Industrial Relations Essay -- Politics, Bipartite Relationships

I.INTRODUCTIONIndustrial peace is one of the core issues in the field of industrial relations. Moore (1951) suggested that industrial conflicts can be minimized or prevented by resort to two types of procedures first, a procedure of regulating and limiting the power of the two interest groups, especially by restricting power that can be exercised second, a procedure of providing positive interference in industrial disputes. Both procedures suggest that beyond workers and employers, a third important player may as well as directly interfere in industrial relations processes.The Pluralist theory, the mainstream industrial relations theory, focuses primarily on the bipartite relationship between the workers and employers. The third player, political agencies, though is equally important, is largely overlooked (Keller, 1991). However, as a theory of politics in essence, the Pluralist theory requires considerable elaboration on such a lacking piece, for it leaves itself open to questi ons of inequality of power among different interest groups some groups may wield an influence on public policy which may non be the interest of other groups. Legislation and other public policy decisions oftentimes work through a complex process of political party body structure (Hameed, 1982). Politics is one of the most important underlying developmental dynamic within industrial relations as such governmental interference shall not be absent from existing theoretical frameworks.The primary objective of this paper is to examine the Pluralist theory focusing on its explanation on the role of governmental agencies in industrial relations. Furthermore, I hope to prove that the absence of the role of the state may be a theoretical flaw within Pluralis... ...on McGuinty is creation a lapdog for a union-hating right-wing mayor because he is afraid of Fords political clout, not because he cares about transit in Toronto. (CBC News, 30 March, 2011)Though these statements may be purely M r. Kinnears expression of personal interests, one interesting fact about this dispute is that, TTC management and TTC employees in fact unanimously push this provision. Management fear the unintended consequence of governmental intervention will reversely cause higher wage, TTC employees worry that they may lose their right to sweetheart as a powerful channel to articulate themselves. All in all, it is without a doubt that government actively involves in this industrial conflict, and pluralism theory again, fails to explicate why government has taken such an active role in interfering labour relations between TTC management and employees.