Industrial Conflict in Australia - Essay Example

Industrial Conflict in Australia Name Institution In a general context, a conflict refers to a disagreement or difference over a certain issue among the involved parties. Industrial conflict, therefore, refers to a disagreement that arises between employees or workers and their employers on any ground. This kind of conflicts may result into strikes, absenteeism and lockouts of employees in their work places until their issues are solved. According to the industrial Act, the dispute arising must be based on the terms and conditions of employment contract. Since industrial conflicts are settled through the Industrial Act, a dispute must have a number of principles in order to be considered an industrial conflict. First, a dispute must be affecting majority of the employees by undermining their rights and interests at the work place. Second, the interest that cause dispute should develop gradually from one employee to a general complaint. Third, there must be a connection between the complaints and the unions. Lastly, industry dispute concerns the termination, dismissal or retrenchment of an employee from their workplace (Kornhauser 2011). Turkington (2009) writes that industrial conflicts are expressed and manifested in various ways. The most common form of industrial conflict is strike. It is a situation where employees withdraw their services in the work place. There are different reasons where employees may choose withdraw their services in the workplaces. The most common causes of the withdrawal include low salaries, poor working conditions and mistreatment by the seniors in an organization. All or a group of employees engage in an organized protest to challenge their current industrial relations. Strikes can be classified into either primary or secondary strikes depending on the intended purposes (Turkington 2009). The second form in which industrial conflicts take is lock-out: This refers to a sudden and temporal closure of the work place or the “suspension of work”. This is the tool available for the employer to counter the strikes by the employees. The employer will require their workers to resume work only when they have agreed to adhere to their terms and conditions (Kornhauser 2011). The last common form of conflict in which industrial conflicts takes is gherao. This refers to the protest by workers in an organization where they prevent any entries and exits in the organization premises. This form is mostly directed to the managers and directors. They are confined in their offices until they agree on the demands given by the workers (Turkington 2009). Australia has for far too long been faced with extreme severity of industrial conflicts compared to western countries. According to a recent survey, Australia records a total of 1174 working hour’s loss per day among 10000 workers due to industrial conflicts Gall 2013). This indicates a lack of effective measures to cope with the problems arising in industrial relations in the country, which is a major challenge to Australian people (Quinlan 2013). In the early 1940’s, the number of cases reported on industrial conflicts were much higher than in the decades that followed. From 1970- 1984, the number of industrial conflicts experienced annually reduced gradually over the years. There has been a steady downward trend on the cases of industrial disputes due to the institutional and legal reforms. In 1994 the number of industrial conflicts registered was 560 which was the lowest number that Australia has experienced since 1940 (Quinlan 2013). There has been a definite relationship between unemployment rates and the intensity of lockouts and strikes among the Australian people. The small time lost in working was accompanied to the high rates of unemployment while on the other hand; the many working hours lost was part of the low unemployment rates. Therefore when the unemployment rates are low, the severity of industrial conflicts increases and when unemployment rates are high, the conflicts and strikes witnessed decline (Waters 2012). Employment reforms have been a critical concern in political and economic issues in the past twenty years to prevent the industrial conflicts. Howard Coalition government came up with more reforms meant to individualize work and employment and reduce the involvement of trade unions. Despite these workplace reforms and innovation in Australia, there still remain cases of industrial conflicts in the country (Waters 2012). One of the major aspects of the industrial disputes in Australia is covert forms of industrial conflict. Covert forms of industrial conflicts refer to the actions taken by workers or organization’s management but are not easily recognized. They include absenteeism, sabotage and exclusion from organization decision-making (Gall 2013). Absenteeism represents the ratio of the workers who are away from work to the total number of workers in an organization. This even includes those who are on a sick leave but the management doesn’t know or did not approve it. One of major significance of absenteeism is that it acts as indicator that the employees are not satisfied with their jobs and the terms of employment (Rainnie 2010). Another significance of the absenteeism is that it allows the employees to take days off work in case they are not happy with the working conditions. Observing the rates of absenteeism can help a business organization to develop effective employment relations. Sabotage is the intentional damage of the physical facilities that are within an organization. It can also include the disturbance and interference with processes and systems in the organization. An employee who is aggravated by the way an organization is handling their grievances can carry out a sabotage act. The employer can at such a time dismiss the person who engages in an act of sabotage. This is important to the industry since it cannot be accused of unfair dismissal on an employee who conducts himself in this manner (Gall 2013). Turnover is the huge exit of the employees or resignations from an organization. This is an indication of poor staff morale or industrial conflicts in