INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS AND PRODUCTIVITY

PERSIDENTAL ADDRESS
Dr. G.P. SINHA, M.A. (Pat) Ph. d. (Cornell)
UNIVERSITY PROFESSOR & HEAD, DEPARTMENT OF LABOUR & SOCIAL WELFARE
PATNA UNIVERSITY, PATNA
DELIVERED AT THE XXII ANNUAL CONFERENCE OF THE INDIAN SOCIETY OF LABOUR
ECONOMICS HEALD UNDER THE AUSPICES OF THE KAKATIYA UNIVERSITY, WARANGAL
(A.P.) FROM 19TH TO 21ST OF DECEMBER 1980
Confronted with the problem of containing spiralling inflation and blaming the
workers and their unions for contributing to the spiralling by pushing wages beyond
the rate of rise in productivity, many people advocate productivity-inexed wage and
bonus payments. In India, the payment of bonus to the industrial employees of the
Government of India has been linked to productivity. While clamour is made for
productivity-linked wage increase in the management and official cicrles, trade unions
are equally vociferous in resisting such a linkage, not only because they do not treat
the existing distribution of income as sacrosant, but also because they fear that linking
wage and bonus payments to productivity is a device to cheat them of their legitimate
claim to a living wage. Though there is so much of talk of the importance of growth in
productivity for speeding up economic growth, there is little analysis of the concrete
situation which can facilitate or hinder improvements in productivity. They gains of
the ‘green revolution are reflected in the improvement of agricultural productivity in
the area of wheat production by way of improved inputs like water, seeds, fertilizer,
insecticide, herbicide, etc. But there has not been any reference to the quality of
human input, as if it does not have much to contribute. In the industrial field, also,
new technologies are being introduced and additional capital input of improved quality
is being provided to increase production. Larger inputs can give larger returns but that
does not necessarily mean improvement in productivity. In all economic organisations,
apart from the quality and the quantity of material input, it is recognised on all sides
that the quality of the human input is the crucial factor in promoting productivity,
consequently in economic growth and development.
I plan to devote this address to the impact that the quality of industrial relations
makes on the human input and thereby on productivity.
1. Productivity and Its Importance
One basic element that distinguishes the world of human beings from the animal
world is the necessity to work. Work is one of the basic conditions necessary for the
existence of man. The animal world does not have to work in order to live, but man
cannot live without work. All living beings other than man only consume what is

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given by nature. They are only consumers and not producers whereas man is both a
producer and a consumer. To produce is to work. Since the days man left the food
gathering stage and became a food producer, he has been constantly pursuing the task
of improving his productivity. Even in the food gathering stage, more so in the later
stages, he did start making flint and crude tools out of stone and wood or whatever
came handy to him. With the assistance of these tools, he made his labour more effective
and productive. Since then this quest for improved productivity that is the quest for
making human labour more effective has brought about tremendous changes in the
tools and the techniques of work, but the pursuit has not ended. It is due to the success
of this ceaseless pursuit that the industrially advanced countries of the world have
come to enjoy an unprecedented improvement in their living standards. This has been
achieved not because the people of those countries are putting in more labour or harder
labour than they did in the past. On the contrary, compared to what was the position a
hundred years of even fifty years back, the people are working fewer hours every day,
fewer days in the week fewer weeks in he month, fewer months in the year and fewer
years in their life time. That is, the span of working life has been very much reduced
and hard exhausting manual labour has been taken over by machines. It has been
found that annual amount of working time among those employed in the United States
dropped from 3300 hours in 1870 to 1950 hours in 1965 and spare time increased
from about 360 hourse to 1700 hours though their standard of living has gone up
many times.1 The ever improving technology of work and use of tools has reduced
the need for utilisation of human labour and released time and energy of people for
the pursuit of other creative and cultural activities. This is a very noble goal. Why use
human labour for a task which can be more efficiently performed by machines ?
All the finer things of life that we see around whether it be in the relam of fine
arts, literature, science and the larger participation of ever increasing number of people
in these activities has become possible because producing for the basic needs of life
requires less and less of the labour of fewer and faver people. We can very well imagine
the situation when each one of us would have been busy scratching the earth to extract
the basic means of subsistence. There would have been no schools, no colleges, no
science and no research laboratories. It is the capacity of man to create a surplus over
and above the basic necessities of life that provides the foundation for whatever progress
in whatever realm the mankind has attained so far or will attain in future.
1. Marvi R. Hang and Jacques Dofry, Work and Technology, p. 231.

