Industrial Relations Theory, The State And Politics Essay

Industrial Relations Theory, The State And Politics Essay Industrial Relations Theory, The State And Politics â€" Essay Example > INDUSTRIAL RELATION THEORYMAY, 2010Industrial relation can be defined in a broad sence as an interdisciplinary field that looks into every aspect of people who are at work. The field therefore is to include the study of individuals, and also groups of workers who may have organised themselves into unions or not (MIT OpenCourseWare, 2006 ). The other aspects that should be looked into is how the employer and union organizations behave, the policies or legal frame works that control conditions in employment and economics issues in employment. Industrial relation has also been defined simply as a multidisciplinary field where relationship of employment is studied. Most of the theories of industrial relations are not broad enough to cover all the issues that are mentioned in these definitions. The lack of a comprehensive theory is actually a problem that has been in existance for along as has been manifested by different literature written on this subject. It has been noted for exampl e that there is absence of an adequate theory of industrial relation and also the use of industrial relation is inadequate(Roderick, 1999). When the presently existing theories are put under a crical review it is noticed that culture is not given the required weight as explanatory variables. (Boyd, 2004). The state has also been a victim of exclusion in industrial relations theory. One of the authers who has written about the role of the state in in industrial relations is Antony Giles. In one of his writings entitled the “Industrial Relations Theory State and Politics” the auther expounds on the role of the state in industrial relations. The theme in this writing is the need to investigate the role of the state and to include it appropriately in the formulation of industrial relations. The state has been given several definitions in Dictionary. com where one of the definition is, a land build through conguest in which there is a single set of ideals and one set of rules being imposed forcefully. Other definitions given to the state are simply a political organization in a particular country, supreme civil power or simply the state is a government. The writer puts industrial relation into two categories, the first having those that are from the political science branch and who are being described as being concerned with political aspects of industrial relations. The political aspects noted are the ways in which labour policies are made and their administration process, the relationship within trade unions and the politics that exists between the trade unions, their respective employers and the state. The second group which the writer notes is composed of labour economist, specialist in labour laws, and main stream industrial relations researchers. These are interested in the effect of the activities of the state and their impacts on industrial relations. The writer points out that exclusion of issues raised by the first group by the second group result s in an exclusion of very important questions that concerns industrial relations. The writer expounds on the problem of the state and their policies not being included in the most research done in America and Europe (the problem is higher in America than in Europe. ) Several examples are noted in which state determinants were treated as outside variables. Some of the examples given are for the concept by William Foote Whyte and that of John Dunlops. The John Dunlops concept is described as being more ambiguous case of exogenization of the role played by the state. This concept is described in detail and its weakness is revealed because of the state role being sidelined. The writer notes that many other researchers in industrial relations may not either use the human perspective or systems theory, but the way they define the boundaries of industrial relationship has similarity to the approach of Dunlop. It is noted that those have their specialization in labour laws and the labour e conomists do not examine the determinants of the state policy but rather they dwell entirely on the effects of the policies and political relationships. The historians have been praised for their contribution in making the development of public policies to be more understandable but are also as fighting hard in overcoming the temptation to develop explicit models but having success in just a few cases.