Anti Discrimination
Employers and employees are not allowed to discriminate on the basis of any personal characteristics such as:
- Sex, color or age.
- Physical or mental disability.
- Religious faith or political opinion.
- Social origin.
- Marital status and family responsibilities.
- Pregnancy or potential pregnancy.
Acts such as the following protect from this discrimination being allowed:
- Disability Discrimination Act 1973.
- Racial Discrimination Act 1975.
- Sex Discrimination Act 1984.
- Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission Act (1986).
Those discriminated against can appeal to the Human Rights and Equal Opportunities Commission (federal level) or the Anti Discrimination Board (state level).
Equal Employment Opportunities
Affirmative action refers to measures taken to eliminate direct and indirect discrimination and for implementing positive steps to over some the current and historical causes of lack of equal employment opportunity for women. This involves acts such as Equal Employment Opportunity (Commonwealth Authorities) Act 1987.
Unfair Dismissal
Retrenchment and redundancy refer to employees losing their jobs as they are no longer needed in an organisation, that is, they exceed the organisations needs. If an employee feels they were unfairly dismissed they can appeal to the courts for either:
- Reinstatement to their former position.
- Reemployment in another position.
- Awarded compensation.
Managing Conflict in the Workplace
The causes of Industrial Conflict:
Industrial conflict is caused by a clash between employees and employers. They are generally caused by:
Wage Demands
To employees wages represent a cost. Whilst employees want the highest income, employers want to keep costs low, thus placing the two in conflict.
Working Conditions
These refer to the organizational environment of the workplace including hours of work, rosters, and amenities.
Management Policies
These involve the methods used, the division of labor and the sharing of tasks between workers. Problems can arise from technological change, and alienation.
Political Goals
These can be aimed at trying to ensure the election of a party to government, or protests.
Social Issues
Unions have moved from economic benefits for their members and now include social issues such as childcare.
In industrial relations, a dispute officially exists when workers withdraw from work or place bans on work.
Perspectives on Conflict:
A unitary approach to employment relations assumes stakeholders, such as employees and their employers, work "hand in hand" to achieve shared goals. It believes there is no fundamental conflict between employers and employees. The business is seen as a unified entity where everyone shares the same purpose and is "part of the same team."
A pluralist approach recognises the active roles played by unions and the employer associations and the framework developed by the government. This "employment relations/ industrial relations" approach sees conflict as a legitimate outlet for pressures and tensions between the stakeholders and their competing interests. It believes that conflict in the workplace is inevitable due to the competition between different group's interests. Pluralists argue that employees are in a position of power and that employees need to act collectively through unions as otherwise they have no individual power.
The radical (Marxist) approach also recognises conflict as inevitable and reflects the traditional view of an "us versus them", conflict-based relationship between employer and employees. This approach sees the employment relationship as part of a social structure of classes. Conflict is caused by the class war in capitalist (market based) economies between workers and business owners. Government is seen to be on the side of the business and thus is unable to resolve conflict.
Types of Industrial Action
Overt industrial action:
Lockouts - Occur when employers close the entrance to a workplace and refuse admission to the workers. This cuts their supply of income and means they may be forced to accept a management decision.
Pickets - Are protests which take place outside the workplace. The workers block the delivery of good and try to stop the entry of non-union labour into the workplace.
Strikes - Involves the withdrawal from work of a group of employees to disrupt business operations as a means of expressing dissatisfaction with some aspects of employment relations. They are the more overt form of industrial action. Sympathy, rolling, rotating and revolving strikes, political, wildcat, lightning, general and stop-work meetings are all different types of strikes.
A ban is a refusal to work overtime, handle a product or even a refusal to work with individuals that are not specified within their legal contracts.
Work-to-rule in this action workers refuse to perform any duties additional to the work they normally are required to perform that is specified in the strict terms of their employment contract. This tends to decrease productivity.
Covert Industrial Action
Absenteeism - High levels indicate worker dissatisfaction.
Sabotage - Involvement of workers destroying the image of the firm via vandalism and disrupting the businesses production.
Turnover - Resignation through absenteeism rates. Indicates poor staff morale or conflict in the workplace.
Exclusion from decision making in business - Employers excluding groups or individuals from decision making. Not inviting them to meetings, using them as a scapegoat when things go wrong. This diminishes the power of the employees in the workplace. Makes like difficult for employees (undesirable shifts, reducing weekly hours) who then may be forced to resign.