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1.1. Meaning of Productivity
It has been said that earth is the mother and labour is the father of all wealth in this
world. The primitive man used a part of his labour to produce the crude tools which in
the present day terminology could be called his capital. The man owned his own tools
and was the owner of whatever he could produce with those tools. These tools could
not be said to be independent of the man and could not be termed as an independent
factor of production. Thus, there were basically, and continued to be even today. only
two factors of production, that is, human labour and nature. In the course of time as
the tools became more and more complex they came to be owned by individuals
separate from the producers and they are today called an independent factor of
production. So is the land. With further specialisation in labour and the concentration
of ownership of land and capital into fewer and fewer hands, we have come to identify
four factors of production : land labour, capital and organisation. Thus, when a factory
is established to produce something we say that four factors of production have
combined to work together to produce a result. In this process of production we utilise
them and, therefore, they are called the inputs. The four inputs that we mentioned
earlier can be further classified under two heads : (a) material imputs, that is, land and
capital, and (b) human input, that is, labour including organising labour.
Improving productivity, therefore, means to secure a higher output out of a given
input, more so in terms of input of human labour. Generally speaking, all other inputs
are assisting labour to make it more effective and productive.
1.2. Forms of Productivity
The output of a given enterprise can be looked upon from two points of view of
(a) physical productivity and (b) value productivity. The inputs are essentially in terms
of physical concrete like so many hours of labour, so many kilowatts of electric energy,
so many tons of raw material or so much of the depreciation of a given machine.
These are the inputs in terms of physical units. These inputs can also be understood in
terms of their money value. Similarly, the output can be viewed in terms of the physical
units like so many yards of cloth, or so many tons of coal or so many tons of iron and
steel and steel and cement. When sold in the market, the output requires a money
value. The excess of the value of output over the value of inputs is called the profit or
surplus. Productivity, thus, assumes two forms : physical productivity and value
productivity.

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1.3. Implications of the Distinction Between Physical and Value Productivity
The primary aim of a business enterprise is to improve the value productivity.
Growth in physical productivity by itself does not have any meaning for the enterprise
in a private enterprise economy. An enterprise in this economy can improve its value
productivity by securing higher price for its product even though the physical
productivity remains the same or even when it goes down. Improvement in physical
productivity in an enterprise may not necessarily mean an increase in the productivity
of the enterprise when the price of its product is going down. But the society, as a
whole, is certainly interested in improvements in physical productivity because that
provides the foundation for its material welfare.
In the situations of wage negotiations and the demand for wage increase it is very
simple for one to say that wages be linked to productivity but to prepare an index of
productivity of an enterprise or of an industry has not been possible so far. In concrete
situations the approach of labour to productivity may also be different from that of the
management. The enterprise can improve only its physical productivity, the value
productivity being determined by forces beyond its control. It is not uncommon,
therefore, for physical and value productivity to move in the opposite directions. It
may be in the interest of labour to cite the case of gains in physical productivity when
the management may be harping on value productivity and vice versa. When physical
productivity is improving, though not the value productivity, is it just and fair for
labour to demand a high wage ? Is it fair on the part of the management to deny the
claim because there has been no improvement in value productivity ? There may come
into existence a reverse situation. Value productivity may be improving because of the
market forces even though the physical productivity is static or declining. Should
labour be entitled to claim a share in the improved value productivity ? Should the
management be under an obligation to meet these wage claims ? Thus, the distinction
between value productivity and physical productivity has serious implications for wage
negotiations and industrial relations. Not only that there is a dispute about the meaning
and measurement of productivity but also the same productivity data may be used by
labour and capital in different ways. Both sides tend to emphasise that aspect of
productivity which supports their case. This is not a satisfactory position.
2.0. The Quality of Human Input
Of the two kinds of inputs, material and human, the human input assumes a crucial
role in any movement for improving productivity. If there were no human inputs, the
productive process could become a more mechanical process governed by the laws of
physics and chemistry. Given the technological input and other materials, productivity
becomes a function of human input. This statement can as well be reserved. But the

