Industrial relations
[4][better source needed] Some academics, universities and other institutions regard human resource management as synonymous with one or more of the above disciplines,[5] although this too is controversial.
Industrial relations scholarship assumes that labour markets are not perfectly competitive and thus, in contrast to mainstream economic theory, employers typically have greater bargaining power than employees.
Industrial relations scholars therefore frequently study the diverse institutional arrangements that characterize and shape the employment relationship—from norms and power structures on the shop floor, to employee voice mechanisms in the workplace, to collective bargaining arrangements at company, regional, or national level, to various levels of public policy and labour law regimes,[citation needed] to varieties of capitalism[10] (such as corporatism, social democracy, and neoliberalism).
Industrial relations scholars and practitioners, therefore, support institutional interventions to improve the workings of the employment relationship and to protect workers' rights.
In the workplace, pluralists, therefore, champion grievance procedures, employee voice mechanisms such as works councils and trade unions, collective bargaining, and labour–management partnerships.
[13] These institutional interventions are all seen as methods for balancing the employment relationship to generate not only economic efficiency but also employee equity and voice.
[14] In contrast, the Marxist-inspired critical camp sees employer–employee conflicts of interest as sharply antagonistic and deeply embedded in the socio-political-economic system.
[citation needed] In Britain, another progressive industrialist, Montague Burton, endowed chairs in industrial relations at the universities of Leeds, Cardiff, and Cambridge in 1929–1930.
[19] Beginning in the early 1930s there was a rapid increase in membership of trade unions in the United States, and with that came frequent and sometimes violent labour–management conflict.
[citation needed] The number of academic programs in industrial relations is therefore shrinking, while fields such as human resource management and organizational behaviour grow.
[citation needed] Trade unions are deemed legitimate representatives of employees,[31] conflict is resolved through collective bargaining and is viewed not necessarily as a bad thing and, if managed, could, in fact, be channeled towards evolution and positive change.
In unitarism, the organization is perceived as an integrated and harmonious whole with the idea of "one happy family" in which management and other members of the staff all share a common purpose by emphasizing mutual co-operation.
[33] Consequently, trade unions are deemed unnecessary[34] since the loyalty between employees and organizations are considered mutually exclusive, and there cannot be two sides of industry.
Whilst there may be periods of acquiescence, the Marxist view would be that institutions of joint regulation would enhance rather than limit management's position as they presume the continuation of capitalism rather than challenge it.
In an international context, it is a subfield of labor history that studies the human relations with regard to work in its broadest sense and how this connects to questions of social inequality.
"[36] More specifically in a North American and strictly modern context, labor relations is the study and practice of managing unionized employment situations.
