Dear Mr Abbott..

After travelling around the world and looking at the various employment relations adopted in countries including Denmark, China and India, we have reached our final destination - our home. This week, we were challenged to write a letter to our current Prime Minister, reflecting on our current employment relations.

Dear Mr Abbott,

I am writing this letter as part of a university course where I have had the opportunity to study employment relations on an international spectrum. This has been quite interesting, not only looking at the different dynamics among countries, but particularly in assessing the effects globalisation has had on their employment relations. Whilst some have thrived or remained strong, some have struggled and are currently in need of major reform. Personally, I feel Australia's employment relations are still relatively strong, however there is one aspect that has been adversely impact and that is the unions.

The union density in Australia has been on a continuing decline for past two decades and is not showing any great signs of an increase in the near future. This decline in membership has only further weakened their power, resulting in unions looking insignificant within the employment relationship. This is only exemplified by statistics such as the fact that in 1990 union density was at 49%, compared to 2007 where it had dropped to 19.5%. The disappointing reality is that unions were very important within the history of our employment relations, however they appear to have failed to keep up with the transformations caused by globalisation, leaving them weak and leaving employees somewhat weak.

Majority of the reasons associated with this significant decline in density and power are indeed ones that are unfortunately caused by the unions themselves. Firstly, unions have failed to keep up with globalisation and rather than adapting, they initially tried to fight or ignore this ideology. Secondly, the anti-unionism sentiment expressed by employers  has made it more difficult to maintain a strong position. The most important factor however, is the changes that globalisation has brought, particularly the decline in full-time employment and the increase in part-time and casual work. Rather than restructuring and targeting both full-time and part-time/casual employees, unions maintained their position focusing solely on full-time employees. This was severely detrimental to their membership numbers. Similarly, with these changes it meant changes in employment demographics including the average age of workers and an increase in the presence of female employees - yet unions continued to focus on middle-aged men, meaning they were missing a large portion of the workforce.

In my opinion, Australia's unions need to attempt to rebuild their power in order to become a key player in employment relations once again. The introduction of the Fair Work Act was the perfect opportunity for the unions to undergo a reform and to re-emerge as a strong party, however I do not believe they took advantage of this.

I feel that Australia needs to adopt a similar approach to Denmark when it comes to our unions - their 'Danish model', otherwise referred to as the 'negotiated economy' refers to the internal coordination that exists between the state, the unions and employers. I understand that this will not be an easy task, however I feel this would be effective in the long-term in securing the position of unions and fostering better employment relations in our country.

At the end of the day, it comes down to two questions:
1. Is there any point joining a union who will not adequately represent you?
2. If there is no union presence, who will protect us workers or should we be left to fend for ourselves?

I hope this letter provides an insight into our employment relations and the need for the restructuring of our unions.

Kindest Regards,

Sian Bothman

Employment Relations In China

Hey guys!
So after a week off uni (not much of a week off with all the assignments due soon) it's back into blogging again this week, and this week we are going to China!

So to start it off, similar to that of our last topic where we looked at Korea vs Japan, China is another country that is considered quite different in regards to their employment relations. There are many aspects to compare and contrast but I'm going to focus on human resource management in particular this week.

"Human resource management and labour-management relations in China are different from those in other countries because of different political and economic systems and social and cultural backgrounds."

Firstly, it is crucial to recognise the importance of Confucianism in China as this has an effect on all aspects of their lives, including their employment relations and the way they do business. The general theme of this system of values focuses on the 'importance of proper human relationships'. This is relevant as human resource management is primarily concerned with how people in organisations are managed. Of these values, harmony is one of the more instrumental in shaping Chinese HRM.
That is, for the Chinese it is essential that employees and management have a harmonious relationship where aspects such as criticism must be handled very gently, in order to not upset this harmony between the two. This has a huge impact on human resource management as it encourages a greater relationship between the two and means that activities such as performance appraisals or dismissals would be carried out very differently in comparison to Western countries such as Australia.

The 1978 economic reforms that took place in China have resulted in lots of changes for their human resource management. These include:

~The changing nature of education has placed a focus on higher education, meaning the workforce is becoming more skilled and jobs are becoming more competitive
~Chinese workers are now encouraged to be more active in participating in decision-making and in taking initiative within their work
~The Chinese urban and rural township small businesses are now booming and are allowed to recruit employees according to their needs
~Human resource managers have been granted more flexibility in hiring employees, rewarding workers and managers, as well as various other decisions
~Chinese trade unions now play increasing role in labour-management relations, especially in joint ventures

The article this information was taken from was published in 1994 so 20 years ago now. Although outdated, it considers the history of China and their human resources, whilst making predictions for their future. They identified that managing human resources well and paying close attention to harmony are key aspects in achieving successful human resource management.
Their predictions included:

1. Trade unions in enterprises will play an increasingly active role in employment relations
2. Chinese enterprises will soon be competing against each other to  employ highly qualified workers and motivating them and retaining them with better salaries, fringe benefits and greater opportunities for career development will be essential

Considering what you have read in this weeks readings - do you believe these predictions were accurate? 

Hope everyone enjoyed their 'study' break!

Sian :)

Reference: Zhao, S (1994) 'Human Resource Management in China', Asia Pacific Journal of Human Resources, vol. 32, no. 2, pp. 3-12.