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importance of the human input lies in the fact that it has a will and is not subject to the
laws of physics.
It is a well known fact that the quality of human input is the determinant of the
level of productivity under a particular technological situation. This quality has two
aspects : (a) the capacity to work, i.e., technical efficiency depending upon training,
education, physical climate, standard of living, work environment etc. and (b) the will
to work, depending upon motivation and morale. A management may take extreme
care to recruit technically the most competent people and provide them with the latest
possible technology and other inputs necessary for production, still, if the will to
work is weak, a plant may not attain its rated capacity and productivity may still
continue to be low. It is recognised on all sides that there is a gap between the potential
performance of the human input and its actual realisation. C.J. Hawkins has very
aptly remarked :
“Production functions are in reality imposed by the laws of
humanity and not of physics. People are not molecules, be
having in a constant, consistent, mechanical fashion, alwyas
the same. universally yielding and identical response to a
given set of stimuli. People are a composite of likes, dislikes,
emotions, urges, morals, and much more. They need
motivating to give of their best. Their best varies from day
to day, from place to place from factory to factory. No two
human inputs are indentical. One hundred men under one
manager will produce a different output from the same men
under a different manager. Man can vary the quantity and
quality of his output. His output almost never achieves the
maximum of which he is capable; the difference between
this and what has been achieved has been called ‘X’ in
efficiency.”2
This gap between potentiality and actual performance is the result of diverse
sociological and personal factors. Chief among them being the aliention of the human
input, that is, the workers, from the enterprise. It is self evident that modern industrial
workers working for a wage or a salary have very different motivation from that of a
self employed person. The self employed person who owns his own tools, controls the
production process, and provides the raw material, is also the owner of the final product.
If he works hard and gives his best to the production process the product of his efforts
will directly accrue to him. He is the only beneficiary of his efforts and also a very

2. C. J. Hawkins, “Some Effects of Workers’ Participation” in David F. Hesthfield (Editor), Economics of

Codetermination, p. 36.

