Employee Voice and Power

Question 1

What is workplace regulation and deregulation?

Answer 1

4. The question of whether the workplace and the basic employment relationship should be regulated at all revolves not only around the rules for establishing wages and terms and conditions of employment. It also revolves around the question of how workers get to be heard. This debate is constantly seen in the legislative changes

Question 2

Individual vs collective workplace arrangements

Answer 2

9. There are 2 sides to the debate (the debate being individual contracts vs collective bargaining).
    1 side of the debate: celebrates the individual contract of employment as an equitable arrangement on a level playing field “If participants have the freedom to make adjustments as to they carry out the day-to-day business of an enterprise then the likelihood of making the right decisions is far greater than decisions made by an arbitral tribunal in a far-away city.
    2nd side of the debate: individual bargaining aka individual contracts is missing the usual caveat: ceteris peribus – “all things being equal”. In my own words, i think that without the caveat, employees who enter into an individual contract are less likely to have the power to negotiate their terms and conditions.

Question 3

Who has more power and control in the employment relations?

Answer 3

o The level or degree which employees are involved in the making of decisions and the importance of those decisions to the ees well-being and to the running of the organisation will provide us with some hints about the power and control exercised by the individual employee.

Question 4

What is meant by employee voice?

Answer 4

how employees are able to have a say over work activities and the process by which employees are able to contribute to or influence managerial decisions either directly or indirectly through their representatives.

Question 5

What are the different types of employee voice?

Answer 5

 Collective bargaining
 Collective representation
 Union representation
 Grievance procedures
 Joint consultation
 Team working
 Problem-solving groups
 Direct voice mechanisms
─ regular meetings with all staff;
─ a committee of employees that discusses problem management on a regular basis; or
─ a formal employee involvement programme such as quality circles.
 articulation of individual satisfaction/dissatisfaction;
 communication/exchange of ideas;
 upward problem solving;
 engagement in, and contribution to, management decision-making; and
 demonstrations of mutuality and cooperative relations.

Question 6

What are some of the features of union voice

Answer 6

 One of the features of union voice is that of independence from management and the organisation.
 A second characteristic is the collective nature of union representation. Individuals can have voice through an organisation, which can represent an individual’s concerns in terms of general principles (such as equitable treatment, fairness, etc.).
 A union can also provide advocacy where an individual might not have the skills to represent their interests adequately to management. And such representation can be a buffer between management and the individual employee.

Question 7

Define employee involvement

Answer 7

• Employee involvement can be defined as the exercise, by employees, of influence over how their work is organised and carried out.

Question 8

Give examples of forms of employee involvement

Answer 8

employee involvement can be direct or indirect.

Informal discussions with those employees affected by change

2. Formal meetings with those employees affected by change
3. Discussions with an established joint consultative committee
4. Discussions with a specially constituted committee established to consider the particular change
5. Discussions with union delegates at the workplace
6. Discussions with full-time union officials from outside the workplace
7. Other discussions
8. No discussions
9. participative schemes are the types of involvement where employees deal directly with managers even where they have high levels of autonomy as in self-managed teams;
10. representative arrangements provide for employee representation. This can be a union representative or in-house representation, say, on a joint consultative committee;
11. financial involvement can include profit-sharing and stock options in the firm.