Industrial Relations & Human

Resource Management
Second Commerce
Wednesday 13.00–14.00 @ Kirwan
Thursday 16.00–17.00 @ O’Flaherty

Deirdre Morgan
Dept. of Management
Industrial Relations & Human
Resource Management
DBS & Corp. Law
Friday 11.00–12.00 @ AM150
Friday 13.00-14.00 @ Larmour

Deirdre Morgan
Dept. of Management
Industrial Relations & Human
Resource Management
Learning objectives:
• to draw attention to the importance of
the human factor in organisations

• to develop the conceptual skills

needed to understand the nature of the
employment relationship
More learning objectives?
• to examine the nature, objectives and
processes used by the principal actors
in the employment relationship

• to draw attention to Irish employment

legislation and to examine at least one
Act in detail
Industrial Relations
What I intend to cover:
- The nature of the employment
relationship
- The evolution of Industrial Relations
- The roles of the key players
- The nature of conflict and its resolution
- Collective bargaining
- Employment legislation
Human Resource Management
 What I intend to cover:
- Management Styles
- The HR Function
- Recruitment & Selection
- Performance Management
Introduction to Industrial
Relations
 Definitions
 Relevance

 Key Players

 Frames of reference
 Historical Milestones
 Key Processes

 Change
Industrial Relations is –

…the consecrated euphemism for the

permanent conflict, now acute, now
subdued, between capital and
labour.
(Blyton & Turnbull, 1998)
 Industrial Relations

‘the regulation of the relationship

between employers and employees’
Industrial Relations:
…has acquired a deserved reputation for
being dull

…because it has too often failed to relate

in any meaningful way to the reality of
people’s working lives, how these were
formed, how they are constrained and
how they might be changed.
(Blyton & Turnbull, 1998)
Industrial Relations
Affects:
 Economic Performance

 Business Success

 Employees Experience of Work

 Every employment
relationship:
• Economic exchange
• Power relationship
• Continuous & open-ended
• Interdependent
• Asymmetrical
Employers cannot rely on coercion or even
compliance to secure high performance.
Need active consent & co-operation.
Some Basic Facts
1. Work dominates the lives of most men
& women.

2. Vast majority of those who work are

employees rather than employers

3. Of central importance to employers are:

- market experience
- managerial relations
4. Management of employees is a central
feature of organisational success over:
- product innovation
- technological change
- efficient utilisation of energy/materials

5. Common interest between management

and workforce cannot be assumed.
Interdependence does not equate with
common interest.
AEEU ASTI
ATGWU BATU
EAT EEA
ER SIPTU
HRM PESP
PRP HAS
IBEC IMPACT
INO ITGWU
HEADLINES
Mass redundancies
All-out Strike
Co. X refuse to implement
Labour Court Recommendations

INO says “No” to Talks Breakdown

3% Pay Offer
Nurses Strike
Bus Drivers Vote for
Unofficial Action
Key Players
GOVERNMENT

INDEPENDENT 3RD PARTIES

EMPLOYEES EMPLOYERS
Traditional Adversarial I.R.
System
- Power
- Rights
- Interests
- Negative behaviours
- Information hoarding
Labour-Management
Relationship
Armed Open
Collaborative Truce Warfare
------------------------------------------------
1. Most labour-management relationships fall
to the right of the continuum
2. Partnership rarely attempted as matter of
course
3. Organisational change forces adaptation
(Adams, 2000)
Industrial Action
Any temporary suspension of normal
working arrangements in order to
express a grievance or enforce a
demand.

(Gunnigle, 1998)
Collective Bargaining
the process through which agreement on pay,
working conditions, procedures and other
negotiable issues are reached between organised
employees and management representatives.
(Gunnigle et al 1995)

“The resolution of conflict through

compromise.”
(Hawkins 1979)
Using terms such as employee relations rather
than industrial relations reflects a redrawing
of the boundaries of the subject to include all
employment relationships, rather than just
those involving unionised, male, manual
workers in manufacturing.

(Blyton & Turnbull, 1998)

Frame of Reference;
…a person perceives and interprets
events by means of a conceptual
structure of generalisations or contexts,
postulates about what is essential,
assumptions as to what is valuable,
attitudes about what is possible, and
ideas about what will work effectively.
(Fox 1966)
Unitarism
- Management & staff strive together for
common purpose
- One source authority
- Harmony & co-operation
- Conflict is pathological, whether mischief or
misunderstanding
- Troublemakers conform/go
- Unions unwelcome
Pluralism
- Company made up of different interest
groups
- Organisation = miniature democracy
“Negotiated order”
- Conflict inevitable, legitimate & accepted
- Unions – recognised negotiator
Marxism
Industrial relations is a microcosm of broader
capitalist society.
Opposing interests of different
classes. Asymmetry of power based
on ownership.
An employer can survive longer without labour than
an employee can survive without work.
However, employer can never secure total control
or achieve complete power.
IMPLICATIONS
Trade unions

Managerial prerogative

Conflict
 Important Historical
Milestones
C18th Industrial Revolution begins U.K.