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direct beneficiary. Thus, he does not need any additional stimulus to induce him to put
forth his best. This becomes all the more evident where the producer is also the direct
consumer of his products. His welfare is directly linked to the quality and quantity of
his efforts.
The situation completely changes when he turns into a wage or salary earner. In a
large organisation, his efforts are merged in the efforts of hundred of others. The
results of his efforts are rarely known to him. Not only that, the link between his
efforts and product of his enterprise becomes tenuous, but also that, he receives a
fixed remuneration not linked to his efforts and productivity.
The relationship between the employer and his employees is a necessitous
relationship flowing from the necessity of the worker for a job and the necessity of the
employer for labour. Therefore, the worker tends to give the least which is just sufficient
enough to protect his job and the employer also seeks to give him the least barely
sufficient enough to retain the worker in the firm. It is the relationship of giving the
least on both sides that leads to what has been termed ‘X’ inefficiency mentioned
earlier. The capacity to work may be there but the will to work is absent. Chamberlain
calls this situation a relationship of ‘conjunction’ and not of ‘co-operation’3. This
relationship is vividily and dramatically illustrated in the answer to a question which
you can put to the workers of any enterprise. Who are you working for ? The question
is invariably answered as ‘Working for the TISCO, TELCO, or the BATA’ ? Therefore,
if this be so, should one expect a worker to give his best when he is working for
somebody else ? Sociologists, social-psychologists, human rationalists and
management consultants have been toiling and experimenting with and analysing the
depths of human motivation in a work situation. They have been trying to find out
ways by which this gap could be eliminated altogether, if possible and reduced in
extent so far far as feasible. To name a few A.H. Marlow4, Chris Argyris, /Frederick
Herzberg”, Dougls McGregor6, David C. MeClelland7. Victor H. Vroom8, Kae H,
Chung9, Rudhard Stollberg10, P. N. Singh11, K. K. Singh12, and others made significant
3. Niel W. Chamberlain, Collective Bargaining, p. 445.
4. A. H. Marlow, Motivation and Personality, Harper and Row Publisheres Inc., New York 1954.
5. Frederick Herzberg, The Motivation to Work, John Wiley & Sons inc., New York, 1959.
6. Douglas McGregor, Human Side of Enterprise, McGraw Hill, New York, 1960.
7. David C. Mc Clelland and David G. Winter, Motivating Ecnomic Achievement,
The Free Press, New York, 1969.
8. Voctor H. Vroom, Work and Motivation, John Wiley, London, 1964.
9. Kae H. Chung, “A. Markov Chain Model of Human Needs : An Extension of Marlow's Need Theory”, in
Academy of Management Journal, June, 1969.
10. Rudhard Stollberg. Motivation and Stimulation of Socialist Work Behaviour.
11. P. N. Singh and Robert J Wherey Sr., “Ranking of Job Factors by Factory Workers in India”, in Personal
Psychology, Spring. 1963.
12. K.K. Singh, “Hopes and Fears of the Industrial Workers” in Suresh Srivastava (Ed.),
Behavioural Science in Management, Asia Publishing House, Bombay, 1967.
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contributions towards the understanding of human behaviour in wage-employment
situation. But these studies are so much conditioned by the particular social, economic,
political, cultural and religious environment of the particular place and the country
and so much limited by the particular technology and methodology of research and
experiments that conclusions from one conflict with the conclusions of others. More
important than this is the fact that the technology of steel production in Soviet Union
may be the same as in the U.S.A. or Germany or Great Britain or Japan, but the
managerial practices, particularly personal management practices differ exceedingly
from country to country. Therefore, technologies of production can be transplanted
from one country to another but not the technologies of man-management. The
motivations of workers in a socialist country are in no way comparable to the
motivations of workers in a capitalist country nor those in a semi-feudal, semi-capitalist
country like India.
3. 0 The Quality of Industrial Relations
It has been said so far that given the technological and material inputs and a given
capacity of the worker, the will to work materially affects the productivity of the
workers and, therefore, of the enterprise. Apart from the other influences on the morale
of the workers, the quality of industrial relations has a direct bearing on the workers”
will to work. The term ‘industrial relations’ here, covers: (a) the relationship between
the employer and his individual employees; (b) the relationship between the employer
and the union; and also (c) the relationship between the workers and their unions.
When it is said that the quality of industrial relations has an important bearing on
productivity, it is to be realised that it is not so much the role of strikes and lock outs
that I have in mind while emphsising the importance of industrial relations to
productivity. Apart from the fact of the open stoppages of production or even the
announced ‘go slow’ or ‘work to rule’ practices which directly reduce production
even under normal conditions when the work processes are supposed to function
smoothly, the quality of industrial relations continues to influence the worker's
behaviour and his attitude to work.
And while stressing the responsibility of the management for the quality of
industrial relations, the limitations of individual management, in this respect, have
also to be born in mind. There are many factors influencing the quality of industrial
relations that are beyond the control of any individual management. Factors like political
climate of the country, multiplicity of trade unions, trade union rivalry, intra-union
factionalism and economic factors like inflation and depression, market fluctuations
and technological changes can not be contolled by any one management. They
constitute the political and economic environment within which the enterprise has to
function. This environment influences the approach and behaviour of the workers and

