Unity Building Efforts by Public Sector Unions and Managements in Bangalore, 1960s to 1970s (original) (raw)
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A Short History of Employees' Unions in Bombay 1947 - 1991
Papers presented at the firs annual conference of the Association of Indian Labour Historians, 1998
Employees' unions emerged in the late forties and fifties as a new and increasingly dominant form of union organisation among large companies in Bombay. By 'employees' unions' we mean unions which have the words 'Employees' Union' or 'Workers' Union' or 'Staff and Workers' Union' in their name, regardless of whether they retain an outsider as their President. We shall argue in this paper that the history of employees’ unionism in the Bombay region has to a large extent been dominated by an endemic hostility to independent unionism among managements in the area. By ‘independent unionism’ is meant the sector represented by the stronger employees’ unions and their federations, where these exist. But ‘endemic hostility’ has reflected itself in three very different styles: (1) Companies that accept employees’ unions but litigate fiercely over demands; (2) companies that pursue strategies designed to break the power of a strong internal union or union federation; and (3) companies or business groups which have never been willing to deal with unions they cannot control. These styles represent different degrees of hostility, of course. In particular, attempts to undermine the power of internal unions became a constant feature of the eighties.
Political Will, Local Union Transformation, and the Organizing Imperative
1999
Excerpt] As part of its ongoing commitment, SEIU has devoted increasing attention to the challenge of getting local unions to embrace organizing and to allocate sufficient resources to the task. In this context, the unions 1992 national convention adopted two key resolutions: one to affirm the centrality of organizing, the second to assist leadership development with targeted educational programs. In the months following the convention, a discussion unfolded among national staff regarding appropriate steps required to assist local union leaders committed to change. Although internal organizing and initiatives to develop leadership skills among women and people of color were encouraged, the highest priority was afforded to external organizing. The objective was to expedite a dramatic reorientation toward external organizing at the local level. Because SEIU is decentralized-with significant local union autonomy, buy-in from local leaders was viewed as essential to assure organizing on the scale required to maintain steady growth and thereby enhance the unions power.
Strengthening Public Sector Unionism
One of the policy concerns in public sector labor relations is the dynamics involved in the representation and participation of the Board of Directors/Trustees (Boards) of state universities and colleges (SUCs) and government-owned and controlled corporation (GOCCs) as representatives of management in the negotiation process of the collective negotiation agreement (CNA). This unique relationship considerably influences the timely approval and registration of the CNA. This policy paper generally intends to determine best practices and bottlenecks in the negotiation, approval, and registration processes of CNAs among SUCs and GOCCs. The study adopts a mixed method case study design to gather quantitative data from reports of registration at the Civil Service Commission (CSC) and Bureau of Labor Relations and qualitative data through the conduct of key informant interviews among officers of public sector unions and human resource management officers or representatives from the management of the identified SUCs and GOCCs. The following are the key findings of this study: (1) some SUCs and GOCCs differ in terms of the extent of the representation and participation of the Board in the negotiation process and partnership/personal relationships between the management and members of the employees’ association influence the efficient processing of CNA; (2) most of the identified bottlenecks and best practices are born out of the type of relationship that is developed between the management and a union/employees’ association; (3) recommendations may be classified as either for policy intervention, for institutional process review, or for further research.
2016
Unions were initially created as economic supports for workers. Along the course of time, they developed with difficulties and acquired social and invariably political dimensions. Unions’ emergence in Turkey was late, while their improvement was painful. All over the world, as unions grew bigger, union activities got more professional along with acquirement of new technical possibilities, on one hand; and considerable losses in the early enthusiasm also occurred, on the other hand. Business owners sometimes associated unions with radical opposing political currents in their inappropriate fear. But the mentioned currents did try to penetrate into those establishments, where economical considerations with a view to welfare were supposed to have been the overweighing issues. Even though at times, some union leaders themselves essentially neglected the workers while solely focusing on an increase of their own might, through false unions; their wrongdoing should not be loaded on to hones...
Cross Current International Journal of Economics, Management and Media Studies
The phenomenon of increased union numbers as an answer to the call by workers who felt otherwise under-represented, and to get recognition, have put forward alternative agendas to the larger unions. Some new unions, it is argued, give a voice to workers in a specific sector or region where established unions have little presence. Others seem to have sprung up in the cracks caused by the fragmentation of the industrial structure in an organisation. Some would postulate it is caused by greedy trade union leaders who want to remain in leadership and with an intention to appropriate union resources to themselves. The failure of many unions to respond to changes in employment patterns has further diminished their power. Few unions manage to appeal to younger workers and/ or contract or part-time employees
A Different Kind of Union: Balancing Co‐Management and Representation
Industrial Relations, 2001
I wish to thank Adrienne Eaton, Thomas Kochan, and the Industrial Relations reviewers for their comments and suggestions on earlier drafts of this article. I also thank the Saturn Corporation and UAW Local 1853 for the extraordinary access that made this study possible.