Early C19th Series of statutory decisions making

TU’s illegal

1868 British Trade Union Congress (TUC) founded

1871-1906 Pro-union legislation in the UK

1894 Irish Trade Union Congress (ITUC) founded

1909 Irish Transport Workers Union (ITWU)

1913 The Dublin Lockout

1916- 1922 British unions break away

1946 Set up of the Labour Court

1880’s Gradual decline in union membership

1987 Social Partnership Agreements

 1764 Regular
Carpenters of Dublin
The Church

Iniquitous Extortions
Cork
…imprisoned not above 6 months,
whipped in public and released
only on giving recognisance of
good behaviour for 7 years.

(Gunnigle, 1998)
1871 – 1906 U.K.
Parliament:
- granted legality to T.U.’s

- protected Union funds from court action

- recognised collective bargaining

- legalised peaceful picketing

By 1920’s: Central Objectives
of Trade Unionism:
1. Secure recognition

2. Procure collective agreements covering

terms & conditions of members

3. Influence the State’s policy making

processes in areas of employment, housing,
social welfare & education.
1913 Lockout
 1909 ITWU founded
 1913 Leading Irish Union

 William Martin Murphy – Dublin Tramway Co.

 Pilot group sacked

 200 workers sacked
 700 workers walk off

 Warrant issued for Larkin

 Public meeting
 Over 25,000 locked out

 January 1914 – return to work

 Larkin & Connolly emigrate
Irish Writer:
You may succeed in your policy and ensure
your own damnation by your victory.
The men whose manhood you have broken will
loathe you, and will always be brooding and
scheming to strike a fresh blow.
The children will be taught to curse you.
The infant being moulded in the womb will have
breathed into it’s starvation body the vitality of
hate.
(Russell, 1913)
James Connolly
We the Irish worker are forced to go down
again to hell and bow our backs to the lash of
the slave driver, our hearts seared by the
irons of his hatred and instead of the
sacramental wafer of brotherhood and
common sacrifice, we are forced to eat the
dust of betrayal and defeat.

Exam script – 4th Mech. Eng. Student 1998

Ni uasal aon uasal ach sinne
bheith iseal: Eirimis!
From 1987 onwards…
National Level Tripartite Agreements

 PNR – 1987
 PESP – 1990

 PCW – 1993

 P2000 – 1996

 PPF - 2000
Changes in Labour Force
1. Decline in manufacturing
2. Increase in services
3. Increase in females & part-timers
4. Changes in location of production
(greenfield sites)
5. Increased self-employment
6. Increased redundancies & reduced job
security
Move Towards Labour-
Management Partnerships
Change increasing in impact and pace
Labour-Management relationship essential
to survival
Mutual respect
Congruent interests
Positive, proactive approach
Mutual assistance
Neutral third parties
Adams (2000)
“At the end of the day organisations will
survive and thrive only when labour and
management alike are committed to
working together to achieve common
goals. The key question is: ‘Does our
labour-management relationship do its
part in creating such an organisation?’ If
the current industrial relations system is
adversarial, based on power and rights
rather than interests, the answer is ‘No’.”
Aer Lingus Faces I.R. Crisis
with Five Separate Disputes
(IRN 12 October 2000)

Cabin Crew
Baggage Handlers
Catering Assistants
Pilots
Clerical & Admin. Workers
“…the industrial revolution brought competition
between employers for distant markets. This
created an environment in which labour was
increasingly treated as a raw material or
commodity, and it was therefore hardly
surprising that a profound discord was generated
between workers and their employers. This
historical development cannot be divorced from
any consideration of industrial relations…”
William B. Gould
‘New’ Industrial Relations
5 Questions
1. Is strong commitment to a company
consistent with strong commitment to a
trade union?
2. Is union involvement in business decision-
making and problem solving consistent with
the effective conduct of collective
bargaining?
3. Can unions be part and parcel of the
managerial process and yet mount a
challenge to management decisions?
4. Is employee involvement in the job and in
the organisation of work consistent with
their protection by unions against intensified
work effort, stress and ill health?
5. Can unions encourage employees to
become partners in the business enterprise
and still hope to mobilise the power of their
stronger members to defend the weak by
appealing to ideas of social justice?
(Roche, 1998)