Pluralism in Industrial Relation

Running Head: PLURALISM IN INDUSTRIAL RELATION
PLURALISM IN INDUSTRIAL RELATION
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1PLURALISM IN INDUSTRIAL RELATION
The term industrial relation has a great deal of relevance in the business orientation in
21st century. According to Ackers (2014) the term industrial relation defines the connection
between the individual or group of employees and the employers in order to maximise the
productivity or service quality. As a matter of fact, the notion of industrial relation is also
associated with the perception of conflicting objectives and values or between profit motives of
the organisation and the social gain for the employees. In this regard, the trade unions play
significant role in order to make an amicable and hospitable situation between the employees and
the employers and moves their collaborative interests towards positive outcome (Tapia, Ibsen
and Kochan 2015). In order words, it can be opined that the importance of industrial relation is
followed by the interests of the workers as well as the organisation to render perfect working
condition and trade unions contributes neutrally to satisfy the interests of both the elements.
However, there are series of theories that shape the mechanism of the industrial relation
predominantly and influence the decision making extensively. Based on this understanding, this
essay aims to conduct a research on the industrial relation in McDonald’s and tries to figure out
the resemblance between Pluralistic theory of industrial relation and the organisational change
and decision making practice.
Before looking into the in-depth analysis of the industrial relation it is important to
understand the salient features of the pluralistic industrial relation and its difference from the
other theories of industrial relation. As far as the classical paradigm of pluralist theory of
industrial relation is concerned, it can be stated that there are contradictory factors leading
towards the clash of interest between the entrepreneurs and the workers. In other words, Molina
(2014) advocated that the classical theory of pluralist industrial relation puts emphasis on the
employment relationship which is considered to be a bargaining problem for the employers. It is

2PLURALISM IN INDUSTRIAL RELATION
associated with the question of redistribution of resources and the governing interactions
between employers and employees. Therefore, the individual employees, managers, owners and
the trade unions are subjected to the driving factors of pluralist industrial relation. It is further
resembled with the behavioural perspective where decision making is supposed to be of main
attraction (Cradden 2011). As a result of that cognitive limitation, socio-cultural norms, emotion
and values are considered to be major elements of the pluralist industrial relation.
Tracing the roots of this theory Kaufman and Gall (2015) revealed that the theory was
cemented during the Great Depression of 1930s and the traditional notion of industrial notion
had come under academic scrutiny. As an obvious outcome pluralist industrial relation had been
propounded delivering more focus on the effective relationship between the employers and the
workers. As Heery (2016) rightly stated that the equilibrium of capital and labour, pluralist
industrial relation was seemed more balanced and advanced for facilitating better and healthy
workplace situation. Henceforth, the classical pluralistic theory had come up with some key
characteristic in terms of conglomeration of different interests of the stakeholders. In course of
the discussion, it can be argued that there are some evident and obvious clash of interests
between different groups but those issues can be resolved through the intervention of the trade
unions. From that point of view, Siebert et al. (2015) mentioned that pluralist industrial relation
primarily emphasises on persuasion and coordinated between different interest groups or
stakeholders that pave the way for success in business. In a more clear and accurate sense, it can
be argued that the pluralist industrial relation signifies a dual authority practice where the
employees are loyal to both the organisation as well as the labour leaders.
However, the neo-liberal approach tries to identify the features of pluralist industrial
relation in a more intensive manner. The fundamental propositions are same but the neo-liberal