ASSIGNMENT

OF

INDUSTRIAL RELATION

Submitted to: Dr Aditi Sharma Submitted by: Deeksha Chambiyal

(MBA 3rd semester)

CUHP16MBA16
 INDUSTRIAL RELATION IN USA AND UK
Industrial relation in USA
Introduction: From 19th century, the US underwent a period of extraordinary
industrialization, giving way to not only a rapid social transformation but a
changing workplace, where health and safety concerns became more prominent
and changing, more regimented workforce, giving rise to quality of life issues.
Today, US labour movement is still divided between industrial and craft unions.
These are organised at national, state or local level to represent workers
collectively on a wide array o issues, including negotiating the terms of
employment, determining wages and overtime compensation, advocating for
benefits, and voicing concerns about other policies.

Under US national laws specially National Labour Regulation Act, whether the
industry or craft level, once a union is selected or designated as the bargaining
representative, it becomes the representative of all employees in the unit,
regardless of whether they voluntarily participate in the union or not.

Owing to US federalism, national and state laws regarding public sector unions
vary. At the national level, the Civil Reform Act of 1978 governs unions and the
process of collective bargaining. The Act created three bodies to oversee federal
labour relations.

Firstly, the Office of Personnel Management acts as the human resources

office of the federal government, overseeing health benefits and security
clearance for employees.
Secondly, the Merit Systems Protection Board adjudicates cases alleging
unfair personnel decisions, for example, if an employee was fired because
of their partisan affiliation.
Lastly, and most importantly to public sector labour unions, the Federal
Labour Relations Authority oversees collective bargaining, arbitrates
negotiations in cases of an impasse, and adjudicates unfair labour practices.
At the state level, because the federal government cannot interfere with
 sovereign state affairs, it cannot regulate its public sector unions, and so
regulations vary by state.

Main Actors

1. Public authorities

In terms of international relations, relevant US public authorities include:

a) The President:

Under the US Constitution, the president has the exclusive power to negotiate
treaties with other countries concerning commerce and implicating employment
and labour concerns. The president must submit negotiated treaties to Congress
for ratification. With respect to the ILO, the president therefore would have the
exclusive power to propose adoption of ILO declarations and conventions to
Congress.

b) The Congress:

Once the president has negotiated a treaty, Congress must agree to ratify it, and
pass enabling legislation if required. If the president recommended adoption of
an ILO declaration or convention, for example, Congress would then have to ratify
it to give it full effect under national law.

c) Presidents Committee on the ILO:

In respect to the ILO, the presidents Committee on the ILO, consisting of the
presidents national security advisor, the secretaries of state and commerce, the
assistant to the president for economic policy, and the presidents of the United
States Council for International Business and AFL-CIO, consult on whether ILO
conventions should be ratified before they are presented to Congress.

In terms of national and state government regulations concerning employment

and labour legislation and enforcement, relevant public authorities include:
 a) President:

The president signs legislation that Congress has passed regulating congress and
employment and labour concerns.

b) Congress:

Congress is responsible for passing legislation on interstate commerce and

employment and labour issues.

c) The United States Department of Labour:

This department is responsible for enforcing 180 federal employment laws.

d) Equal Employment Opportunity Commission:

This agency is responsible for enforcing federal employment discrimination laws.

e) The NLRB:

This agency is responsible for enforcing federal union laws.

f) State legislative bodies:

State legislative bodies are responsible for passing legislation on intrastate

commerce and employment and labour laws. There are also the state governors.

2. Trade unions

In the US, several national trade federations have been organised to confederate
various industrial and trade unions to provide broader support in representing
worker interests. The main national trade federations are the American
Federation of Labour and Congress of Industrial Organisations (AFL-CIO) and the
Change to Win Federation. The AFL-CIO is the nations largest federation of
industrial and trade unions, representing 11 million workers. Federated unions
are across industries and trades. The Change to Win Federation is a coalition of
national industrial and trade unions, representing 4.5 million workers. The
coalition includes three unions: the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, the
Service Employees International Union, and the United Farm Workers. Within the
main national trade federations, the largest national unions are organised across
industry or trade and represent workers across multiple companies. They include:

National Education Union of the United States

Service Employees International Union
American Federation of State, City, and Municipal Employees
Teamsters
United Food and Commercial Workers
American Federation of Teachers
United Steelworkers International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers
Labourers International Union of North America
International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers
United Auto Workers
Communication Workers of America
International Longshore and Warehouse Union. Under US law, company
unions are prohibited.

Workplace representation

Unlike in many countries in Europe, there are no national or state laws in the US
authorising alternative workplace representation, such as workplace councils.
While not commonplace in most US companies, some companies will engage
employees in informal bilateral arrangements where employees are included in
managerial decision-making processes, but these arrangements are entirely
voluntary and are mostly informal.

3. Employer organisations

In the US, the density of companies involved in employer organisations is quite

low at just 1.6%. However, an emerging trend is for companies to increasingly
voluntarily participate in employer organisations to more effectively navigate a
growing web of federal and state laws concerning workers in managing employee
relations. On behalf of the companies they represent, a number of employer
organisations have also focused on union avoidance measures including anti-
union litigation, lobbying and publicity campaigns, though traditionally they do
not have bargaining power. The National Association of Professional Employers
Organizations (NAPEO) is the largest trade association, representing 85% of the
nations employer organisations. Nationally, companies can voluntarily associate
with over 470 different trade-specific employer organisations.

