An
industrial dispute refers to any disagreement in industrial relations which may
be in the form of a strike and or other forms of industrial action between
employers and employees. Industrial disputes are costly and damaging to
companies and employees alike. Ideally, an organization’s culture and
procedures should seek to avoid or resolve any potential conflict. However,
it's not always possible to prevent industrial disputes from arising collection
of statistics on disputes which involve stoppages of ten working days or more.
The statistics are compiled mainly from data obtained from employers on the
nature and extent of the dispute.
Once all
disputes for a month are identified, additional information on the nature and
extent of each dispute is obtained through a mail-out / mail-back collection,
usually to employers, on the nature and extent of the dispute. Some data, e.g.
working days lost in a particular strike, may be imputed. Due to the imputation
procedures and the limitations on identification of disputes, the statistics
should not be regarded as an exact measure of the extent of industrial
disputation.
Cause of
dispute
Usually
industrial dispute is due to mental unrest or discount in the workers. This
unrest is psychological fact but it also has social political and economic
aspects. Briefly the causes of industrial disputes, in India may be classifies
as follows
o Low wags
o Unsatisfactory working conditions
o Demand for leave with pay
o Demand for adequate bonus
o Non recognition of trade unions
o Retrenchment due to sophisticated machinery
o Resistance to misconduct of officers
o Misconduct of intermediaries
Statistics
relate to the reported main cause of stoppage of work and not necessarily all
causes that may have been responsible for the stoppage of work. For these
reasons, the statistics do not reflect the relative importance of all causes of
disputes as perceived by both employers and employees. The causes are
classified from information supplied by employers and according to standards
determined by the International Labour Organisation. Disputes are initially
classified according to whether a dispute occurred during a process of
workplace/enterprise bargaining. A process of workplace/enterprise bargaining
refers to the negotiations that take place between an employer and their
employees (or their representatives), in reaching an agreement over pay and
employment conditions.
Disputes
not related to a process of workplace/enterprise bargaining include disputes
relating to award negotiations and disputes relating to the content or
application of an existing agreement (and do not seek to amend or terminate the
agreement).
Disputes
are then further classified according to the main cause of the dispute. The
classifications for Enterprise Bargaining (EB) related disputes are
Remuneration; Employment conditions and Other EB related. The classifications
for Non-Enterprise Bargaining (Non-EB) related disputes are Remuneration;
Employment conditions; Health and safety; Job security; Managerial policy;
Union issues and other non-EB related.
Consequences
of an industrial dispute
The
important consequences of industrial disputes in India are the following:
Unrest:
As we
have already mentioned industrial conflicts and disputes lead to widespread
unrest in social life and also distribution of political harmony and peace.
Economics
loss the industrial disputes most obviously injure the economics interest of
both employees and employers. This effect is direct and palpable, but
indirectly and in a subtle way these also prove economically harmful to nation
as a whole. Everyone ultimately is affected.
Hardship
of workers:
The
majority of workers in India not earn enough to be able to save for rainy day.
They live hands to mouth, existence if not worse. Therefore strikes and
lockouts put unbearable burden to them and they are reduced to the levels of
beggars Threat to social security and public peace. If industrial disputes
spread in an epidemic form they pose to threat to public peace.
Economics
depression the industrial disputes most obviously is not only harmful to the
industry involved but lead to all around economics depression. A closure of one
industry a leads to the reduction of demand of goods of other industries or
trades. For example closure of tactile industry would lead to drastic reduction
in the demand of cotton.
