Different Views on the Employee Relationships - Coursework Example

Human Resource Management Introduction The Employee relationship has been taking on three different views for almost a century now. One, the unitary when the entire team works under the one single boss, the pluralistic when the company respects every individual as one and takes up their opinion in sincerity and finally, the radical when the boss is all driven for profits and the company tries to maximise profits by minimising expenses (Gareth Morgan 1996). All these view points could be taken up when a specific event is considered since every event has all the ingredients for every one of the views aforesaid. Since every event in history could be revisited and a new meaning can be given depending upon the view taken by the person perceiving. It is not uncommon to find views that are categorically different from the ones that were made and what we believe in could be belied by taking up a different perception. For every view, there is always a string of arguments to support the cause and there by reinforce the thought process. Similarly the case under question, namely, the union issue with the Universities for a rise in the salary levels may be taken up and studied. Differing actors and stakeholders in the issue would only be offering different perception to the same story or rather same history. The Unitary view of the Problem From a unitary view, the problem will be looked at as the following: The union is holding the universities and thereby the entire student community under ransom by resorting to a strike. The villains The Staff of the University The Problem Greediness of the staff when service should have been the core of their work. Motive The staffs are to be blamed for whatever has happened and for the suffering of the student community. Providential significance The thrust of the staff and the arm twisting tactics resorted to by them is not good for an healthy relationship between the stake holders meaning, employers, staffs and the students. Fixed qualities Greediness of the staffs Emotions Suffering of the students and delayed assessments. When this incident is revisited, it is found that the earliest newspaper reports bank on the issue that the students' assessments are affected and the students are going to have hard time because of the staffs of the university and their 'unilateral' strike decisions. It is also found that the villains of the show, were asking for a rise in the salary when everybody 'thought' that they always were better paid and enjoyed a more stable and 'no pressure' life style. The strike and the pay rise were both looked at as the ones caused because of their inherent 'greediness' that went with the people's aim to make more money and live like their business counterparts. Secondly, the university is a service and it cannot be viewed as a profit making exercise for the universities! While so, how can the staff of the university expect a rise that is not commensurate with the rate of change in the living conditions of the community (BBC News 21 Apr 2006) Thirdly, the university staffs already had a higher and more comfortable pay scale. Therefore, they found that the rate of rise in the following years was not in line with the inflation rates in the country. The radical view Once the views of a multitude of stake holders are included in the perception, the views of the staffs are also included (Simon Felton 10 Apr 2006). This view would throw open the following: The villains The Vice Chancellors The Problem Unknown reasons of the employers Motive Only to reduce the cost to the Universities. Credit To the employers. In this case, all the credit for holding on to the salary levels of the staff went to the vice chancellors and the employers. Fixed qualities Complacency, indifference and recklessness Emotions Suffering of the students and delayed assessments. The radical view on the other hand, specifies that the vice chancellors of the universities had acted as villains. They had not responded to numerous requests in the last twenty years to improve the salary levels of the university staff. But this was not responded to under the pretext of not having enough money to pay for the increase in salaries. However, in the last course, the vice chancellors presented the problem to the government, specifically to the Minister for Higher Education and obtained a hike in funding for the specific purpose of increasing the pay and living conditions of the university staffs. This was not affected therefore; the staffs union had no other go but to resort to a strike that could disrupt the lives of many students. Though the immediate cause of the problem was the strike, it was caused by the indifference and recklessness of the university Vice Chancellors (EIS-ULA Members Bulletin 8 May 2006). They are the villains of the incident and they seem to be the people who have caused the problem and need to find a solution too. The offers made by the Vice Chancellors and the employers was not in line with the lack of increment for the last twenty years and does not make up even the inflation rate that the society is facing. The Pluralistic View The issue has a pluralistic view that supports all the view points of the people who were stake holders in the given situation. The major stake holders of the situation are the following: 1. The Students 2. The employers in this case, represented by the Vice Chancellors 3. The staffs of the Universities The viewpoints of each one of them follows: 1. The students are the innocent victims who are caught in the cross fire between the two factions. They suffer since their exams are postponed and many of the post graduate students work on a part time salary to make up for their exams and for their own education. With such a situation, they would find it pretty difficult to make up for the loss of time and therefore, the money that would be hard to come by. This would also make it difficult for the students to take care of even their day to day expenses which are also dependent in many cases on the research and the teaching assistantship that they obtain from the universities. In all the badly mutated people in this story is the student. 