Employment Relations in Asia

Running head: EMPLOYMENT RELATIONS IN ASIA
Employment Relations in Asia
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EMPLOYMENT RELATIONS IN ASIA2
1. What are the characteristics which distinguish the pluralist and unitarist
perspectives on employment relations? Provide examples from your knowledge
of employment relations in Singapore.
Answer- From the unitarist perspective, which is based on the assumption that an
organisation is “one happy family”, where the management as well as the other staffs of
the company share a common purpose and they focus on mutual collaboration and
cooperation. Also, the employees also possess common objectives, interests and values.
With the same, it is also to note that the unitarism has paternalistic approach where it
demands on the loyalty of the employees who are being predominantly managerial in the
application and emphasis of the very approach. There are two vital implications. Firstly, it
is that- ‘conflict as an expression of the differences and dissatisfaction with the
management will be considered as an irrational activity’. In this regard, the term
“conflict” is considered to be ‘bad’ for the company and must be suppressed through
some coercive means. Secondly, it is the trade unions that are considered to be
unimportant as the loyalty among the organisations and the employees are considered to
be mutually exclusive where there cannot be two different sides of the industry. Accord
conflict is considered as pathological and disruptive outcome of the agitators, the
interpersonal friction as well as communication breakdown. Hence, the trade unions
needs to be denied for a presence within the company. From the theoretical perspective,
the unitarist perspective could be used for identifying the industrial relations within some
particular types of companies. There are several example of companies whose
management adopt a modified unitary viewpoint and one of the examples include Marks
and Spencer. They treat their employees really well. On the other hand, as per the
pluralist view, companies are perceived as being made up of divergent and powerful sub
groups and each of the sub-groups has its own legitimate loyalties and at the same time,