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- Title
Collective Actors in Industrial Relations: What Future?
- Authors
Kochan, Thomas A.
- Abstract
So where do the analysis and data presented in these papers leave us at this historic moment? I come away with the following conclusions and implications for future research. We must expand the definition of the key „actors” in industrial relations systems to include institutional forms that are emerging at two levels. At the community level NGOs in developing countries and other civil society groups (women and family advocates, ethnic groups, religious groups, labor market intermediaries such as temporary help and placement agencies, etc.) are playing more active roles in labor markets and industrial relations. At the international level, efforts to build institutions that are able to engage the key international agencies that set policies and allocate financial resources are just beginning to emerge out of the conflicts over globalization that erupted in recent years. Both of these need greater analysis and incorporation into our models of industrial relations in the 21st century. 2. Employer organizations also need to change. It is ironic in some respects that as traditional employer associations and even labor relations and human resource departments within firms decline in status and power, the need for individual firms to build networks across locations and across traditional boundaries is growing. If we are moving to a more networked economy, then we might predict that employer institutions or associations that facilitate and coordinate these linkages should be on the rise. But transforming traditional employer associations that focused on collective bargaining to ones that can play these coordinating roles is a daunting challenge. The question is whether existing organizations can make this transformation or new ones will emerge to carry out this role. 3. Unions, if they are to have a future role, will need to engage in a process of revitalization by identifying new strategies for recruiting and retaining union members, starting with young workers and staying with them throughout their careers and family life cycles. The very definition of unions, as we have come to think of them, may need to change, to become mote fluid and varied to include not just traditional unions and professional associations but also a variety of other labor advocacy groups. At a very minimum, unions will need to develop new capacities to build coalitions and leverage the presence and legitimacy of these alternative worker advocacy groups to achieve their objectives in a mote networked, and fluid economy. Moreover, unions will need to develop and harness new sources of power. If they ate to be key players in an information and human capital driven economy, unions will need to harness and use information and worker skills as sources of power. The implication fot research is to ask rougher and mote fundamental questions about unions and to examine the various experiments playing out around the world where unions ate trying new approaches. 4. Collective bargaining will continue to play a key tole in labor markets but its form and functions will continue to evolve. Various efforts to encourage partnership and greater cooperation will likely appear in those countries where employers and society continue to accept unions as legitimate and valued actors in a democratic society. In those that do not share this normative view of unions, collective bargaining is likely to continue to struggle and perhaps decline. In these latter societies, whether or how the void in worker voice and representation will be filled remains a major open question. 5. A key actor not included in the papers included in this issue but that warrants mention is government. This is where I believe we need to join the debates between world political events and institutions in the world of work. Out field carries a long tradition of respect fot resolving differences through dialogue, negotiations, and peaceful resolution of conflicts. Out forefathers helped to invent and nurture institutions that served societies well in wake of World War II hope out generation is up to the challenge of doing so again in out own the post war environment. The papers presented here provide a glimpse of how the actors in industrial relations are changing and document some of the innovations that are bringing these changes about. Given the challenges of our time, we need to continue to expand our vision of the changes in industrial relations actors and institutions that are needed and explore the effects of those on the front lines of innovation.
- Subjects
INDUSTRIAL relations; LABOR arbitration; INDUSTRIAL sociology; LABOR market; GLOBALIZATION; LABOR unions
- Publication
Industrielle Beziehungen, 2004, Vol 2004, Issue 1/2, p6
- ISSN
0943-2779
- Publication type
Article