2. The staffs of the university have been suffering from a lack of increase in their pay scale for the last two decades. This has resulted in a gross negligence from the side of the employer. While the value of their salaries have fallen down due to an increasing inflation, by over 40% and the workload has gone up by 140%, the salaries have not been raised for the lecturers in the university. This has been going on for more than 20 years and every time the vice chancellors have been remarking that the financials of the university does not permit an increase in the salaries at that point in time. However, now with the increase in the fund allocation for the universities done by the government as indicated by the Prime minister in his 2004 speech, there was an wide spread expectation for the much awaited increase. But when it did not come up even after one and a half years, the staff had no other recourse but to strike as they were pushed to the corner. 3. The stand of the employers and the heads of the universities was very well reflected in the statement made by the Primer Minister during his speech on 14 Jan 2004 (John Brissenden 13 May 2006). "The shortfall of teaching funding has badly hit the salaries of academic staff, which have shown practically no increase in real terms over two decades. This at a time when professionals in virtually every other sector, including school teaching and the health professions, have improved their positions significantly; and when competition among graduate employers at home and abroad for the most talented potential university researchers and teachers is greater than ever. An estimated 1,000 UK academics have left jobs here for universities abroad, a quarter alone going to the US." It is important to note that the Vice Chancellors took the necessary steps to increase the salary levels of the staff by requesting for a higher allocation. Secondly, it should also be noticed that this was made public and the whole request including the reason for the request was in the public domain. Therefore, the intention of the Vice Chancellors of the Universities and the Government can not be mislaid. It is true that they did plan for an increase of the wages. The increase in the allocation to the universities not direct from Governmental funding but by increasing the tuition fees. The amount of increase in the tuition fees will not even meet a 14% increase in the staff salary which was actually offered to them. Secondly, this increase is not going to happen till 2008/09 (Eric Thomas 1 Jun 2006). The question of getting any additional revenue in 2006/07 is not true. In this pluralistic view, every one of the stake holders involved seems to have taken their role in the right direction. As in many of the issues that plague today's world, the stand that is taken by everyone is right from their own perception. What needs to be done is bringing them altogether and to ensure that every one does their job on time and in line with every one of the involved stake holders. In line with this, the stake holders barring the students were involved in discussions and talks that brought in a settlement finally. The Action The final settlement was in line with what the university administration could best offer. They offered 13.1% increase by 2008/09 and according to their financial calculations the increase in the revenue to the university will be around the same figure (Alexandra Smith 18 Jul 2006). Though of course, the acceptance of the staff of the university was not unanimous, the overall acceptance of the settlement by both the students and by the administration ensured that there was a certain amount of rejoicing of the occasion. What needs to be noted is that one of the other stake holders in this issue is the Government which has played a very subtle role in the entire incident. The Government has not stressed on the increase in budgetary allocation for higher education simply because the Government felt that the universities should find funding for themselves for these services. Secondly, the question whether the government is really concerned about the increasing load on the higher education and their support for this increase is unclear. Government has insisted that there should be an increase to 50% of the people who pass through schools should go over to higher education. While the infrastructure could meet this requirement in Universities, further on going support is lacking. This should be set right by improving the over all working of the universities either by funding it by the government or by ensuring that more contracts are drawn by the universities for private assignments and projects more in line with the US universities. Conclusion The multiple visits to the same incident in history would certainly draw out different perceptions for different people. In addition to the change in time, the change in the approach that people might have when they revisit history and the knowledge or the influence that the person might have had would also lead to a change in the re-story of the historical event. References 1. Alexandra Smith (18 Jul 2006) University Lecturers accept Pay deal, Guardian Unlimited, available at: http://education.guardian.co.uk/specialreports/lecturerspay/story/0,,1823334,00.html 2. BBC News (21 Apr 2006) Talks ongoing in lecturer pay row, available at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/4931746.stm 3. EIS-ULA Members Bulletin (8 May 2006) Pay negotiations - Employer's Best and Final Offer, available at: http://www.eis.org.uk/pdffiles/ULA%20Pay%20Dispute%20May%2006.pdf 4. Eric Thomas, Prof., (1 June 2006) 2006 Negotiations - Vice Chancellor's Communication to all staff on the latest position in the ongoing pay dispute, University of Bristol, available at: http://www.bris.ac.uk/personnel/news/2006/060602 5. Gareth Morgan (1996) Images of organization. Sage Publications. 2nd edition. 6. John Brissenden (13 May 2006) Lockout:the NATFHE/AUT education dispute, available at: http://leninology.blogspot.com/2006/05/lockout-natfheaut-education-dispute.html 7. Simon Felton (10 Apr 2006) AUT NATFHE Strike Letter, available at: http://www.npc.org.uk/features/autnatfhestrikeletter Read More