Industrial relations-Evolution of labor movements Essay

Introduction

The change in focus towards the transformation and fundamental role played by labour movements have largely been attributed to the emergence of new social-cultural, political and economic delineations of trade unions.

The metamorphosis experienced in trade union movements especially in United States of America and some parts of Western Europe served as indicators of the growing internal and external forces that encountered workers (Biggs 467).

It is also imperative to mention that the evolution of labour movements has undergone through myriad of phases but mainly agitated by the need for workers to access better terms of working conditions.

At this point, several questions on the evolution of labour movements emerge. For instance, what exactly happened in the last two decades of the 20^th century? Why has the rapid evolution of labour movements led to the decline of trade unions? Is the evolution justified? If not, why and how did it affect progression? What is the future of trade unions towards the development of global economy?

It is the resilience of these questions that must be answered to curve out the new roadmap for trade unions on a global scale. Hence, this paper intrinsically seeks to analyze and evaluate the evolution of labor movements in the USA, Western Europe.

In order to achieve this, the paper highlights the implications and ramifications of the early labor movement on today’s labor laws in different countries and especially how they apply in the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

A brief history of labour movements in Western Europe and the USA

Feasel posits that labour movements in the USA and western Europe began taking effect during the industrial revolution when jobs in the agricultural sector declined and individuals had to shift to industrial areas to seek employment (654). Many trade unions and labour parties in the USA were formed in the mid 19^th century to represent workers, resolve jurisdictional disputes, coordinate strikes and fight for rights of workers.

This was necessary especially bearing in mind that this was at the peak of industrial and agrarian revolution when mass numbers of workers were being hired to work on farms and industrial establishments. On the other hand, Biggs expounds that the history of trade unions in Western Europe can be traced back to the mid 20^th century when the nation was in key defining stages of its highly fragile future (467).

Due to the vast impacts of the World War II in which UK was largely involved in addition to the ramifications of the Cold War which demanded critical preparedness, trade unions acted as key partners to the government.

Between 1950s and 1970, the intensification of mining and industrial activities for rebuilding the nations in this region especially the UK saw an even stronger involvement of the unions in policy making to boost their morale. This has been referred to as a ‘Disraelian detour’ by Heckscher (208).

However, 1970s marked the climax of the trade unions in Western Europe as they became extremely powerful due to increasing membership. Heckscher reports that in the UK alone, between 1969 and 1979, the membership rose by 3.2 million people to reach an all time high of 13.2 million (207).

In the US, peak membership in trade unions was witnessed during the early 1950s and then declined in 1954 for another 25 years until 2007. However, while the large force of trade unions in the USA and Western Europe were mainly perceived as threats to key government operations, subsequent economic and political forces acted against their rising force.

Indeed, Heckscher observes that during the decade of non-unionisation that took place in the 1980s, membership in most of the trade unions and labour parties fell massively (208).

By the onset of 21^st century, the established legislations that supported trade unions lacked the initial force since employers incorporated work ethics based on professionalism as the guiding tenets of achieving the much needed competitive advantage.

It is also imperative to note that labour movements were also being formed after thorough scrutiny on their aims and objectives. This provided a more sound operating platform for these movements and as a result, their actions were supported uniformly.

Evolution of roles of trade unions in the USA and Western Europe

The roles of the labour parties and trade unions in the USA and Western Europe in the past were similar and have remained constant over the years. The definition of these roles as Feasel points out in the analysis of unions in the two continents, dictates the grip of the members of the unions who are largely seen as the driving force to their success (654).

Bargaining for their members in a collective manner

During the last two decades of the 20^th century and up to until contemporary society, collective bargaining for workers and members of trade unions and labour parties members remained a critical role for the unions. Under this consideration, the unions provide workers with highly qualified personnel to bargain on behalf of their salaries and working conditions.

According to Biggs, this role shifted with introduction of payment standards and working conditions especially in the factories (468). In agreement with Biggs, Rothstein explains that the unions provided the needed assurance to members of higher wages. Furthermore, the ability to fight for job security among members of labour unions has always remained an integral function of trade unions.

It is also notable that the existence of unions was largely dependent on the number of workers demanding union services. Paradoxically, Lachmann is quite categorical that the support by most union workers appeared to be problem driven (54).

