GROUP ASSIGNMENT

Innovations Trade Unions need to Undertake in dealing with

knowledge workers in Indian Enterprises

Submitted to
Prof. Rajen Mehrotra

In partial fulfillment of the requirements of the course

Industrial Relations – Human Resource Management

By

Group C 9 - Section C

1911021 - Ambati Phani Kiran

1911032 - Anindya Anindita
1911052 - Betha Venkata Naga Meghana
1911128 - Lakshmi Narayana Reddy Kamani
1911218 - Santhosh Kumar N

On
19-01-2020
 Innovations Trade Unions need to Undertake in dealing with
knowledge workers in Indian Enterprises

Knowledge workers are majorly the employees or workforce who deal with
information. As the term suggests, the principal capital of knowledge workers
is knowledge. The work of a knowledge worker differentiates itself from
other workers by emphasizing non-routine thinking and involving both
convergent and divergent thinking capabilities. Examples of knowledge
workers are – Engineers, Pharmacists, Physicians, Scientists, etc. (Wikipedia,
n.d.).

Trade unions in India began with one of the earliest trade unions o, The
Madras Trade Union, established in 1918. Trade unions in India have come a
long way, and there are now more than 84,000 registered trade unions, along
with a large number of unregistered unions spread across diverse industries in
the country. The trade unions are expected to grow at an even pace, keeping
in mind that there are estimates that the working population of India would
reach 64% by the year 2021. (Desai, November 2019).

The Relation:

It is the most common conception that unions don’t flourish in high skilled
sectors with high attrition and growth rate because due to the adequate
availability of high paying jobs across various industries. So it is highly
unlikely that dissatisfied employees will fight over the issues rather than
leaving for other better opportunities.

There might exist a lot of contrast between the functioning of knowledge

workers and the traditional trade unions. But they are interrelated, and the
operation of each of them individually affects the other in various ways. It is
essential to understand the concerns underlying the creation of Trade unions
for Knowledge workers in order to achieve the efficient functioning of such
trade unions.

The major issues arise mainly because - these entities stark differences
between them. Some examples of issues arising to develop traditional trade
unions for Knowledge Workers are:

• The differences in the opportunities of advancements, concerning the

seniority and experience of the workforce

• The differences in the policies regarding the pay structure of both of them
– based on various indicators like seniority, performance, excellence, etc.,

• The differences in the flexibility of the job description

• The differences in the Official Advancement paths based on the above

three issues. (The Straight Dope message board, n.d.)

Opportunities of Advancements:

In the traditional trade unions, the opportunities for advancements based on

seniority are very low. A worker still remains in the same position as a newly
hired worker, even after several years of experience. The lack of specialized
skills in a particular aspect hinders the growth prospects of the workers of the
traditional unions. It is the opposite when it comes to knowledge workers.
Skilled workers get better opportunities out of the experience. The presence
of specialized skills fosters their growth to reach expertise as their seniority in
the work increases. Hence it is difficult to integrate them.

The policy of Pay Structure:

For the workers under the traditional unions, there is no well-defined policy
of pay structure in most of the firms. There are less formalization and more
informal means of wages paid. The incentives are lesser in proportion when
compared to those of the knowledge workers. Things like these are the main
reasons for the strikes or chaos created by the trade unions, possibly affecting
the firm in an unhealthy manner. The pay structure of the Knowledge
workers is comparatively highly formal. It has a proper structure consisting of
various components like the basic pay, allowances, incentives, if any, and so
on. The rewards, incentives based on the performance are well established.
These differences between the policies might suppress the knowledge
workers from creating a trade union.

The flexibility of Job Descriptions:

There isn't much flexibility in the nature of the work of the unskilled workers
under the traditional trade unions. Their jobs are mostly monotonous and
mostly include physical work. Their timings are generally fixed with longer
working hours, and sometimes they stay for extra long hours, mostly without
formal notices. Thus their work is primarily informal and lacks flexibility.

In contrast, the work of the knowledge workers brings in new challenges

from time to time. There is high flexibility in terms of the nature of the job.
There can be inter-departmental transfers, Promotions, Facilities of work
from home, and so on, thus reducing the monotonicity in any kind of
knowledge work. Such stark differences in the flexibility of the jobs might
lead the knowledge workers to hesitate to create a trade union as a trade
union may not function efficiently in such a varied environment.

Innovations to be Undertaken by Trade Unions:

Taking into mind all the factors mentioned earlier, it is very important to have
a high degree of changes in the concept of trade unions in order to deal with
the knowledge workers. The presence of these differences in an organization
reduces its overall performance significantly. Also, the knowledge workers
are sometimes concerned that the blame comes straight to the unions in the
first place, during extreme situations. It has become all the more critical for
the trade unions to maintain good industrial relations with the knowledge
workers and hence with the employers association. 

One of the major issues of current union trades in India is social composition
terms. We can observe a considerable amount of women laborers in informal
labor sectors. Same is the case of people with minority backgrounds. People
who belong to these categories are often deprived of attaining higher
management posts, so it is essential for trade unions to come up with terms
and conditions to negotiate these issues with management teams.

The following steps can be taken:

 The trade unions set must demand Recognition agreements, proper setup
for collective bargaining, such that they formalize even the trade unions,
in slight contrast with the traditional trade unions.

 These trade unions can have regular meetings in order to make sure these
unions do not affect the policies regarding the policies of the formalization
pay structure and incentives.
 There should be a separate department for addressing concerns of the
workers reducing the management time for grievance redressal.
 The unions, once established, must make sure that they should implement
formalized policies in order to keep in place the career advancement
options for the seniors and experienced personal.
Thus, as the trend shows, the knowledge workers can strive to create trade
unions, like the Company in Tamil Nadu, where the IT workers formed a
Trade Unions. Creating trade unions would benefit them in many ways, like
going against the management when layoffs are happening, and other such
serious issues. The unions Knowledge workers can also establish
consultancies to educate workers on important competencies and skills
required for a better career growth. They can also suggest alternate
employment opportunities during times of recessions.

WORD COUNT:

References
1. Desai, N. (November 2019). India: Trade Unions and Collective
Bargaining. Nishith Desai, Associates.
2. The Straight Dope message board. (n.d.). Retrieved from The Straight
Dope message board - Labour union analogy for knowledge workers: The
Straigh Dope message board
3. Wikipedia. (n.d.). Retrieved from Knowledge workers Wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knowledge_worker