ANATOMY OF INDUSTRIAL CONFLICT

1
ANATOMY OF INDUSTRIAL CONFLICT
2
Concept and Essentials of a Dispute

• According to the Industrial Disputes Act,
  1947, Section 2(k) industrial disputes mean any
  dispute or difference between employers and
  employers, or between employers and workmen or
  between workmen and workmen, which is connected
  with the employment or non-employment or terms of
  employment or with the conditions of Labour of
  any person."

3
Contd.

• For a dispute to become an industrial dispute,
  it should satisfy the following essentials
• There must be a dispute or a difference (a)
  between employers (such as wage-warfare where
  labour is scarce)
• (b) between employers and workmen (such as
  demarcation disputes) and
• (c) between workmen and workmen.

4
Contd.

1. It is connected with the employment or
   non-employment or the terms of employment or with
   the conditions of labour of any person (but not
   with the managers or supervisors), or it must
   pertain to any industrial matter,
2. A workman does not draw wages exceeding Rs.
   1,600 per month.
3. The relationship between the employer and the
   workman must be in existence and should be the
   result of a contract and the workman actually
   employed.

5
Interpretation of disputes by courts

• Some of the principles for judging the nature of
  a dispute evolved by the courts are as follows.
• The dispute must affect a large group of workmen
  who have a community of interest and the rights
  of these workmen must be affected as a class. In
  other words, a considerable section of employees
  should necessarily make common cause within the
  general lot.

6
Contd.

1. The dispute should invariably be taken up by the
   industry union or by an appreciable number of
   workmen.
2. There must be a concerted demand by the workers
   for redress and the grievance becomes such that
   it turns from individual complaint into a general
   complaint.

7
Contd.

1. The parties to the dispute must have direct and
   substantial interest in the dispute, i.e., there
   must be some nexus between the union which
   espouses the causes of the workmen and the
   dispute. Moreover, the union must fairly claim a
   representative character.

8
Contd.

1. If the dispute was in the beginning in an
   individual's dispute and continued to be such
   till the date of its reference by the government
   for adjudication, it cannot be converted into an
   industrial dispute by support subsequent to the
   reference even of workmen interested in the
   dispute.

9
Contd.

• By incorporating Section 2A in the Industrial
  Disputes Act, 1947, a right has been given to the
  individual workman himself to raise an industrial
  dispute with regard to termination, discharge,
  dismissal, or retrenchment of his service, even
  though no other workman or any trade union of
  workmen raises it or is a party to the dispute.

10
Contd.

• Patterson observes "Industrial
  strikes/disputes constitute militant and
  organized protests against existing industrial
  conditions. They are symptoms of a discorded
  system.
• The industrial unrest, thus, takes an
  organized form when the work people make common
  cause of their grievances against employers by
  way of strikes, demonstrations, picketing,
  morchas, gate meetings, gheraos, etc.

11
Classification of Industrial Disputes

• The most common practice is to make a
  distinction between two main types of disputes
  relating to terms of employment. They are
• disputes that arise out of deadlocks in the
  negotiations for a collective agreement,
  popularly known as interest disputes,' and
• disputes that arise from day-to-day workers'
  grievances or complaints, popularly known as
  grievance disputes.

12
Contd.

• In addition, in various countries, special
  provisions apply to two other types of disputes
  relating to organisational rights, namely
• those arising from acts of interference with the
  exercise of the right to organise, or acts
  commonly known as unfair labour practices,' and
• disputes over the right of a trade union to
  represent a particular class or category of
  workers for purposes of collective bargaining,
  simply referred to as recognition disputes.

13
Details of Classification

• Interest Disputes These disputes are also called
  conflicts of interest or economic disputes. They
  generally correspond to what in some countries
  are called collective labour disputes.
• In general, they relate to the determination of
  new terms and conditions of employment for the
  general body of workers.
• In most cases, the disputes originate from trade
  union demands or proposals for improvements in
  wages, fringe benefits, job security, or other
  terms or conditions of employment.

14
Contd.

• These demands or proposals are normally made with
  a view to conclude a collective agreement.
• Since there are generally no mutually binding
  standards that can be relied upon to arrive at a
  settlement of interest disputes, recourse must be
  made to bargaining power, compromise, and
  sometimes, a test of economic strength before the
  parties reach an agreed solution.
• As the issues in these disputes are
  "compromisable" they lend themselves best to
  conciliation, and are a matter of give-and-take
  and bargaining between the parties.

15
Contd.

• Grievance or Rights Disputes These disputes are
  also known as conflicts of rights or legal
  disputes.
• They involve individual workers only or a group
  of workers in the same group and correspond
  largely to what in some countries are called
  individual disputes.
• They generally arise from day-to-day working
  relations in the undertaking, usually as a
  protest by the worker or workers concerned
  against an act of management that is considered
  to violate their rights.

