Globalization and Employment Relations Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

globalisation and Employment Relations - Essay ExampleA peek into their social and political structure from the tooth root of the twentieth century to todays fast paced world and also a study of the supposition of convergence willing help us in making definite conclusions about the subject.Katz evaluates three hypotheses that have been suggested to explain the arch towards decentralized bargaining first gear, shifts in bargaining power from unions to employers second, the emergence of new forms of work organization, which put a premium on flexibility and employee participation and third, the decentralization of corporate structures and diversification of worker preferences. Katz concludes that the second hypothesis is the most convincing, on the grounds that labour and management appear to have gained distinct advantages from work restructuring that constituted decentralization. However, shifts in bargaining power, as well as the diversification of corporate and worker interes ts, are important contributing factors to the decentralization process.Sweden became an industrial society later when compared to most other countries in Europe. At the buy the farm of the 20th century, Sweden was a poor agrarian society with high emigration rate. It is now a comparatively wealthy, welfare-oriented, service society. Sweden has 25% of its civilian workforce employed in industry, only 2.4% are still in agriculture, while 73% are in services, partly as a result of the strong return of local and regional government since the 1960s.Swedish employment relations have long fascinated strange observers. With a total population of 9 million and with 4.4 million in labour force, Sweden is the smallest of the countries in Europe. However, 76% of its women are in the labour force which is the highest female participation rate of any OECD country. Employment relations in Sweden have passed through three broad stages since the nineteenth century. The beginning of the union mov ement was the first stage, which lasted from the 1890s to 1930s.Unions were established during this period and there were disputes between the capitalists and the laborers. The government was either passive or back up the capitalists.The second stage was approximately from mid-1930s to the early 1970s. The Swedish model was established during this period, with a low level of industrial conflict, a solidaristic wage policy, an active labour market policy and labour-management cooperation. An economical policy reliant on economic growth subsumed many of the pay-related problems for the unions and paved way for a pattern of employment relations with few industrial disputes.Emergence of a third stage can be traced to the 1970s. More radical union ambitions, the alternative of a non-socialist government in 1976 severe economic problems, and a strategy based on dispatch enterprise and a market economy, on the employer side, represented significant changes. The 1980 dispute symbolized t hese developments. Wage earner monetary resource were introduced after a bitter conflict, but were not seen as a complete victory by the unions. The wage earner fund system became a political burden for the Social Democratic troupe and did not result in a basic change in Swedens economic system. The employers tried to turnround the trend as much as