THE IMPACT OF INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS ON EMPLOYEE PRODUCTIVITY IN NIGERIA
THE TRADE UNION AND ITS FUNCTIONS
Trade union might be build from various perspective in terms of definitions
Akpala (1982) defines trade union as a continuous association of wages earners who as individual producers are complementary to another but who stand to the employees in relations of dependence to strengthen their power to bargaining with employers. In terms of trade union objectives and functions, Yusuf (1984) P. 16 defines trade union as an association of employees for promotion and dependence of terms and conditions of employment of their members including their standard of living. It can be clearly seen from all definitions above that trade union is referred to as any combination of wages earners whether temporary or permanent with the principle purpose of regulating relationship between workers and management in an organization and to impose restrictive conditions in the conduct of any business and also to provide benefits to their members.
2.3 FUNCTIONS OF TRADE UNIONS
According to Akpala (1984) p. 32 the functions performed by trade union depends on the unions environment which may include economic, political and social system and he’s kind of social legislation applying in the area. the following functions are significant to unions in organization. The functions include”.
- Collective bargaining and collective effort.
- Usage of sanctions
- Services for members
- Influencing government and organization management
- Joint consultation
- Impermissible cases, political activities
Trade union in bank of Agriculture (BOA) Kaduna serves as a representative of general workers as they have right to bar gin with the management and on the other hand employers use trade unions as a means of passing rules and regulation governing the employment contractor to the employees.
2.4 TYPES OF TRADE UNION
The trade union can be categorized based on the kind of social legislation applying in the environment. Drawing our example from Nigeria where different types are richly represented, Ubeku (1975) P. 44 categorized it as follows:
- Craft union
- Industrial union
- General workers union
- Company union
Fro m these categorizes, it has been observed that trade union exist not only among skilled or semi-skilled workers in bank of Agriculture (BOA) Kaduna, but further comprises craft men who acquire their skills through apprenticeship and supervised training.
2.5 COLLECTIVE BARGAINING
David (1993) define collective bargaining as “that method of determining working conditions and terms of employment through negotiation between an employer, a group of employers or one or move representative of workers organization with a view of reaching an agreement” we can observe that collective bargaining regulates managerial relations as well as pay relations, in view of this collective bargaining has a central role to play for the effectiveness of industrial relations.
2.6 THE PROCESS OF COLLECTIVE BARGAINING
According to Ubeka (1975) p 19 ideally parties to collective bargaining come to the negotiation table which open mind, ready to listen to the suggestion and agreements of other party. They are not supposed to have adamant position but to shift their stand whenever convincing argument are adduced by the opposite side. But this is far from the practice. In some cases like the bank of Agriculture Kaduna there are flows of words totally unrelated to the issues at state and also missing of argument feeling are sometimes so high that logical reasoning educe both parties, this happens where both parties are made up of inexperienced people where the management team is led by the personal manager who has not learnt the art of negotiations try to impress his colleague and regard it as failure on his part to go away from the negotiation table without achieving all they came for. One should expect on “unhealthy” atmosphere at such negotiations. But with experience, situation tends to improve. It is important to recognize that both workers and management have a stake in the organization. When the management and trade union officials have disagreement on principles, they should be able to arrive at a practical and workable agreement.
2.7 INDUSTRIAL CONFLICT
For a fuller comprehension of the phenomena described as industrial conflict, especially strikes and lock out, a working knowledge of the nature of the economy remains undependable. These phenomena are commonly associated with industrial establishments, were a sizeable proportion of workers depend on wages for survival just like most workers in bank of Agriculture (BOA) Kaduna. The production of goods and services in any economy could be based on private ownership of means of production in the case of centrally planned economies or in a combination of both. Otobo (2000) P.13 defines industrial conflict as the total vange of behaviour and attitudes that express opposition and divergent orientations between individual owners and manager in the other hand and working people and their organization on the other hand. This definition suggests that industrial conflict occurs between groups that are at the collective levels, personality and other structural variables coming into play. But if tends the restrict the phenomena to what transpires between two (2) opposing groups owner managers, various working people and their organization. Amayak (1991) P. 33 views conflict as the social science from the perspective of goals. It is in other words, conflict of goals of the individual, group of individuals or organization that make up the universe.
Otobo (2000) P. 22 says that industrial conflict may be organized and unorganized organized conflict is likely to form part of a conscious strategy to change the situation which is identified as the source of discontent in unorganized conflict according to Otobo the worker responds to the situation in the only way open to him as an individual that is by withdrawal from the sources of discontent or individual Sabotage and rudeness. Unorganized expressions of conflict are often not veganded as conflict by the persons in the situation.