From the standpoint of meeting basic welfare needs, the unitarist theory supports unilateral determination of terms and conditions of work by the employer. It is based on the asserted and enforced legal right of the employer the master over the worker the servant which has found its way into the employment contract.
The pronouncement or will of the Sovereign is law, regulating the behaviour of others. The ideas, perceptions and interest of management or government are superior and must be imposed and obeyed without questioning because they represent the interest of the people as a whole.
The goal of the unitarist is to domesticate the whole of the social unit society, industrial enterprise, family, school, etc under his control. The unitarist ruler alone as the guardian of the society can determine how society is to be organized, what the goals should be and what changes are desirable.
The Pluralist doctrine is therefore a political theory which seeks to redress the shortcomings of a capitalist political order in order to prevent its overthrow and safeguard the status-quo. That instead of class domination and class antagonism, it is possible to have a neutral, central sovereign authority, the State, which can be lobbied by competing pressure groups to satisfy the interests of all classes equally.
Just as the name, pluralist, connotes multiple, so also there are many variants of what is called the pluralist theory. But Alan Fox — offers a generalized picture. The pluralist theory is the direct opposite of unitarism. The pluralist theory maintains that the social system or an industrial enterprise as a sub-system of the social system is not a unitary organisation but a coalition of individuals and groups with sectional interests and distinct perception of the social structure.
However, the coalition of groups that make up the enterprise shares the commitment to maintain a structure which allows each group to pursue its aspirations through bargaining. The pluralist ideology does not claim perfection of the social structure.
A certain amount of conflict is expected as an assurance that no group is being suppressed. Hence, there is recognition that it may be necessary to reform the system in terms of making marginal adjustments in rewards or in work rules. However, where one party, particularly the working class, coerces the other to accept claims outside the bargained normative consensus, it will be justifiable to apply legal sanctions.
On this premise, pluralist advocates see unions not as a regrettable historical carry over but a manifestation of one of the values of competitive and democratic societies in which freedom of association, assembly and action is guaranteed within legal limits. Advocates of pluralism seem confident that given patience and skill, mutually agreed and fully legitimized procedure, agreements can always be reached to resolve grievances when they arise.
The Pluralist perspective asks managers or state functionaries to be tolerant of unions or labour based political organisations, and to realise that from the point of view of the trade unions, legitimacy of their rule is not automatic but rather the management control function should be shared with labour.
Pluralists do not see transgressors of the general existing societal norms as aberrants but as non-conformers whose punishment would be counter-productive. Therefore what should be done is a re-negotiated reconstruction of those norms - provided they are within the pluralist frame-work rather than a separate ideology altogether. Thus, the need for procedural agreements to resolve conflicts before they degenerate is rooted in pluralism. From the foregoing, the central idea that runs through pluralism is the notion that: traditional rights and liberties are under threat from increasing state authoritarianism produced by unitarist ideology and that a reinforcement of the status of intermediate associations is a pre-condition for the protection of individual freedom as well as a guarantee for political democracy and stability.
The pluralist doctrine regards each of the intermediate sectional interest groups e. But the parties in the industry are not equal. As Lenin puts it, whereas the employer may do away with one worker and employ another, the worker can only leave one capitalist employer for another; he cannot escape the capitalist class as a whole without renouncing his own existence. While it cannot be disputed that unions check the exploitation of the workers by the employers, there is no such thing as equality of power.
The employer has behind it the support of the state apparatus of coercion — the regular police, the secret police, the judiciary, the army, the civil service bureaucracy — which can be used at various times, overtly or covertly, to bend the workers towards the position required by the employer. The concept of collective bargaining demands of the workers to accept the system of wage slavery and not to oppose it. Thus, bargaining may be about marginal adjustments in hierarchical rewards but not about the existence of the principle of hierarchical rewards.
Fox, Thus, Dunlop opines that an industrial relations system at any one time in its development comprises, among others, an ideology, which binds the industrial relations system together. The Dunlopian conception merely reflects the weight and influence of the ideas of the ruling class on the working class. This shows that the ideas of the ruling class are the ruling or dominant ideas in the society.
Thus, the ruling ideas tend to condition the working class to feel it is futile attempting to change the traditional ways in which things are done. For example, it may be inconceivable for some workers to challenge so called managerial prerogatives. Based on the above weaknesses in the pluralist ideology, it should be clear that though pluralism represents some advance over unitarism, it is equally deficient in certain respects.
It therefore denies workers or trade unions of political consciousness. The perspective restricts the responsibility of the union to the purely sectional trade interests of the workers. The Obasanjo regime, like all regimes in Nigeria that increased fuel prices, maintained the same position on strikes called in protest against perennial price increases on petroleum products. A court judgment also backed up this economistic perspective.
This was the case in the June nationwide strike action. The major issue in the case was the imposition of a N1. Labour and other civil society organizations declared a strike against it. The above decision of the court runs counter to the principle established by the ILO Committee on Freedom of Association, which stated that the occupational and economic interests which workers defend through the exercise of the right to strike do not only concern better working conditions or collective claims of an occupational nature, but also the seeking of solutions to economic and social policy questions ILO, a, para.