Industrial relations characteristics

Collective bargaining

In the US, collective bargaining agreements are sometimes harmonised at the

national level by trade federations but are negotiated at the sectoral, and
company levels across both the public and private sector by affiliated unions. The
Teamsters Union, for example, negotiates a national master agreement that
serves as a template to be used by affiliated regional and local unions who
negotiate their own agreements, often with some local variations. However, the
vast majority of collective bargaining agreements are decentralised and occur at
the sectoral or company level, between the companies and the union.

Levels of collective bargaining

There is no nationally centralised, tripartite system, including companies and

unions, for collective bargaining in the US, so there is not a high level of
coordination of collective bargaining wages. However, national trade
confederations such as the AFL-CIO or major unions are increasingly developing
standards for collective bargaining and collective bargaining wages that often set
the trend for negotiations by affiliated unions. Across industry sectors, and
certainly inter-sectorally, there is some tripartite consultation to the extent that
pattern bargaining emerges during annual collective bargaining negotiations,
where individual sectors or intersectoral affiliations take the lead in setting
prevailing wages for other sectors or intersectoral affiliations that follow. A union
that is certified by the board in an appropriate bargaining unit is the exclusive
representative of all the employees in the unit for purposes of collective
bargaining with respect to pay, wages, hours of employment and other conditions
of employment. Once a union is selected or designated as the bargaining
representative, it becomes the representative of all the employees in the
bargaining unit, regardless of whether they are members of the union or not.

INDUSTRIAL RELATION IN UK
Introduction

The system of industrial relations in the United Kingdom (UK) is traditionally

characterised by voluntary relations between the social partners, with a minimal
level of interference from the state. In the context of very early industrialisation
and a liberal political culture in which the state seldom intervened in the affairs of
private actors, trade unions gradually consolidated their membership and power
base throughout the 19th century. Various legislative developments also allowed
trade unions the right to organise workers and engage in industrial action. In 1868
the UK Trades Union Congress (TUC), the umbrella body for UK trade unions, was
formed. The 1871 Trade Union Act recognised trade unions as legal entities as
corporations and granted them the right to strike. Subsequently, the 1875
Conspiracy and Protection of Property Act allowed the right to peaceful picketing,
while the 1906 Trade Disputes Act allowed UK trade unions to engage in industrial
action without the threat of being sued for damages. In addition to this body of
legislation, a minimal level of legal regulation that stipulated basic health and
safety conditions in workplaces was also built up during the 19th century.

In terms of the role of the law, collective bargaining was far more important than
the influence of legal regulation. For employers and trade unions, the role of
statute law was to support and extend collective bargaining rather than to
comprehensively regulate the system. Notably, the law provided trade unions
with a series of immunities from UK common law. These immunities covered the
right of trade unions to engage in industrial action with employers, which would
otherwise have been unlawful under UK common law.

Main actors

1. Trade unions

Trade union density has fallen markedly in the UK from a peak of 56.3% in 1980.
Trade unions in the UK are organised both horizontally and vertically, with some
organising particular occupations, such as teachers; others organise in particular
industries, while a few operate in particular companies. A number, however, are
general unions, organising across a range of sectors and occupations. The sole
trade union confederation in the UK is the TUC. There are 6,135,126 members in
TUC affiliated unions, down from a peak of 12,172,508 members in 1980.
However, the TUC does not conclude or have the power to conclude collective
agreements at any level.

2. Employers organisations

The TUC is paralleled on the employers side by the Confederation of British

Industry (CBI). Like the TUC, the CBI has no mandate to collectively bargain and
bind its affiliates. In general, the CBI represents companies in the private sector
and is regarded by the government as its main interlocutor with business. Its
membership comprises individual companies as direct members and many more
via trade associations (around 150); the CBI claims to represent around 240,000
businesses in the UK. Other employers organisations operating in the UK include
the British Chambers of Commerce (BCC), the Federation of Small Businesses
(FSB) and the Forum of Private Business (FPB). These organisations provide
smaller businesses with a link to national and regional government and provide
business advice and support. Owing to the largely decentralised nature of
employment relations in the UK, the role of employer organisations in the
countrys industrial relations is not particularly prominent. Current employer
organisations that do engage in social and employment affairs include the
Engineering Employers Federation (EEF) and the Local Government Association
(LGA). Employer organisation density in the UK is estimated at around 3040%.

Industrial relations characteristics

Collective bargaining: In the UK, the dominant level for the setting of pay and
working time is the company or plant level in the private sector. In areas of the
public sector and in a small section of the private sector sectoral level
agreements are concluded. There are no national intersectoral agreements in the
UK. The provision of opt-outs in collective agreements does not apply in the UK
system of industrial relations. Compared with other western European countries,
the UK is notable for the disorganised nature of its levels of collective bargaining
and the lack of legal backing and promotion that collective agreements are
subject to. Collective agreements are not subject to extension and so are
subsequently never extended by legislation, and there are no voluntary
mechanisms for doing so. Moreover, no formal mechanisms exist for the
coordination of wage bargaining in the UK. However, in practice, trade unions in
different companies and sectors often share information with one another, and
agreements in certain companies and sectors often act as informal benchmarks
for negotiators in other areas. Collective bargaining in the UK has become far
more decentralised since the 1970s and 1980s.