16
Contd.

• The grievances typically arise on such questions
  as discipline and dismissal, the payment of wages
  and other fringe benefits, working time,
  over-time, time-off entitlements, promotion,
  demotion, transfer rights of seniority, rights of
  supervisors and union officials, job
  classification problems, the relationship of work
  rules to the collective agreement and the
  fulfillment of obligations relating to safety and
  health laid down in the agreement.

17
Contd.

• In some countries, grievances arise especially
  over the interpretation and application of
  collective agreements. The grievance disputes
  are, therefore, also called interpretation
  disputes.
• Such grievances, if not dealt with in accordance
  with a procedure that is respected by the
  parties, often result in embitterment of the
  working relationship and a climate of industrial
  strife.

18
Contd.

• There is a definite standard for setting a
  grievance dispute - the relevant provision of the
  collective agreement, employment contract, works
  rules or law, or custom or usage.
• In many countries, Labour Courts or Tribunals
  adjudicate over grievance disputes. In other
  words, government encourages voluntary
  arbitration for their settlement.

19
Contd.

• Disputes Over Unfair Labour Practices The most
  common unfair labour practices in industrial
  relations parlance are attempts by the management
  of an undertaking to discriminate against workers
  on the ground that they are trade union members
  or participate in trade union activity.
• In most cases, the objects of this discriminatory
  treatment are union officials or representatives
  employed in the undertaking, and trade union
  members who have actively participated in
  strikes.

20
Contd.

• Other unfair labour practices are generally
  concerned with interference, restraint or
  coercion of employees when they exercise their
  right to organise, join or assist a union,
  establishment of employer-sponsored unions,
  refusal to bargain collectively, in good faith,
  with the recognized union recruiting new
  employees during a strike which is not an illegal
  strike failure to implement an award, settlement
  or agreement indulging in acts of force or
  violence, etc.

21
Contd.

• These unfair labour practices are also known in
  various countries as trade union victimisation.
  In many countries, a special procedure exists
  under the law for the prevention of such
  practices. Such a procedure obviates or precludes
  conciliation.
• In the absence of such procedure, disputes are
  settled according to the normal procedure laid
  down under the Disputes Act.

22
Contd.

1. Recognition Disputes This type of dispute
   arises when the management of an undertaking or
   employer's organisation refuses to recognise a
   trade union for the purpose of collective
   bargaining.

23
Contd.

• Issues in recognition disputes differ according
  to the cause which has led the management to
  refuse recognition.
• It may be that the management dislikes trade
  unions and will not have anything to do with a
  trade union the problem is then of attitude, as
  in the case of trade union victimisation.
• However, the management's refusal may be on the
  ground that the union requesting recognition is
  not sufficiently representative, or that there
  are several unions in the undertaking making
  conflicting claims to recognition.

24
Contd.

• In such a case, the resolution of the issue may
  depend on the existence or non-existence of rules
  for determining the representative character of a
  trade union for the purpose of collective
  bargaining.
• Such rules need not necessarily be laid down by
  law they may be conventional or derived from
  prevailing practices in the country.
• In many countries, guidelines for trade union
  recognition have been laid down in voluntary
  Codes of Discipline or Industrial Relations
  Charters accepted by employers' and workers'
  organisations.

25
Impact of Industrial Disputes

• The consequences of industrial disputes are very
  far-reaching, for they disturb the economic,
  social and political life of a country.
• The workers, the employers, the consumers, the
  community and the nation suffer in more than one
  way.

26
Various impacts

• Industrial disputes result in a huge wastage of
  mandays and dislocation in the production work. A
  strike in a public utility service disorganizes
  public life and throws the economy out of gear
  and consumers are subjected to untold hardships.
• the short supply of consumer goods results in
  sky-rocketing prices, and leads to their
  non-availability in the open market.
• The workers are also badly affected in more than
  one ways.

27
Contd.

• The employers suffer heavy losses, not only
  through stoppages of production, reduction in
  sales and loss of markets but also in the form of
  huge expenditure incurred on crushing strikes,
  engaging strike-breakers and blacklegs
  maintaining a police force and guards
• Apart from these losses, the loss of mental
  peace, respect and status in society cannot be
  computed not in terms of money.

28
Contd.

• The public/society, too, is not spared,
  industrial unrest creates law and order problems,
  necessitating increased vigilance on the part of
  the state.
• Further, even when disputes are settled, strife
  and bitterness continue to linger, endangering
  social relations.

29
Contd.

• Industrial disputes also affect the national
  economy.
• Prof. Pigou has observed
• When labour and equipment in the whole or any
  part of an industry are rendered idle by a strike
  or lockout, national dividend must suffer in a
  way that injures economic welfare .... It may
  happen in two ways.

30
Contd.

• On the one hand, it impoverishes the people
  actually involved in the stoppage, it lessens the
  demand for the goods the other industries make
• on the other hand, if the industry in which the
  stoppage has occurred is one that furnishes a
  commodity or service largely used in the conduct
  of other industries, it lessens the supply to
  them of raw material or equipment for their work.
  
• This results in a loss of output, ultimately
  reducing the national income. Hence developmental
  activities cannot be undertaken for want of
  necessary finances.