7
their unions and also the managment. Given these limitations, what can a management
do to improve the quality of its industrial relations ? Is there much scope for unilateral
action on the part of the management to improve this quality ? Can the management
by its own action evoke such response from the individual workers and their
organisations as well contribute to improving the quality of industrial relations ? I
think the answers to these questions are in the positive. And, if they are not in the
positive, they ought to be in the positive, otherwise the fate of private enterprise is
going to be highly uncertain.
But before an attempt is made to show how the answers to these questions can be
in the positive, let us have a look at the way in which the managements have been
managing their enterprises so far.
3.1 Traditional Ways of Managing the Enterprise, Particularly, the Human
Resource
Traditionally the manager either as an individual or as a group has been himself
the owner of the enterprise or his representative. As such the entire responsibility for
and the power to take decision rested with the owner and his representatives. The
decisions were in respect of not only material inputs but also the human resources.
The owner was the master and the worker his servant and the relationship between the
two was known as the master servant relationship. Orders were given from above and
obediance expected from below. As organisations became large, a hierarchy of
management was created, the workers being at the bottom of this pyramid. Cogent
political and economic arguments were available to support this arrangement and the
system of the management of economic enterprises, chief among them being what
has been called the golden rule of capitalism, that is, risk and control go together.
Today, the situation has changed, no doubt, and there are statutory laws and
collective agreements to regulate the exercise of managerial power. But as traditions
die hard, managements’ reliance on their traditional theory and practice of management
has not completely disappeared.
3.2 Tools and Techniques of Management
As a corollary to this theory of management, the tools and techiniques of
management centerted round what has been termed as the carrot and stick theory. A
donkey can be made to move or quicken its pace either by the use of a stick from
behind or by dangling a carrot in front or by using both. Similarly, the worker can be
motivated to work and, work still better, by a suitable combination of punishment and
reward, the capital punishment being in this context dismissal from employment. Peter
Drucker calls the sticks “the big fears and the little fears”. In a situation like ours
where mass unemployment prevails, the fear of dismissal can still be a potent motivating
force. But in these countries where jobs are easily available and where unemplyment
insurance can cover upto seventyfive to eighty percent of the normal salary, the big
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fear has become impotent. In India also, the management cannot, now, very freely use
either th big sticks of dismissals or the little sticks of disciplinary actions to extract
the best from the workers. But the use of carrot as a tool of motivation still continues
still continues to be potent in country where there is so much of poverty and low
standard of living. Though here, again, the role of wages has its own limitations in
view of the inflationary pressures and the workers’ efforts to catch up with the ever
rising cost of living.
The net result is that there is a crisis in managerial techniques. Old techniques do
not work; new tchniques have not been evolved; sticks have bcome ineffective; carrots
are scarce theory ‘X’ is replaced by theory ‘Y’; supervisors are trained in human
relation; paternalistic autocracy is substituted by participative management; but nothing
works. There is crisis all around and the search for overcoming workers’ apathy,
indifference, enstrangement, nay even open hostility persists. This crisis in the
managerial techniques is amply illustrated in the following paragraph :
But they are simply helpless in the face of the growing evils
of malingering tawdriness, absenteeism, go-slow or, worse,
proclivity to sabotage. Inter-union rivalry has once again
begun to take a heavier toll of productivity in many units
than wage disputes. In several others, violence is not only in
the air but it actually erupts all too often. No supervisor, let
alone the top manager, can do his job properly if he is forced
to go about it in fear of his life. In the luckiest of enterprises
respect for authority has eroded dangerously and the chain
of command has been weakened most to the point of
extinction at the shop floor.13
Though a similar or perhaps a much stronger indictment of management policies
and practices can be prepared by any trade unionist, the above paragraph correctly
reflects the labour situation in most of the enterprises in the country today. There is an
overall climate of distrust; a distrust on the part of the worker, as if he is sheep facing
a lion; a distrust on the part of the managment, as if it is facing a butcher who is bent
upon killing the goose that lays the golden eggs. No management appears convinced
that it is receiving a fair day's work for a fair day's wage and workers certainly are not
convinced that they are receiving a fair day's wage for a fair day's work. Perhaps, both
are right in their own ways—because both are the products of a particular system, an
economic and social milieu in which every one is for himself trying to grab as much
as he can, leaving the devil to take the hind most. There is no rational principle or
rationally agreed consensus to determine who is to receive how much out of the
collective wealth that the people produce with the natural and material resources of
this country.
13. K. C. Khanna “The Alienation of Business : Dangers of a Predatory Society” in
The Times of India, November 14, 1978, p. 6.

