1. Excel Books Human Resource Management (2nd Edition) Dipak Kumar Bhattacharyya Copyright © 2006, Dipak Kumar Bhattacharyya Trade Unions and Labour Unit:21 Block: Eight Employee Relations 21-1 21 Unit Trade Unions and Labour

2. Excel Books Human Resource Management (2nd Edition) Dipak Kumar Bhattacharyya Copyright © 2006, Dipak Kumar Bhattacharyya Trade Unions and Labour Unit:21 Block: Eight Employee Relations 21-2 Introduction Trade unions are voluntary organisations of workers. Through joint action, they protect and promote the interest of workers. With the setting up of large-scale industrial units, a new class of workers, dependent solely on wages for their livelihood, have emerged in India. In the absence of collective action, this working class had to be satisfied with wages, which they could individually negotiate with the employers. In such a circumstance, individual workers had virtually no bargaining power, perhaps for reasons of abundant supply of labour. Hence, the need for joint action at least to sustain, if not to improve, their bargaining power against the employers has been strongly felt. The pace of such action has been accentuated with the recognition by the community to form unions to institutionalise workers’ rights to organise, to press for their demand collectively and to go for strike when their claims are not accepted.

3. Excel Books Human Resource Management (2nd Edition) Dipak Kumar Bhattacharyya Copyright © 2006, Dipak Kumar Bhattacharyya Trade Unions and Labour Unit:21 Block: Eight Employee Relations 21-3 Cont…. History The earliest known trade unions in India are: i. The Bombay Mill Hands’ Association, formed in 1890 for the purpose of urging the Government of improvements in factory law. However, it soon became defunct after the passing of the 1891 Act. ii. The Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants of India and Burma formed in 1897 by Anglo-Indians and domiciled Europeans employed in the Railways. This, however was more of a friendly association than to secure concessions. iii. Printers’ Union started in Calcutta in 1905. iv. The Bombay Postal Union formed in 1907. v. The Kamgar Hitwardhak Sabha, Mumbai in 1910. This was a body of social workers and not workers of the organisation. They were interested in general welfare of labour.

4. Excel Books Human Resource Management (2nd Edition) Dipak Kumar Bhattacharyya Copyright © 2006, Dipak Kumar Bhattacharyya Trade Unions and Labour Unit:21 Block: Eight Employee Relations 21-4 Cont…. In the Table below, we have furnished verified membership details of ten major Central Trade Unions in India.

5. Excel Books Human Resource Management (2nd Edition) Dipak Kumar Bhattacharyya Copyright © 2006, Dipak Kumar Bhattacharyya Trade Unions and Labour Unit:21 Block: Eight Employee Relations 21-5 Cont…. In a very recently concluded survey, it has been indicated that BMS is having the highest membership followed by INTUC, CITU, HMS and AITUC. The latest membership details of the above five major Central trader union organisations are presented below: OrganisationMembership Claimed Membership Verified INTUC54,35,70525,87,378 AITUC29,73,933 9,05,975 HMS43,56,03413,18,804 CITU23,86,24217,68,044 BMS40,81,42427,69,556

6. Excel Books Human Resource Management (2nd Edition) Dipak Kumar Bhattacharyya Copyright © 2006, Dipak Kumar Bhattacharyya Trade Unions and Labour Unit:21 Block: Eight Employee Relations 21-6 Number of registered unions (workers and employees) and their respective membership, verified from returns submitted by them for the years 1986 to 1996 are presented in the Table following:

7. Excel Books Human Resource Management (2nd Edition) Dipak Kumar Bhattacharyya Copyright © 2006, Dipak Kumar Bhattacharyya Trade Unions and Labour Unit:21 Block: Eight Employee Relations 21-7 Importance of Unemployment of Balance of Payment Problems Ever since it started developing on a planned basis (since 1950-51), Indian economy is ailing from certain chronic economic problems. Among these problems, unemployment and rising balance of payment crisis have assumed critical proportions, especially since 1970. Without solving these two problems or at least reducing the acuteness of these problems, the Government of India or the Planning Commission cannot pay attention to the other more general problems. When unemployment is confined to only a section of the rural populations, government can give some dole to pacify the unemployed. But when the urban population also becomes unemployed to a substantial extent and particularly when they are educated unemployed, it becomes difficult to contain the situation; the situation becomes grave. Similarly, when the balance of payments deficit remains within reasonable proportion, government can pay attention to other internal problems.

