Employment Relations in Singapore

EMPLOYMENT RELATIONS IN SINGAPORE
Employment Relations In Singapore

EMPLOYMENT RELATIONS IN SINGAPORE 1
In today’s business environment, a positive relation is necessary to maintain between
employer and employee. It plays a major role in an organisation success and satisfying its
employees at the workplace. Employment relationship means the contract between the
employer and the employee (Siebert, Martin, Bozic, & Docherty, 2015). It is the contract to
take the output from employer’s ability to work. The relationship often comes into a dispute
or the collaboration within an organisation. There are certain issues that the Singapore is
facing are unemployment rate and layoffs that has hit a 7-year high (Malay, 2018). There has
been number of jobs has been retrenched by the companies like oil and gas, financial and
marine services (Min, 2018). There are certain issues have also been reported like
harmonious work culture and conflicts between the employers and employees (Maitra, 2016).
These issues have questioned the Singapore approach in dealing with the employment
relations. It will be analysed whether the Business in Singapore are often portrayed as
adopting the Unitary or the pluralist approach. It will also be analysed in this essay that
whether the employment relationship in Singapore is justified or it will change according to
the time with the illustrated examples.
The employment relationship issues in Singapore can be discussed by the two
approaches, as the first approach is the Unitary that states relationship between the employer
and the employee runs on the cooperation and on the harmony of the interest (Yip, 2016).
The objective is to state that both employer and the employee targets are Universal (Nash, &
Hann, 2017). In accordance, with the theory, management are the authority and they can take
the decision that will not be hindered by the government, workers, trade unions and the others
(Yea, 2015). However, it can be said that Singapore has failed to follow this approach. The
issue of the retrenchment of employees has been rise due to failure of the unitary approach.
They are required to work in cooperation and the decision comes from the management has
not worked in the favour of the companies. The trade unions are considered for not
interfering in the harmony of the organisation. The unitary theory is moreover considered as
the one happy family in that management and the employee shares a common goal. The result
of this view the conflict between the management and the employee has not been recognised
(Fry & Mees, 2014).
According to the pluralist approach, the conflicts arise between the management and
employees are not avoidable. The organisation is made up of a bunch of individuals that has
different goals, direction and interests (Williamson & Ravenswood, 2017). The pluralist
approach says that the regulations are required to prevent the damage of the diverse interest.

EMPLOYMENT RELATIONS IN SINGAPORE 2
It can lead to the institutionalisation of the conflicts (Zhang & Zhu, 2014). It can also lead to
the equal distribution of the power among the stakeholders. The Trade Unions in this allow
the employee to put the views on the concerns they are facing in the organisation. This
approach ensures that the power has been equally distributed among the stakeholders
(Bleiker, 2015).
On comparing of these two approaches, it can be said that the unitary approach states
the corporation of both management and the employee whereas the Pluralist is consist of
different people with different interests (Godard, 2014). These two theories are comprised of
different groups with their interest. The unitary approach further states that the decision
comes by the top management and the power is with the management and whereas the
pluralist approach states that power has been distributed between the management and the
employee (Gilbert & Sels, 2015). Another difference of the trade union in the unitary has
been considered as an intruder whereas in the pluralist theory it has been considered as a
legitimate body. The unitary does not encourage the conflicts and does not considered it as
the part of the workplace, whereas the pluralist says that conflicts can arise in the workplace
and the organisation must do planning to prevent from the damages that arise from the
conflicts (Colfer, & Baldwin, 2016).
In Singapore, the business has been adopting a unitary approach rather than the
pluralist approach. Organisation thinks that for the benefit of business there must been a
unitary approach rather than a pluralist approach. The organisation approach regarding trade
unions that it will lead to conflicts and thus there is no need of trade unions. Trade Unions are
an important for the employees and in accordance with the pluralist approach, it can be said
that what is good for employees is good for the organisation. However, the unitary approach
says that what is good for the organisation is good for the employees. However it can be said
that the employment relation in Singapore are time changing because the current issues like
lay-offs by the companies and the unsatisfied employees. Therefore, it can be said that the
pluralist approach is better than the Unitariast approach. There are reasons for the pluralist
approach in Singapore is after the formation of the NTUC that consists of the representatives
of the employees (Menon, 2015). In NTUC, the employee has been given the opportunity to
negotiate and voice over the terms and conditions of their employment (Lee & Chan, 2015).
The opinions of the employee have also been taken into consideration the decision of the
management. The representatives of the NTUC branch are involved in collective bargaining
(Shams, & Huisman, 2016). The feedback of employees has also been gathered on the related