, like precedence in the place of work, in particular with enterprise accords. Before this legislation, Australian trade unions had to push in past the allegorical bouncer on their way to the bargaining dance-floor. The Unions of Today For almost two decades now, trade unionism crisis has been a subject of immense debate, especially in developed economies. According to Fernie and Metcalf (2005, p.142), what the future holds for trade unions appears more and more doubtful. For scores of scholars and trade unionists, they believe unions in nearly all countries are fatalities of outside forces beyond their power. However, trade unions have the ability to reshape their own destiny given that every country, they have influential customs as well as inherited social systems; these often comprise a straightjacket, but can as well offer a resource for innovative plan. In big measure, foreseeing the future according to Lavelle (2010, p.64) is an affair of projecting as well as interpreting the course from times of yore to now. Lavelle (2010, p.67) maintains that enthrallment with the past can be treacherous since it is extremely simple to compare a generally fabled golden age of dedication as well as unity with the modern problems. The alterations since the brave years of labour movement expansion are already memorable, and need only succinct recapitulation. Arguably, the firmness of state industrial relations organizations anchored in the triangular connection of governments, employers, and trade unions has been destabilized by a sequence of outside setbacks, normally acknowledged under the globalization label. This according to Buttigieg et al. (2014, p.15) entails partially the strengthening of cross-national antagonism as well as the production chains internationalization in international companies. Since they no longer adhere to the dogmatic models of national systems for industrial relations, international companies are more and more confident in delimitating the industrial relations program, by means of policies of trade union exception or by compelling structured work force to give up loads of the gains achieved in previous decades. The previous thirty years have as well seen a far-reaching revolution of worldwide capitalism with the currency markets liberalization; the speeding up of business transactions by means of developments in telecommunications as well as information technologies; and the collapse of the American-subjugated post-war system of global financial stabilisation. Without much of their past manoeuvre room in forming macroeconomic rule, governments as well have on average adopted deregulation policies to heighten suppleness in labour markets. Whereas the degree of these setbacks differs significantly on a national scale, collectively the establishments of the industrial relations compromise according to Telegraph (2010) are considerably damaged, and therefore the unions status as its beneficiary. In what could have been acknowledged as in-house problems to trade unionism sprung from revolutions in the conventional base of membership. The male species that could do five different jobs is a now dilapidated since the modern work world has noticeably two genders, is time and again culturally and occupationally diverse, and entails extremely distinguished activity patterns over the life span. This is to the level that unions are still representing mostly their aged core citizenries; they experience dropping membership and has lost value. To the degree that they are successful in expanding their organisation limits, but the result is frequently internal separation as well as the inability to make up a unified movement. Either way, Cooper and Briggs (2009, p.107) posits that unions effortlessly become comprehended as weary outdated officialdoms, principally irrelevant to the key challenges of the modern world: an opinion mostly common in the midst of younger generations, who practically in all places are far less, unionized as compared to their parents. According to Benson et al. (2008, p.147), the modern society has failed to not keep pace with the hasty alterations in Australian industry, never mind the international financial system. Systems for membership presume that employees have static part-time or full-time jobs, and take into account small deviation further than that. It is obvious that Australians must have a supple set of membership options and categories that can work and draw those who are home employees, short-term employees as well as contract personnel. Conclusion In conclusion, it has been argued that modern trade unionism is not eye-catching to those who require recruitment as well as representation. Trade union as well is of little significance to young people, ethnic minorities in addition to women. The unions are enormously comprehended as traditional, and are no more perceived as the accepted dwelling for protesting groups who are aspiring to challenge the organization. Statistics is more startling, since almost 80% of Australian workers are not members of trade unions while almost 50% of all Australian workplace lack union membership. Therefore, trade unions have to seek and unearth novel means of organising themselves, novel means of delivering their services to members, and novel means of connecting to the organisations they represent. References Benson, J., Zhu, Y. & Zhu, Y., 2008. Trade Unions in Asia: An Economic and Sociological Analysis. Melbourne, Australia: Routledge. Buchanan, J., Oliver, D. & Briggs, C., 2014. Solidarity reconstructed: The impact of the Accord on relations within the Australian union movement. Journal of Industrial Relations, vol. 56, no. 2, pp.288-307. Buttigieg, D.M., Deery, S.J. & Iverson, R.D., 2014. Voice within trade unions? A test of the voice and loyalty hypothesis. Journal of Industrial Relations, vol. 56, no. 1, pp.3-23. Cooper, R. & Briggs, C., 2009. 'Trojan Horse' or 'Vehicle for Organizing'? Non-union Collective Agreement Making and Trade Unions in Australia. Economic and Industrial Democracy, vol. 30, no. 1, pp.93-119. Cooper, R. & Ellem, B., 2008. The Neoliberal State, Trade Unions and Collective Bargaining in Australia. British Journal of Industrial Relations, vol. 46, no. 3, pp.532–54. Fernie, S. & Metcalf, D., 2005. Trade Unions: Resurgence Or Demise? 3rd ed. London: Psychology Press. Lavelle, A., 2010. The ties that unwind? Social democratic parties and unions in Australia and Britain. Labour history, vol. 98, pp.55-76. Schnabel, C. & Wagner, J., 2006. Who Are the Workers Who Never Joined a Union? Empirical Evidence from Western and Eastern Germany. Industrielle Beziehungen, vol. 13, no. 2, pp.118-31. Telegraph, 2010. Trade unions are irrelevant to working conditions in firms such as British Airways. [Online] Available at: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/letters/7450028/Trade-unions-are-irrelevant-to-working-conditions-in-firms-such-as-British-Airways.html [Accessed 28 April 2014]. Thibodeau, P., 2012. Automation is making unions irrelevant. [Online] Available at: http://blogs.computerworld.com/it-outsourcing/21499/automation-making-unions-irrelevant [Accessed 28 April 2014]. Read More