Woolworths Company’s Labor Relations Essay

Introduction

Labor is one of the most important components of a business. Employees are responsible for the production of goods and services. When production targets fail to be met, employees can offer a good explanation for the occurrence. They tend to understand the various aspects of the operations of a company better than even the owners of the respective companies. Managers of any given business entity, institution, or organization are expected to try to avoid disputes among their employees because they understand the role that a satisfied labor force plays in the success of the organizations.

When workers are happy in their various positions as employees of firm or any other organization, they are able to perform their duties to their best. This paper indicates that employees who feel that their employer is keen on their interests are much more likely to be creative in helping their firm to solve various challenges. As a result, they help in boosting the firm’s chances of success in achieving its goals and objectives. Companies can enjoy success if they embrace labor unions and/or strive to negotiate with their employees when they raise their demands. Woolworths is one of the largest companies in terms of staff. It has had its fair share of controversy in terms of labor-related issues. Hence, this paper intends to present labor issues using Woolworths as a case example.

Woolworths’ Stance in Labor-related Issues

Woolworths strives to uphold human rights in all its endeavors. Its actions in ensuring the observance of human rights are not just limited to its employees only but also to the company’s supply chain. Woolworths has principled supply guidelines that comprise four threatening aspects that it considers central to its business. These areas include employment circumstances, enticement and dishonesty, ecological conformity, and work privileges. The company tries its best to ensure that it meets the requirements of the various regulatory bodies in different jurisdictions from where it operates. Woolworths is a party to The United Nations Global Compact (UNGC), which is a body that requires all its members to hold, ratify, and sustain their relation within areas where they have influence. The body’s main values are in the field of individuals’ privileges, surroundings, honesty, and operational standards.

Woolworths is also a signatory to the Global Social Compliance Program, which has various stakeholders who are aimed at providing a shared approach that is consistent with continued improvement of environmental and working conditions across the supply chains of consumer goods (Shah, 2014). A greater number of merchants and customer are increasingly operating jointly with human civil liberty people and employment institutions to offer a healthier operational environment whilst boosting the lives of their personnel along their supply networks. Woolworths’ guiding principles are anchored on “the International Labor Organization (ILO) conventions and the doctrine of the United Nations Global Declaration of Human Rights” (Woolworths Limited, 2013, Para. 4).

The company expects all its suppliers to comply with the requirements of its policy. This policy has a compliance audit program mainly for the suppliers of its own brands that complement it. To ensure autonomy, qualified intermediary documentation parties carry out the business’s appraisal. The adopted evaluation plan has been appraised in harmony with threat status, which is ranked as elevated, small, or serious in terms of sternness. Critical areas of risks that carry a great significance include criteria relating to bonded or incarcerated employment, inducement and dishonesty, child labor, wellbeing, and security.

Violation of any of the serious decisive factors culminates in a demand for prompt counteractive steps or resolution by service providers who are put into two classes, namely accepted at threat or accepted provisionally based on the upshot of the assessment and conformity to the necessities of its guiding principles. Woolworths’ agenda involves working with its suppliers in bettering their labor practices, regardless of the category in which the supplier belongs. Corrective actions that are considered grave comprise 2.5 % of the company’s corrective actions. Most of them relate to employee accommodation areas that are not clearly distinguished from storage or factory production areas (Shah, 2014).

Strategy for Dealing with Labor Disagreement

Disputes between labor and management can handled using a strategy of compromise. Even though it may seem as if the company is giving much power to employees, it is among the most effective ways of dealing with disagreements and avoiding the recurrence of such disagreements in a company. Before beginning the negotiation, there is a need to follow a number of key phases. The first step is planning that is followed by opening. The third step is bargaining while the fourth and final step is closing.

First off, the management of Woolworths should scrutinize, outline, and prepare for a negotiation process that resonates with the company’s policy statement. Afterwards, the company should compile and assess the issues of concern, specifically those that are contributing significantly to the disagreement. The company should include structured roles in the design of its negotiation process for each of the people who are representing its side. It should also put in place a policy that guides the parties to the negotiation. The policy should clearly stipulate the process of choosing people to represent it at the negotiation table during the talks. The spokesperson should be empowered so that he or she feels confident enough to handle the negotiation process successfully to achieve the best deal for both the company and workers (White, 2008).

