Knowing and understanding the labor law is one of the key elements of HR. Nowadays, companies have to be especially aware of discrimination claims. This is very problematic because. especially dangerous can be discrimination based on appearances. Many jobs, where the employees are in direct contact with customers require these employees to have a strict dress code and in some cases even to hide their tattoos or piercings. These 'accessories' are usually perceived as negative in the society.
Also, in some jobs customers have certain expectations regarding the people, who serve them: a female shop assistant in a makeup store will appeal much more reliable if she will look well put together with precise makeup. That's why I find it legitimate to require from the employer to define the required dress code. However, the dress code always has to be justifiable regarding the type of jobs and not based on unreasonable requirements.
Employers have to especially aware of the legal aspects in the following areas:
- hiring (deciding which people to hire)
- employee compensation
- what benefits to offer
- how to accommodate employees with dependents
- termination (how and when)
Our book suggests several reasons that justify the need of understanding the labor laws. Firstly, doing HRM in compliance with laws is simply a part of a good business practice and the right thing to do, also very important for company's sustainability. Further, understanding the legal environment helps the company to realize the limitations of not only the HR but also the legal department. And finally, as we discussed many times, if company pays attention to all laws and acts related to HR and has good evidence for all its actions, the company can avoid expensive, long-term lawsuits that cause a bad publicity for the company.
There are many challenges to the legal compliance and this is the reason why so many companies struggle with them. Those are mainly:
- the legal landscape is changing constantly and some of the common issues are not completely covered by laws, so the decision of a court can vary
- as most laws, HR law is very complex, with long regulation as it tries to cover large portion of cases for different types of companies.
- Some of the employment strategies are highly convective?: eg. discrimination protection on one side and affirmative actions (for example firms required to have a certain amount of women among the board members)
- Laws cannot cover all cases that might happen within an employment and that's why even when following the laws, an unexpected situation with unclear consequence may arise.
Even though the EEA provide employers with guidelines to provide fair and equal employment, there are pitfalls that the company may get into. Our book suggest that a company should practice sound management as the best way to avoid those. The specific practices are then mainly providing training for managers and supervisors to implement their decisions regarding employees according to the law, then a company should always have a way to solve complaints and problems internally without taking those problems out to the public. As we discussed earlier, all important decisions made by both, the employees and employers should always be well documented as a protection for both of those sides. The book also highlights the importance of honest communication between employers and employees, because even something this simple can have an impact on working relationship.
The second topic of this week is working with organized labor. On Wednesday, we had a lecture very relevant to this topic, in a way even more than our course book, because the guest speaker talked about a special labor union of business people in Finland. Our course book on the other hand focuses only on the situation in the U.S. and in my opinion especially this topic differs a lot among different countries.
Organizing staff in union can be very beneficial for the employees as it is some kind of security for them and they are not 'alone' in case a perceived unfair situation occurs. On the other hand, it is very challenging for the companies as they must spend a lot of time negotiating with those unions.
People join those organizations for a variety of reasons, mainly they feel that they couldn't be as strong by themselves when negotiating conditions with managers and they believe that a membership in an union will provide them with a better salary and higher job security. Another reason can be for example a peer pressure from other colleagues, because as we heard on Wednesday, a union can only be strong in the negotiating if it represents the majority of employees and their interests.
In the US the union are usually based on the type of job and their main task is a collective bargaining for improved working conditions. In the recent years, there has also been a growth of unions in the public sector.
Our book gives example of two other countries- Japan and Germany. The German system is praised for its ability to involve all levels of workers in the decision making process which results in a greater satisfaction among those workers. In Japan, the trade union have worked closely with companies and they have been able to reach a mutually beneficial cooperation.
In the Czech Republic, the system works slightly differently, usually each company (from a certain number of employees obviously) has its own labor union that is barging for the interests of the employees of that company only. Usually the membership fee is very slow, however the labor unions have traditionally had a large power over negotiating the conditions. The best known is KOVO, which is a labor union of Skoda auto. This organization is 'hated' by the company because it keeps requiring rising salaries and other benefits for the employees. All employees in the public sector (employed by state agencies- teachers, council office workers, etc.) have the opportunity to join this one union that represents the interest of the public sector.
The union however, has not such a large power as in Finland and the areas, in which the negotiations can happen are mainly only compensations and working hours. Ares such as maternity leave is protected by the law and companies or unions cannot adjust it. However, the maternity leave is very long- a parent can be home with the child for up to three years.
Companies choose one of the two following approaches regarding the labor unions. Either the company practices a union acceptance and view those unions as legitimate representation of their employees and allow the unions to form the working conditions together with the company. The other approach is union avoidance and keep those unions out of the workplace. This approach can be suitable for smaller companies, where the management is willing to listen to the employees directly and communicate the conditions together. However, completely avoiding any kind of discussion and only setting the rules by the management doesn't really make much business sense as not many employees would be willing to work in such environment.
The Labor Relations Process is done in three phases:
- union organizing
- collective bargaining
- contract administration
In the first phrase, the problems with union socialization are addressed by company's management. In the second phase, union representatives negotiate with the management the ideal condition for the workers. After the two parties agree, these conditions are formalized in the labor contracts and become standard for current and future employees. The process however does not end there, in the third phase, the day-to-day administration of the workplace is needed to ensure, the rules are followed and all employees have an equal opportunities at work. Another part of this face (in fact the most important one) is managing grievance- employees' complaints.
Unions affect all parts of HR and companies have to be aware of that and consider the unions with every staffing decision. It can also be very costly for the company, as unionized employees tend to receive generally larger compensation.
Based on what I read in our course book and what I heard from Wednesday's lecture, it all seems that joining a labor union is 'the only right thing to do' for all employees, because there are only benefits to being a part of such organization. I believe there must also be some downsides from the employee's perspective- otherwise everybody would be a member. Career Trend lists some of major disadvantages:
- Fees. Even though these are not that high and can be a matter of a small part of one's salary. I believe that some workers do not see the value they get for their money so they might feel that they are just paying for living for those, who work for the labor union
- Membership in a union also puts the employee in a role 'being against the employer'- the situation can be perceived as that the employer represents the evil that want from the employee maximal performance for minimal money and thus the employee needs a protection. However in today's working life that does not have to the case and many employers are willing to listen to suggestions of individual employees.
- Even though the union speaks for the majority, every employee is individual and everybody perceives something else as fair and important to them- in that case it makes more sense to talk to the manager directly about possible changes rather than relaying on the labor union.
Sources
Career Trend. The disadvantages of being a union member. Available from: https://careertrend.com/info-7756905-disadvantages-being-union-member.html. Accessed: 19.4.2018.
Gómez-Mejia, L. & Balkin, D. & Cardy, R. Managing Human Resources. Pearson Global Edition. 8th edition.
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