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 However, operating within these limitations the management group as the leader
of a given enterprise has the responsibility of doing its best to create a climate of
cooperation, with honesty and sincerity of purpose and not playing a game of hide
and seek with the workers and their organisations.
Each firm or enterprise operates in a dynamic environment where technologies
change fast; new products and processes come into existence; markets expand and
contract; sheer survivval needs, not to speak of the needs of growth and expansion,
denand continuous adjustment. It is this process of adjustment that most of the time
subjects the industrial relations of an enterprise to serious strains and stresses. The
process of adjustment can not be successfully undertaken unless the entire organisation
cooperates. If the different elements of the organisation start pulling in different
directions or if one section tries to transfer to another the entire costs and strains of
adjustment, the challange of adjustment cannot be successfully met. The management
as the leader of the enterprise has to carry other elements with it. The sagacity and the
wisdom of the management lies in the successful completion of this task. To me it
appears that nothing can help the management better than trusting its employees and
their organisations. If love begets love, hate begets hate, then certainly trust will beget
trust.
There are numerous examples where management have made a clean breast of
the economic and financial postion of the enterprise and have placed all the cards on
the table and thereby obtained very hearty co-operation from the workers in lifting the
organisation out of economic morass.
Who has a greater stake in the continued, successful and prosperous existence of
an economic enterprise ? The few people who have put in their capital in the enterprise ?
The management group which enjoys not only better economic remuneration but also
positions of prestige, power and influence ? The lower rank supervisors and other
workers who have no place to go to in the event of the closure of the enterprise and
who have only the continued existance of the enterprise as the source of their
livelihood ? I am not one of those who believe that the workers are short-sighted,
interested only in their immediate interests and who will go on indulging in acts and
behaviour which will kill the enterprise. It was in this spirit of confidence in the workers
that many enterprise in the U. K. completed the task of rehabilitating their enterprises
through productivity agreements. Tasks which had baffled both the unions and the
management for quite long were successfuly overcome; work practices which the
trade unions and workers were never prepared to forego were given up; power and
functions were conferred on managements which they were not permitted to enjoy
earlier. These are examples of rationalisation without tears, automation without forced

10
unemployment and improving productivity with built-in mechanisms of sharing the
gains.
While surveying and summarising the gains from productivity bargaining and
agreements, Research Paper-4 of the Royal Commission on Trade Unions and
Employers’ Associations in Great Britain says :
In addition to the concrete improvements which managements
have aimed to secure by means of productivity bargaining
other move imponderable gains are claimed. Various
undertakings place high value on improvements in morale
and in management control and confidence that have
accompanied productivity bargaining........ The list, which
records progress in dealing with many of the major current
obstacles to better use of labour, includes : removal of
excessive overtime; relaxation of demarcation; abandonment
of mates; increased flexibility in use of labour; reduction of
manning; greater flexibility in hours of work; cutting-down
of time wasting practices; removal of limitations on output
imposed by workers; introduction of work measurement;
introduction of new equipment; increase apprenticeship
ratios; and other progress.14
3. 3 The Role of Trade Unions
In any effort to improve the quality of industrial relations and thereby to create a
climate for improved productivity, the trade unions have a major role to play. There
are many employers who still look upon trade unions with suspicion and distrust and
view them as illegitimate organisations. The presence of outsiders as the leaders of
trade unions further aggravates their suspicions. The trade unions are supposed to
introduce distrust into employer-worker relations by encouraging its members to “take
a ‘false’ conflict view of the work situation.15. What would have been otherwise a
happy harmonious relationship is vitiated by the presence of the trade unions. At one
point of time this picture of the role of the trade unions was all pervasive in the circle
of employers, though today the traditional hostility to trade unions has somewhat
softened. But the conviction that the trade unions have a role to play as a representative
organisation of the workers, has still to acquire a firmer basis.
14. The Royal Commission on Trade Unions and Employers’ Association, Research
Paper, 4, p. 23.
15. Alan Fox, Beyond Contract : Work, Power and Trust Relations, p. 249.