8. Excel Books Human Resource Management (2nd Edition) Dipak Kumar Bhattacharyya Copyright © 2006, Dipak Kumar Bhattacharyya Trade Unions and Labour Unit:21 Block: Eight Employee Relations 21-8 Cont…. Interrelation Between Unemployment and Balance of Payment Deficit Let us now consider the following simple Keynesian income generation model. Let national income be denoted by ‘Y’ (a variable), C = consumption depending on ‘Y’ is also a variable. Î = investment (autonomous and given). Investment is unpredictable because it is influenced by investors’ behaviour. X = exports of the country also autonomous and given (depends on foreigners’ demands for our goods). M = imports, a variable depending on Y, a part of the total consumption of good by countrymen. Then Y = C + I + X-M Since, I and X are constants we use bars on them. ‘Y’ or national income is measured as the total value of domestic outputs of final goods. Outputs of intermediate goods and raw materials are embodied in the calculation of final goods output. To avoid double counting, such outputs of intermediate goods and raw materials are not separately added again.

9. Excel Books Human Resource Management (2nd Edition) Dipak Kumar Bhattacharyya Copyright © 2006, Dipak Kumar Bhattacharyya Trade Unions and Labour Unit:21 Block: Eight Employee Relations 21-9 Cont…. Thus, output of final goods consists of total consumption by the people of domestic goods, total investment, i.e. total purchase of machinery and any exports that have taken place out of the domestic output. All final goods, therefore, can be presented as below: C-M I X In the above presentation, we have assumed that imports consists of only consumables, alternatively if there is some import of machinery that has been included in Î (investment), then such imports are also substracted and the total subtraction is again M (imports) Now we can write final goods produced: C-M c I-M i

10. Excel Books Human Resource Management (2nd Edition) Dipak Kumar Bhattacharyya Copyright © 2006, Dipak Kumar Bhattacharyya Trade Unions and Labour Unit:21 Block: Eight Employee Relations 21-10 C – M c = Consumption of domestic goods I– M i = Investment of domestic machinery X– M i = Investment of domestic machinery M c = Import of consumables M i = Import of consumables Entire = M = (M c + M i ) to be subtracted National output (finished goods) = National income Y = C + I+X-M C = Consumption of domestic goods and imports I= Investment of domestic machinery and imported machinery X= Exports M = Subtract imported consumption and investment from C + I

11. Excel Books Human Resource Management (2nd Edition) Dipak Kumar Bhattacharyya Copyright © 2006, Dipak Kumar Bhattacharyya Trade Unions and Labour Unit:21 Block: Eight Employee Relations 21-11 Cont…. Interrelationship Creates Problems for Policy Decisions In India, we are facing today, a combination of internal and external imbalances. This creates a special difficulty because the policy that government takes to remove internal imbalance usually acts counter to policies designed at removing external deficit. For example, government expenditure is to increase C & I through road construction and other kinds of short-term investment, even flood-relief, food for work programmes and the usual social benefit measures increase national output and level of employment. However, out of the new incomes created by these schemes a part go to increase income further in the hands of businessmen who sell the consumption and investment goods. With the extra incomes the businessmen in turn buy goods partly from the domestic market and partly from foreign market.

12. Excel Books Human Resource Management (2nd Edition) Dipak Kumar Bhattacharyya Copyright © 2006, Dipak Kumar Bhattacharyya Trade Unions and Labour Unit:21 Block: Eight Employee Relations 21-12 Cont…. In our country, however, the growth of national income is not accompanied by a satisfactory rate of growth in employment. The reasons for such decline in employment are: i. Composition of the industrial production may have changed and new composition may be proportionately less employment potential than the previous composition. ii. Within an industry, technology may have changed and technology with much less employment potential may be much more common now than before. Intra-industry product choice is based on classification of products in three ways: i. Cross-elasticities of demand (in case of identical products); ii. Grouping products by physical attributes; iii. Classification as per characteristics.