Indeed, with reduced problems demanding intervention from the unions, their impact tended to be greatly reduced. As a matter of fact, this perspective largely affected them and made their professional future to be quite uncertain.

Protection of rights of workers

In addition and as an extension of the collective bargaining role, Rothstein explains that trade unions have remained crucial in advocating for working conditions of their members human rights at all times (291).

It is worth noting that most businesses and companies in the USA and Europe operated on the basis of reducing minimizing their overall costs as a strategy to increase the overall return. Unions therefore came in either to demand application of the correct working conditions or enforcement of the legally established ones.

Linking workers and managing disputes

In his view, Brennan argued that the resilience of trade unions or labour movements to withstand the test of time was found in their ability to hold their members together (39).

However, this has been their main struggle as they seek to bond their members to reduce chances of any form of fall out. However, this has not been easy due to emerging forces that either directly or indirectly targets the unions from a political or management point of view.

Political roles

In terms of politics, it is worth noting that unions have remained critical in educating their members on the existing policies and their implications toward such policies. According to Feasel, trade unions formed partnerships with communities and the existing administration for the sole purpose of drawing key proposals that facilitated a balance between the demand for development and welfare of their members (655).

However, this role declined as political elites saw possible powers to outdo their demands and ability to maintain control. Besides, enhanced enlightenment of the members made them easily interpret the legislations progress with private quest for justice effectively. In other words, the influence of politics on labour movements has played both negative and positive roles.

For example, workers were used by politicians to push for certain policy proposals that either affected them in a positive or negative way. Politicians also used the manpower behind workers to seek votes by promising workers that their needs would be addressed upon ascending to power. In most cases, such pledges were hardly met.

Impacts of regulatory and legislative roles of the government on trade union

As already mentioned, trade union membership has steadily declined in the USA and Western Europe over the years. This sharp turn of events t has significantly reduced their effective functioning.

Reports from the Office of National Statistics indicate that the 35.1% of union members that were in Western Europe particularly in the UK in 1995 reduced to 26.3% by the year 2005 (Heckscher 208). As various theories are drawn to explain the same scenario, the following key factors have been pointed to be the key causes of this decline.

Political environment

It has been the view of many analysts that the political ruling elite in both the nations in the USA as well as in Western Europe saw large and growing numbers of the union members as a factor that posed a major threat to their powers and therefore sought to curtail their progresses (Sing 449). Margaret Thatcher tirelessly fought the mineworkers’ union despite the heightened resistance and a strike that lasted for over a year (Sing 450).

The emerging new forces of the USA market required faster responses by the industries and the government in retaining and expanding its market operations. Therefore, strikes and related threats resulted to key uncertainties to maintain the industrial grip especially in the energy sector in nations in the USA.

The ideology behind both cases was that trade unions were a major drawback to the country’s development and therefore needed to be controlled. In this respect, tougher legislations were enacted to control the activities of unions in the UK and USA.

Following such an action, it is expected that trade unions would most certainly have less power to negotiate for workers’ grievances. Upon realization that the unions would not play a significant role in solving their employment problems, employees did not see the need to join unions.

The adoption of market-oriented economies in countries like Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Sweden and the Spain also led to the decline of trade unions.

Union restructuring and legal issues

As the reality of a fast declining popularity dawned to the trade unions, restructuring was assimilated as one of the key methods to increase their relevance to workers. However, as Lachmann explains, the restructuring appears to have reaped minimal impacts towards restoring its previous glory (54).

Owing to the fast emerging demand for democratic considerations at the global front, the unions’ previous massive involvement in strikes and subsequent unrests in countries were interpreted to be the driving forces for the restructuring.

Brennan indicates that governments saw the renewed consideration for collective bargaining to be major threats and therefore denied the unions the legal remedy and emphasized on the need to use the court systems (39).

As Pulignano indicates, the regional expansion and demand for cooperation among the different Western European countries as well as those in the USA created a new focus on trade that strongly undermined restructuring of labor movements (574).

However, the European community that later came to be the massive European Union not only won the support of individual governments, but individual production units as well as the employees.

Better occupational structure

Better ooccupational structures in the USA and Western Europe especially in the UK between 1979 and onset of the 20^th century have largely been pointed to be major causes of decline of unions. Labour market orientation as Lachmann mention created a new force that saw a significant rise in the number of white-collar workers as opposed to blue-collar workers (54).