Further, the strategy should involve an exchange of proposals by both sides to the negotiation. The proposals should be evaluated to determine how they can be harmonized to reach a common ground on the issue. Interest-based methods of solving the dispute should be utilized in the negotiation process. The negotiator should be someone who possesses the qualities of a leader. Hence, he or she should have the ability to influence the direction of the negotiation. He or she should comprehend what his or her role entails. He or she should accelerate bottom-line results.

Collective Bargaining Position

Woolworths needs to let the labor unions know about the prevailing economic situation around the world. It should use the global recession to make the labor unions understand why it will be hard for the company to raise its workers’ salaries without negatively affecting its business significantly. Given the presence of Woolworths and its retail outlets in different countries and jurisdictions, it is bound to be affected differently by market conditions in the different markets (Shah, 2014). The legal environment also varies from one country to the next. These factors affect the profitability of its outlets differently. Some retail outlets might experience losses at different times while others might record impressive profits.

Profits are redistributed to ensure that each branch of Woolworths is able to finance its operations, regardless of whether it has made great profits or losses. This plan helps to ensure continuity of operations, thus helping to avoid massive layoff of employees. Even though a branch may have made great profits, it may not necessarily hike employee salaries since some of the profits may be diverted to help in boosting its business in other outlets to avoid collapsing (White, 2008). One may ask why the company should be keen on helping branches that perform poorly instead of just closing them down. It is important to understand that the probability of losses is not limited to a given branch and that making a loss in one business calendar does not mean a loss in the next.

Recommendations of Policies for Administering and Resolving Disputes

The company should put in place guidelines that employees should follow in case they have any disputes that they need to address. This strategy will help the firm to get a chance to learn some of the employees’ pressing issues and help to prevent them from escalating to levels whose impact may be severe and hard to reverse. In-house dispute resolution systems should be implemented to help in preventing such severe effects of employee disputes. Further, Woolworths should put in place personnel under the Human Resources department whose main function is to handle issues that touch on employees who are subjects of repeated disagreement.

Most Likely Interest Dispute and its Resolution

The dispute that is of greatest interest that is most likely to occur is the one that will involve demands to raise wages in the phase of hard economic times. This situation will definitely present a big challenge to the company, given that it is not immune to economic downturns. To leverage the economic pressures, I will help to push for a policy that puts into consideration critical company’s interests in negotiating any contract. This strategy will involve analyzing the company’s financial records to ensure that it can handle employee demands. Employees will be advised to understand the company’s situation.

The Next Step in Labor Relations Management

Given the direction of changes with regard to labor relations, the future is quite predictable. In the near future, no firm will survive without ensuring that the interests of its employees are well taken care of. Companies that abide by the various regulations regarding labor will attract the best skills. Employees are continuously being enlightened concerning their rights while at the same time being given greater freedom of expression when it comes to their grievances (Holley, Jennings, & Wolters, 2012). Woolworths will have to observe keenly the various requirements to avoid any disputes and hence experience greater growth.

Conclusion

Clearly, various issues that relate to labor influence Woolworths’ activities. The company has done its best to ensure that it operates within the requirements of the law. It has implemented policies that help in handling issues that relate to enticement, labor rights, compliance with environmental regulations, and corruption among others. The company also strives to ensure that its suppliers along with its various supply chains and retail outlets abide by the company’s policies. However, labor-relations and laws that relate to workers are changing with each passing day. Hence, it is paramount for Woolworths to implement policies that will enable it to compete effectively while setting an example as a company that respects the interests of its staff members.

Reference List

Holley, W., Jennings, K., & Wolters, R. (2012). The Labor Relations Process. Mason: OH Cengage Learning.

Shah, H. (2014). Transition to Labor Law Reform: State-Level Initiatives & Informal Sector Labor Relations. Indian Journal of Industrial Relations, 50(1), 33-50.

White, A. (2008). The Crime of Staging an Effective Strike and the Enduring Role of Criminal Law in Modern Labor Relations. Working USA, 11(1), 23-44.

Woolworths Limited. (2013). Labor Practices in Our Global Supply Chains. Web.