Accounting & Marketing

International Trade Unions: Political View and Changing Face of People Management

Abstract

Gupta A

A trade union must not be looked upon as an organisation whose objective is to struggle mainly for increases in wages and emoluments of workers and percent exploitation by capitalists. A real trade union should be an organisation of human beings with a personality and dignity, to realise all their aspirations and rights through individual and collective endeavour in the sphere of their work, it must have conscious participation and ownership by workers only, its primary emphasis should be on the work level, wiz the industry must be primarily industryconscious in its rights and dignity at work levels. To make Indian Trade union effective there must be one union in one industry and make recognition mandatory by management as a “bargaining agent”, must have internal leadership unions, do not allow politicians to exploit industrial workers and trade union movement to meet their narrow political ends, make democratic elections in trade unions compulsory which can be one of the conditions for continued recognition. In addition to subscription, let there be a substantial grant by management/government to the unions, training and development of management relationship. Above all increase mutual trust and goodwill and enlarge scope of union activities to cover areas like profitability, competitiveness, productivity and social responsibility. They must be prepared to share profit and pains of the organization in the sense of workers participation. Enlightened trade unions will realise that a continuous improvement in the workers standard of living can only be the result of rapid economic development which can be materially accelerated through higher productivity of employees in the organisation. Crippling of an industry concerned cannot help to trade union in the ultimate analysis for it gains its strength from the industry concerned. It is therefore in the self-interest of trade unions to adopt policies which do not harm industrial production.