the place of work. It can, however, help employees whose jobs have less impact on the career to resign. In order to reverse the trend an organization management teams can take measures to increase job satisfaction and reduce the rate of turnover (Rainnie 2010). Another significance of the covert forms of industrial conflict is ensuring that they prevent conflicts in an organization. There are some conflicts that arise when employees feel that they are not part of an organization due to their exclusion from decision making. Therefore, including them in decision making process helps to prevent these conflicts (Gall 2013). In Australia, employee takes an average of 8 days out of the work place per annum. Manual workers take a maximum of 9.2 days while other workers take 7.8 days. Absenteeism has a significant cost in the Australian businesses where 71% of the business organizations have considered absenteeism as a major challenge. A survey conducted among the employees show that 50% of this absenteeism results from industrial conflicts among the employees and organization environment and management (Rainnie 2010). The number of employees’ absenteeism in private sector is twice the number in the public sector. Stress and work related depression is common among those workers absent which can be attributed to industrial conflicts at the place of work. Due to the increasing cases related to industrial conflicts, the organizations in Australia have implemented strategies to manage absenteeism (Vertonghen 2010). However, absenteeism management is a significant challenge in Australia because of the rising turnover. The low level of job satisfaction is another factor making absenteeism management hard. Employees working in jobs that they don’t like will have physical and mental disorders thereby increasing absenteeism and making its management a big challenge (Rainnie 2010). Turkington (2009) argues that absenteeism is high in telecommunication and call center industries. This is due to the work related stress that affects the employees’ wellbeing in these industries. The private sector employees also take much time on leaves from work due to pressure at work place and the unfavorable environment caused by employers to their employees (Vertonghen 2010). Various factors influence the level of absenteeism in different organizations in Australia. Absenteeism may be partially due to lack of enough emphasis on developing the employee’s career and salaries. Other causes can be personal issues and low morale in the workplace. Employee engagement, commitment and stress are other factors that influence the absenteeism rates (Rainnie 2010). Absenteeism has a close relationship with other factors such as work-related stress, job security and organizational change. Waters, (2012) argues that, due to the changing demands and innovation, the pressure of producing quality products and services is increasing. The labor requirement from employees is, therefore, growing with new demands of products and innovation. This has become a major factor contributing to employee stress. The increasing level of stress among the employees in the workplace is leading into lack of productivity that in turn causes increase in absenteeism. Work-related stress is contributing to the rise of absenteeism rates both in private and public sector (Leontaridi 2012). Absenteeism is closely related to job insecurity. Job insecurity refers to the situation in the workplace where termination of the employment is more or less anticipated. The most stressful aspect to an employee is getting dismissed and remains unemployed. Employees who are in job-insecure organizations and have no idea of what they can expect will be forced to withdrawal from job and organization to look for better jobs. The result is increased absenteeism (Rainnie 2010). Organizational change has an influence on absenteeism in an organization. Employees are parts of the parties affected in executing an organizational change. They are, therefore, subjected to stress during the implementation of these changes and may result in withdrawal from the organization through absenteeism (Leontaridi 2012). Employees always have a negative view on changes in the organization. They view changes as a threat to their jobs that they currently hold. The harm is change interfering with the previous ways that they used to do the jobs. This can therefore undermine their capabilities and pose a future threat. The feeling makes them hopeless leading to absenteeism (Rainnie 2010). This research paper has explored the concept of industrial conflict by analyzing various aspects of industrial conflicts. The term industrial conflict is used to describe the disagreement that arises between employees and their employees. Conflicts take different forms such as strikes, lock-outs and gherao. Industrial conflicts in Australia have reduced over the decades. However, there still remains some form of conflicts in some companies in the country. For instance, covert conflicts such as absenteeism, sabotage and exclusion from organization decision making. The rate of absenteeism in the country has increased in the recent years and is becoming a challenge in some organization. Absenteeism is related to organizational change, job insecurity and work-related stress. References: Gall, G., 2013, New forms and expressions of conflict at work. Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan Kornhauser, A., 2011, Industrial conflict. New York: McGraw-Hill. Leontaridi, R, 2012, Work-related stress, quitting intentions and absenteeism. Bonn: IZA. Quinlan, M., 2013, A divided working class: Ethnic segmentation and industrial conflict in Australia. London. Rainnie, A.,2010, Absenteeism from the frontline: Explaining employee stress and withdrawl in a call centre. Clayton. Turkington, D., 2009, The forms of industrial conflict. Victoria: Victoria University of Wellington, Industrial Relations Centre. Vertonghen, G., 2010, Managing workplace conflict: Alternative dispute resolution in Australia.Annandale, N.S. W: Federation Press. Waters, M., 2012, Strikes in Australia: A sociological analysis of industrial conflict. Sydney. Read More