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Labor & Management - a long term relationship

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David Hopper

Posted on: Thursday 22 March 2007 7:00:07 pm

For the worker in Western nations, just in the last 100 years, so many positive changes have occurred regarding labor’s working conditions, company benefits and their interaction with management, that they cannot all be listed here. However, one of the major changes that’s occurred is the value placed on the contribution of the employee to the company's success. Employees are now treated as strong contributors to fulfilling the business goals and policies of the company. In the US, the company values highly skilled workers by rewarding them with benefits, such as higher salaries or wages, bonuses and special pension plans. In Europe, the full time worker has full medical benefits and enjoys 5-6 week vacations per/year. Similar benefits, although more sparse can also be found in Japan and other Asian nations.

In an effort to attract workers who are well educated and experienced to a particular profession, job recruiters search out the best skilled workers and offer them more money and benefits to work for a competing corporation. This weakens the sense of loyalty that the professional worker has for his company and makes many workers more transient. In most cases, the American worker has much greater mobility and can move to another job easier than most places in the world due to a number of favorable economic conditions in the US, such as available and more affordable housing. In Europe and Asia, this type of free movement of the labor force is much more difficult and expensive.

Among the greatest changes in the workplace for the worker is the relationship between the worker and their employer. For example, in the last 25 years many companies have adopted open door policies to encourage direct communication. This is management’s desire to institute cooperative business practices with their employees. This policy allows the average worker in the company to talk directly to the company’s leadership and offer suggestions and in so doing, participate in the company's success. This practice when used, encourages loyalty and a sense of responsibility among the company’s personnel. In some cases, workers can actually receive a monetary reward for a suggestion that helps the company. Other positive changes for protecting the worker include the enactment of anti-sexual harassment policies, anti-discrimination laws and worker’s compensation. In addition, the Family and Medical Leave Act passed by the US Congress in the late 1990’s, allows the employee to leave their job for up to 12 weeks while preserving their job. This law is mainly designed for maternity leave but can also be used for family emergency situations such as death in the family and caring for another sick family member.
In Asia, e.g. China and Japan, protection for the worker is considerably more precarious than in Western nations. There, laws protecting the worker hardly exist. In many places of China and Japan, if a worker is injured while on the job and makes a claim, the government tends to side with the company. Since there are few experts in disability law or advocates representing the legal rights for the worker, any disability claims made by the worker are difficult to resolve.

David Hopper