Industrial Relations Climate

Running head: INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS CLIMATE
INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS CLIMATE
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Author Note

1INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS CLIMATE
Introduction:
Industrial relations climate is a constituent of organizational climate, which reflects a
relationship between the union and the management concerning the perception about the
existent rules and regulations (De Prins, Stuer and Gielens 2018, pp.1). The paper tends to
argue on the various orientation of industrial relation in respect with organizational changes.
The purpose of this paper is to argue on the implication of various perspectives for enhancing
the industrial relation. In this paper, the theory in regards with Industrial relations climate as
well as the changes will be discussed, which is required to improve the employee-
management relation in an organization. The ways by which an organization can restructure
will also be discussed in the paper with an example of a company. The company selected in
this paper is Australia Post, which is undergoing organizational changes in regards with
certain orientation. The paper will stress on the benefits of the applicability of one of the
orientations such as pluralism, neo-liberalism (or unitarism), Marxism (or radicalism)
and feminism.
Discussion:
Industrial relations climate depicts the union-management relationship in regards
with the various practices, norms and policies of an organization. Organizations always try to
improve the relationship by restricting the structure based on various orientations such as
pluralism, neo-liberalism (or unitarism), Marxism (or radicalism), feminism (Giri 2017,
pp.21).
The prime role of Industrial relation is to shape the base of the industrial society. The
purpose of industrial relations is to maintain the continuity of the production in an
organization, ensures optimum utilization of resources as well as reducing the occurrence of
conflicts. The employees are benefited by the opportunity of having a voice, which ensures
the power of bargaining for fair practices in the system. According to James and Lucky

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(2015, pp.1), the union group representative provides a concise viewpoint of the worker
group, which make the communication process easier between the employer and the
employee. Government ensures the framework of policies and norms under which the
industrial relation structure should function.
Unitary Perspective will be assessed to understand the assumptions affecting an
organization. The “one happy family” concept comes in the unitarist perspective of
management. In this concept, the organization is considered to have an integrated
management and all the members in the organization thereafter share a common goal by
having proper understanding and cooperation (Greenwood and Van Buren 2017, pp.663).
There should not be any conflict of interests between the managers and the labors. Trade
unions are not welcomed under such system and it seeks for the loyalty of the employees.
Scientific management is followed and strong emphasis is put on social relations and the
working groups in order to reduce the conflicts within the organization. The unitarism
follows the neo-human relations approach where importance is given to the individual needs
of the employees and the organization tries to create a job satisfaction environment for all the
employees.
The main advantages of this approach is the inculcation of the feeling of unity as
well as loyalty towards an organization’s goal. Commitment in terms of the efficiency in very
crucial in improving the productivity of the organization/ industry. However, according to
Collings, Wood and Szamosi (2018, pp. 1), unitary perspective approach lacks in the
ground of assuming an ideal situation of not having conflicts in a system, which is not
feasible in reality. Moreover, not all conflicts causes’ negative impact in the performance,
few conflicts helps in the development of the efficiency and encouragement of team
performance. Unitary Perspective focuses on the impact of individual conflicts rather than the
organization as a whole.

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Radical or Marxism perspective will be discussed to understand the assumptions of
the orientation and its impact on maintaining industrial relations. Radicalism follows the
capitalistic nature. There lies a fundamental division of inherent conflicting interest between
the capital and labor class. There is an uneven distribution of power between the
management, the working class and the place and the society as a whole. Hence, according to
Tapia, Ibsen and Kochan (2015, pp.157), conflict is a common outcome of this perspective
and so the role of trade union comes under the limelight in such situation where the trade
unions start challenging the managerial control. The workforce believes that the leaders are
only concerned about making profits. This approach views disputes within the industries as a
struggle between the classes and industrial relations as the concept of politics as well as the
element of the struggle between the classes. In accordance with the Radical approach, the
understanding of the concept of capitalized society as well as capital accumulation
mechanism is necessary to have a comprehensive idea of Industrial Relations (Sarup 2017,
pp. 47).
The advantage of Radical or Marxism perspective is the identification of conflict
as well as power in a society, which helps in the understanding of uneven power distribution.
The disadvantage of this orientation is that it mainly focuses on class conflict rather than
considering other parameter, which can raise issues in an organization as a whole (Tapia,
Ibsen and Kochan 2015, pp.157).
Pluralist perspective will assess the powers of various subgroups associated in an
industrial framework. According to Quinlan (2018, pp.204), in pluralist perspective, it is
considered that the organization consists of a powerful and strong sub-groups, each of them
having its own interest and own set of goals and loyalty with their respective leaders.
According to this concept, conflict is inevitable. The conflict remains between the managers
and the workers because of the disagreements on the distribution of profits. The power is
diffused within the main bargaining groups, that is, the conflict is dealt by collective