ACHIEVING ORGANISATIONAL EFFECTIVENESS THROUGH EFFECTIVE INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS
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ACHIEVING ORGANISATIONAL EFFECTIVENESS THROUGH EFFECTIVE INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS
Chapter one
INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background of the Study
Industrial relations is an interdisciplinary field that analyses employment relationships. Because of the prominence of non-industrial employment interactions, industrial relations are becoming more commonly known as employment relations.
Many outsiders mistake industrial relations with labour relations, believing that it solely investigates unionised job conditions, however this is an oversimplification (Ackers, Peter, 2002).
Industrial relations can be traced back to the industrial revolution, which gave rise to free labour markets and large-scale industrial organisations employing thousands of wage workers. As society grappled with these major economic and social shifts, labour issues emerged.
Low wages, long working hours, boring and risky job, and abusive managerial tactics resulted in high employee turnover, violent strikes, and the possibility of social instability.
Intellectually, industrial relations emerged at the end of the nineteenth century as a bridge between classical economics and Marxism, with Sidney and Beatrice Webb’s Industrial Democracy (1897) serving as the seminal work.
Industrial relations thus rejected classical economics (www.wikipedia.org). According to Englama (2001), industrial relations refers to the interactions that occur between employees and employers inside an organisation.
He believed that the underlying difficulty in all organisations, whether business, educational, local, or national, was to create and sustain a vibrant and harmonious workplace relationship.
To accomplish this, group dynamics, consultation-based policymaking, authority diffusion, delegation, and vertical and horizontal communication must be implemented.
In recent years, other social sciences like as organisational psychology and behaviour have had an impact on industrial relations. Traditionally, economics and law were the two primary influences on industrial relations, resulting in a focus on macro-level industrial relations, and hence on unions, government, and collective bargaining.
Paradoxically, despite its focus on “relation,” industrial relations has mainly overlooked social science fields essential to behaviour and human relations until recently.
While labour force problems are the result of flaws in the employment relationship, industrial relations should be defined as the theories and methods developed over time to confront and repair these issues in both the public and private sectors of the economy.
The essence of effective industrial relations is the development of healthy labour relations, which provide a forum for employers and employees to properly understand one another.
Economic reforms and the desire for efficiency in public administration need the decentralisation of collective bargaining and pay in Nigeria’s public sector. However, the move to decentralise has resulted in both a lengthy industrial relations problem and intergovernmental strife.
This predicament is the result of a failed attempt to institutionalise collective bargaining and consolidate the unified wage structure in the public sector through the use of ad hoc wage commissions.
The skewed fiscal federalism and intergovernmental ties under the military in Nigeria exacerbated the situation, making resolving the federal question vital to restoring stability to Nigeria’s industrial relations system (Aiyede, 2002).
The establishment of public sector pay has been a source of contention between Nigerian governments at all levels, as well as between these governments and organised labour.
Although this conflict escalated after the national government adopted and decentralised collective bargaining in 1991, it represents a major industrial relations issue: the failure to institutionalise collective bargaining in the public sector.
Furthermore, it highlights the tensions of federalism in the military. The move to decentralise collective bargaining exposed these discrepancies in federal processes under military authority, bringing their implications for public administration into sharp focus.
The mechanisms established for collective bargaining in the public sector, such as the National Civil Services Negotiating Councils and State Civil Service Negotiating Councils, were never allowed to function. Wages in the public sector have been determined by government fiat or quasi-political wages commissions or tribunals, which are largely established by the government.
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