Industrial Mgt

Advanced Studies in Industrial Relations

What contribution can industrial relations at the workplace level make to the sustainability of Australian businesses?

Industrial relations can be defined as the study of the laws, conventions and institutions that regulate 'the workplace'. It is a fundamentally important aspect of our way of life, our culture and our society (leoisaac, n.d.). Today many companies put a great effort to sustain good industrial relations as it is a vital aspect to maintain the growth and success of business. Industrial relation is involved in the negotiations that take place between the workers and management to improve product quality and productivity in exchange for employee benefits and improved working conditions. Employer’s main idea is to diminish the differences involving the management and workers which will influence the workers morale, harm the reputation of the company and minimize the affect on profit margins.

In the recent past Industrial Relations (IR) in Australian companies have moved over from negotiating terms and conditions of employment in an industry level, to an organization level and then at last to an individual basis (Lansbury, 2000). There is considerable public debate over the fact that Federal Government's preference on individuals over collective bargaining as the foundation for improving productivity and subsequent legislative interventions to achieve it (Freeman, R. 2006). In the current legislative framework allows the management to eliminate unions from work places and employment agreements.

Business sustainability can be achieved by managing the triple bottom line i.e. by controlling the financial, social and environmental risks. A thorough definition for it is given in the financial time lexicon (n.d.) as “business sustainability represents resiliency over time – businesses that can survive shocks because they are intimately connected to healthy economic, social and environmental systems”. This type...