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 It has to be borne in mind that the trade unions grew out of concrete objective
situations where in the workers had no other way out except seeking to organise and
present a united front against the depredations of the owners of business enterprises.
The trade unions will continue to play this role and the workers will continue to keep
organising and developing a self defence mechanism so long as the present economic
system continues. Trade unions are a child of industrialism under a capitalist framework.
Their existence, however, inconvenient to some can not be wished away. They came
with capitalism and will also disappear with it.
Trade unions do not create conflict between the employer and his employees.
Conflict is inherent in the situation. They merely give an institutional expression to
the conflict which would have assumed chaotic proportion in their absence.
It is futile to talk of trade unions being irresponsible or making them saner and
responsible to the society or the consumers. The trade union is a working class
organisation and the trade union leader is responsible to the members of the trade
union. This is the only test of the responsibility of a trade union. It is in the very nature
of trade unionism to act as the representative of its members. If it behaves in any other
way, it is acting contrary to its nature. If it hurts others, it is only incidental to its main
objective of protecting the interests of its members. It is in the very nature of fire to
burn, rather its duty is to burn. That is its ‘dharma’. No body should have any grudge
against fire if it burns and hurts. The only expectation that one should have of a trade
union is that it should serve its members rightly and effectively. If the employers
continue the habit of glossing over the conflict inherent in any wage-labour situation
and continue to talk only of the family spirit and of their being only one side in the
industry and not two, they will soon come to grief. The two sides are there whatever
the extent of the conflict. One can not exist without the other. The employment
relationship in a large industrial organisation of today is not simply a marriage of
convenience, it is more like sacramental marriage. In individual workers may come
and go but the collectivity continues to exist. Howsoever unhappy be relationship,
howsoever frequent the prinpricks, the relationship has to continue without a divorce.
Therefore, there is not much that, an external agency like the law and the government
can do to make the relationship smooth and harmonious. No law of marriage can
make a marriage stable and happy. The law at best can provide only for a peaceful
divorce. In the context of industrial relations the law has only limited role to play in
making the day-to-day relationship cooperative and smooth. The law at best, again,
can take care of only occasional outbursts. Working out a satisfactory relationship on
a satisfactory basis in a conflict situation inherent in the system is the responsibility of
the two sides.
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 It is wrong to assume that a trade union leadership can be more militant than the
rank and file. To an employer every dispute raised by a union may appear to have
political motivations, particularly in the context when there is a very close link between
the trade union movement and the political parties. I am not contending that there are
no trade union leaders who do not use it for purposes other than promoting the interests
of its members. What I am empathising is that if the institution of trade unionism were
being manipulated for illegitimate purposes on any large scale, the trade union
movement would not have attained the success that it has.
If this be so, then the employers have to appreciate the role of trade unions in the
maintenance of a stable pattern of industrial relations. I may be pardoned, if I feel
bold enough to assert that an employer gets the trade union he deserves, just as the
people get the government that they deserve. Integrating the trade unions into the
institutional structure of the enterprise is the prime responsibility of the management.
A socialist society achieves this integration in much more effective and efficient way.
Many capitalist countries have sought this integration through codetermination and
workers’ participation in management, but their achievement is halting and limping.
Sharing what has been so far called, managerial prerogatives with the trade unions
either through collective bargaining, pure and simple, or through productivity
bargaining or various forms of workers’ participation in management, has resulted in
at least partial integration of the trade unions in the administrative structure of the
enterprise. It is now realised in the management circle that no efforts at improving
productivity can be successful, if unions function as a party in opposition. Similarly,
unions also are by and large, veering round the view point that promotion of productive
efficiency can be left exclusively in the hands of the management. The unions know
that they have been constantly encroaching upon traditional management functions
such as recruitment, training, placement, promotion, transfer, etc. which influence
productivity. Therefore, they further realise that promotion of productive efficiency is
also becoming one of their objectives. Therefore, the managements and the unions,
though originally they started from divergent directions, are converging. Hence, as
mentioned earlier, the creation of an industrial relations climate conducive to integration
becomes the urgent goal of union-management relationship under the condition
prevailing in India today. There are people who are genuinely convinced that such an
integration is neither possible nor desirable from the point of view of the ultimate
liberation of the working class from wage slavery. They may be right but till the
attempts, at changing the present economic and political system by bringing into
existence a social co-operative commonwealth where in every body does his best to
contribute his maximum to the social wealth and receives from the pool according to
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his needs and contribution, succeed, improving productivity and insisting on their
proper share in it becomes the legitimate function of the Indian trade unions. In order
to enable the trade unions to discharge this responsibility, the promotion of their security
and growth should become the objective of the government labour policy. Distrusting
the trade unions, shipping at them every now and then and imposing responsibility
from above will not deliver the goods.
✬✬✬

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