13. Excel Books Human Resource Management (2nd Edition) Dipak Kumar Bhattacharyya Copyright © 2006, Dipak Kumar Bhattacharyya Trade Unions and Labour Unit:21 Block: Eight Employee Relations 21-13 Cont…. No. of units effecting lay off and workers laid off by different causes during 1997-1992

14. Excel Books Human Resource Management (2nd Edition) Dipak Kumar Bhattacharyya Copyright © 2006, Dipak Kumar Bhattacharyya Trade Unions and Labour Unit:21 Block: Eight Employee Relations 21-14 Cont…. Cause-wise number of units effecting retrenchment and workers retrenched during 1987-1992

15. Excel Books Human Resource Management (2nd Edition) Dipak Kumar Bhattacharyya Copyright © 2006, Dipak Kumar Bhattacharyya Trade Unions and Labour Unit:21 Block: Eight Employee Relations 21-15 Distribution of strikes and lockouts by different causes during 1987-1992

16. Excel Books Human Resource Management (2nd Edition) Dipak Kumar Bhattacharyya Copyright © 2006, Dipak Kumar Bhattacharyya Trade Unions and Labour Unit:21 Block: Eight Employee Relations 21-16 Rural Labour in India 1. The rural force, whether in agriculture or in non-agriculture is growing at a faster rate than the population growth in rural area. 2. Substitution of capital for labour in agricultural is also responsible for decline in rural employment. 3. Slow rate of public investment in agriculture is also responsible for deceleration in employment of rural labour. 4. Rural labourers in India have very little access to the minimum needs like education, health care, drinking water, fair price shops/public distribution system, social security benefits, etc. 5. Another recent phenomena is to emphasise on the selection of crops. It is evident that most of the agricultural land is now embarking on production of commercial crops, which are used as inputs of industries.

17. Excel Books Human Resource Management (2nd Edition) Dipak Kumar Bhattacharyya Copyright © 2006, Dipak Kumar Bhattacharyya Trade Unions and Labour Unit:21 Block: Eight Employee Relations 21-17 Absenteeism Absenteeism is a total man-shifts lost because of absences of the total number of man-shifts scheduled to work. It, therefore signifies unauthorised, unexplained, avoidable and willful absence from work. Normal absence is excluded from this category as an employee usually takes leave of absence with prior permission of the authority to meet his own personal exigencies. Such exigencies may be on the ground of sickness, certain domestic eventualities, accidents, etc. In all the cases, an employee may not take prior permission from his employer but may regularise his absence giving an intimation within a scheduled period of absence. In most of the cases, if an employee remains absent from work for more than 3 consecutive days without any intimation, it is considered as willful or unauthorised absence. This, therefore, makes an employee liable to give intimation within 3 days from the date of his absence to regularise his leave. Absenteeism is, therefore, a willful or habitual absence from work and not any other types of absence.

18. Excel Books Human Resource Management (2nd Edition) Dipak Kumar Bhattacharyya Copyright © 2006, Dipak Kumar Bhattacharyya Trade Unions and Labour Unit:21 Block: Eight Employee Relations 21-18 Labour Turnover Labour turnover is the rate of change in the working hands of a particular organisation during a given period. It, therefore, signifies the shifting of workforce from one organisation to another and also the loss of manpower due to discharge, retirement, death, etc. The rate of labour turnover is expressed in terms of accession and separation rate. Accession is addition to the workforce while separation is deletion from the workforce, for any of the reasons mentioned above. Labour turnover is a serious problem for the industry because of the following reasons: i. High cost of recruitment to effect replacement; ii. High training cost; iii. Loss of supervisory and managerial time; iv. Slow rate of output of the new incumbents; v. Damage to the plant and machinery; vi. High rate of scrap and waste, etc.