Theoretically, with collective bargaining, none of the parties to collective bargaining can take the other by surprise. Forms of action and reaction can be generally predicted. As a result, the process of resolving conflicts that cannot be prevented undermines actions that may pose a threat to the capitalist order. Dunlop recognizes that each of the actors may have independent ideologies but that these ideologies should be sufficiently compatible and consistent to permit a common set of ideas which recognizes an acceptable role for each actor within the existing social order.
In other words, this means that trade unions should never aspire to acquire political power, either within individual enterprises or in the larger society. Each of the actors in their various groups should continue to perform their known constant role on a permanent basis. It is on that basis that a stable society can be maintained and to that extent each of the sectional groups need each other and they are therefore unavoidably interdependent.
Here lies the basis of the popular deception that workers and employers are partners in progress. From the foregoing, those who restrict unions to economistic roles do so for either of two reasons as Lenin pointed out: hypocritical screen for counter revolution or a complete lack of class consciousness. This means either a conscious attempt to ideologically enslave the working class to the bourgeoisie, or ii unconscious enslavement of the working class to the bourgeoisie.
The latter reflects a low level of class consciousness. However, the weakness and bankruptcy of the economistic theory is that economic decisions are products of political decisions. The wage structure and pricing of petroleum products, prospects for job security, pension and gratuity matters, and so on, are politically determined.
Why then should the workers and their unions not be involved in conscious political activity to reshape their future? In situations where the oppressed classes are not significantly involved in political decision making processes, meeting basic needs and solving poverty issues will remain a mirage. Democratic and Political Theories of Trade Unions This perspective recognizes the role of power in human relationship.
The political role expected of labour by this perspective is to be within the framework of existing production relations and power structure. In Nigeria, the predominant mode of involvement of labour in politics by the mainstream of the movement has been restricted to this perspective. The point is that the class that wields political power uses it to advance its own interests. Therefore, unless the working class and the poor are politically empowered, sustaining the welfare of ordinary people, in terms of basic needs cannot be guaranteed.
Moral and Ethical Theories of Trade Unions This theory essentially assigns a role to trade unions from a religious moral point of view. What sustains the loyalty of some members to the union could be its commitment in defence of the poor.
Apart from that, I am always at home fighting for the deprived, the neglected, the repressed and the oppressed. If I have no cause to fight for, I am like a fish out of water. What sustains me is the struggle. What gives me blood is my conviction and what propels me is my dedication to that conviction And so, if I have no genuine cause to fight for, I die. Flanders points out that the capacity of the trade unions to survive the hostility of the State and sustain the loyalty of union membership is hinged on commitment to justice: The trade union movement deepened its grip on public life in its aspect as a sword of justice.
When it is no longer seen to be this, when it can no longer count on anything but its own power to withstand assault, it becomes extremely vulnerable. The ethical and moral theory means that the strength of the trade union movement in its activities and struggles lies in its capacity to win popular support.
Winning popular support is also predicated on the types of issues taken up by the trade unions. A trade union struggle that is concerned with actualizing specific basic needs for the vulnerable groups cannot but win over, not just the support but also the practical involvement of the poor classes in practical action. After a Harvard law degree, he could have earned millions of dollars on Wall Street. But he abandoned all of that and went into community organizing, helping people who could not find meals or homes or get education.
It was the benefit of that experience that helped him to craft the spectacular victory for the ages. Nigerians should learn that money is not everything.
Only love for your fellow human can even give us the success we want. If fighting for the vulnerable classes can earn an individual such victory, how much more would the trade union movement advance the cause of fighting to win basic needs for all?
Hyman explains that capitalism constitutes a complex of work and social relations of production. The main features of the capitalist structure of work relations consist of the following: private ownership of productive forces; concentration of ownership in the hands of a small minority, the obligation of the majority of society to sell their labour power as a commodity; the domination of profit as the fundamental motive of economic activity; and top-down hierarchical control over production processes by the few owners or their managerial representatives.
They believe that for one to be modernized, they have to follow the same path the western world uses or follows. Spencer is one of the proponents of this theory. Talcott Parsons pattern variables are also used by this theory. These variables achievement and ascription Say that the Europeans follows the achievement patterns and that is why they are modernized while the Africans who mostly rely on the ascription variable and therefore, makes them remain backward.
Martin also used the end-achievement module to make the modernization more pronounced. If you want to be modernized, the end achievement must be followed. It is the psychological syndrome that pushes one seeks for achievement and for achievement and that the Africans lack such syndrome therefore, they are not modernized.
The traditional is the stage where cruel implements of the products are used. The pre-condition takeoff is the next stage where there is specialization, at this stage there is development of transport where goods are moved and also labour moves from one place to another. The take-off stage is the 3rd stage and in this stage, there is a shift from agricultural products to manufacturing. Emphasis is still on agriculture but manufacturing is very vital then; the next stage is the production for mass consumption.
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