This may be associated with the increasing levels of education and the growth of service industries as opposed to manufacturing industries in the past. Considering that the blue-collar workers are the traditional sources of union demand, Rothstein emphasizes that the density trade unions was at stake and could further shrink (291).

Notably, the sudden demand for white-collar workers in 1980s led to companies’ establishment of more attractive to sustain higher productivity.

It is imperative to note that the emerging better conditions in the working place invoked a new form of competition where that led to employees increased shift in their working places. Consequently, Kealey indicates that these shifts curtailed their ability to maintain union membership as they adjusted to the new working environment (258).

Assimilation of new management models

While the havoc crated by unions was evident form their past operations, new managers in companies in the USA and Western Europe had to device mechanisms of addressing similar shenanigans. Trade unions often spelled increased probability of labour unrests which are undesirable to employers.

According to Carty, trade unions not only reduce productivity and labour efforts but also increase labour costs, lead to wage-inflation and also negatively impact on company profitability (239). Therefore, Carty continues to posit that where possible, employers tried to avoid unionization.

However, how could it have been employed articulated in the highly polarized and fact emerging forces of democracy? Carty concludes that contemporary firms embraced employee motivation that sought to keep them more satisfied, a factor that voluntarily reduced the demand for unions (240).

In a study of the effect of trade unions in Western South America particularly in Peru, Pulignano found that union workers are more likely to perform poorly because unionism promotes job security (574). Workers therefore do not feel threatened by possible termination or lay-offs that may face their fellow non-unionised counterparts.

This in turn affects their productivity such that they do not exert their full potential into achieving the company’s objectives.

Neo-classical economists have often viewed the decline in trade union membership as a positive factor, given that it aids in enhancing flexibility of the labour market hence improving economic performance (Sing 451). Armed with such valuable information, firms are now investing in their employees so as to reduce their demand for unions and thereby escape the problems resulting from union action.

Implications of labour movements and their application in the UAE

The evolution of labour movements and the momentous decline of the same in density leads to the question on what the future hold for trade unions around the world with special emphasis to the UAE. With various efforts to revive unions not withstanding, it is notable that establishing effective labour unions in the UAE to fight for rights of workers could take an awfully long time.

In the recent past, most unions have attempted to reverse the decline in union density through lobbying workers to join unions so as to enjoy the perceived benefits. As noted in the discussion, companies are on the lookout and are constantly coming up with measures to motivate their workers so as to increase productivity.

With such initiatives, it is expected that workers may not demand unions to represent them against their employers. Furthermore, the traditional union demand was facilitated by the existence of blue-collar workers who needed protection from exploitative work conditions they were subjected to by their employers.

Current studies on UAE business environment indicate that most employers have come up with better rewards systems for their employees since they realize that productivity is directly proportional to employee motivation (Penfold 53). There is a general contention that workers who are treated well will improve a company’s productivity and thereby impact on the profitability of the firm (Sing 452).

Employees are no longer viewed as people who should just take orders but they are now being incorporated in the company’s decisions. Such motivation further reduces the need for unions in the UAE. Besides, most governments including the UAE are no longer keen about trade unions. Besides, public trade unions do not have much bargaining power given that the government is also their employer.

The revival of trade unions will only be possible in the UAE if union leaders take revolutionary initiatives to address the prevailing problem. They will need to come up with strategies to attract new members and at the same time maintain their activity to an optimal level in order to enhance survival. The current state of affairs in the UAE however does not indicate union growth potential.

Conclusions

The discussion in this paper was based on the thesis statement that the change in focus attributable to evolution and the fundamental role played by labour movements largely due to emergence of new social-cultural, political and economic delineations has seen trade unions decline, a factor that has set a platform for their reduced irrelevance in the near future’.

From the discussion, it is evident that the demand of union representation by workers appears to be the sole determinant of trade union density. This demand has however been affected by various political, economic and legal factors.

In the UAE for instance, the potential for growth of labour movements in the future appears bleak bearing in mind that employers have designed ways of effectively compensating and motivating their members of staff such that the need for unions is greatly minimized.

Unless these unions work towards reviving the union density by undertaking viable management strategies, there can be no assurance that the use of unions can prove to be viable in the UAE.

Works Cited

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