Industrial Relations

The context has been changed and hence goalpost needs to be changed too while dealing with unions and managing Industrial Relations. Please watch my interview in "Expert Talk". Link is here >> https://youtu.be/QoXB8zdg4LM

Control or influence

Sometimes, some situations disturb us a lot. Those situations make us unhappy. Some situations have an impact on our life. Few years back, I had to face the labour unrest in one of the plants. There was a deadlock on the charter of demand and wage increase, which they were expecting. The organization was fair, and these all workmen were treated like family members. They were given all benefits from the day they joined. They were treated the same as white collar employees. However, they still approached the political party and formed the union. The political leader who was guiding them was expecting the favour from the company. It was not possible to entertain those union leaders. However, the management team was unhappy with the situation. Finally the organization decided not to budge on their demands which were unrealistic. This situation created unnecessary pressure on managers and their supervisors. They never experienced such a hostile situation in the past.

Once we realised that the hostile situation was because of certain reasons, I started to interact with workmen and supervisors informally. Further we established a cross functional team specially to manage this situation. It was necessary to build the trust and courage within the employees. Most of them were not interested in creating the issue to the organization and were expecting to resolve the issues asap.

When approaching a problem or any situation, it is important to break down the aspects of each situation so you can better understand how to approach the situation or event. Breaking it down can help you better understand your potential approach instead of engaging in unproductive issues and unnecessary disappointments.    

We started training and educating people on the following aspects.

• Response of both parties to a situation
• What aspects we both can control
• And how can we engage, educate and empower them to deal with  

First part was more complex as we were dealing with human reactions.  We engaged everybody including internal union office bearers. During the situation we started discussing what is in control of local management and what is not, further we also discussed what is in control of workmen and union office bearers. This started breaking the ice. We also listed all the good points and benefits the organization was offering and how nicely workmen and union is cooperating. It took time, but workmen started reflecting. Finally, we agreed that we can control the situation and we don’t need to go for coercive actions. Workmen realised that the intentions of the management are good. This built the trust. 

We agreed the model with the union as per the following,

Situation >> Influence or Control >> Response >> Accept

During discussions, we always had an empathetic approach while dealing with the office bearers and workmen. We were aware that they were misled. Every point of the charter was discussed on this ground. During the process, we also discussed that if we don’t agree what will be the consequence on the organization and relationship. If they want to take it to the next level or escalate things like disciplinary actions, agitations, going for conciliation, going slow etc. what will be the long impact on both. Of course this was presented with facts, figures and examples. 

Within a month we signed the MOU and within 15 days all clauses from both sides were implemented.  After that we signed the CLA happily.         

(Opinions are purely personal & does not represent my organizations, current or past) 

Author's book are available on Amazon, Flipkart, Pothi and BookGanga 

It's not always about power

Last week one of the former union committee members working in my one of the earlier organizations called me. We used to call him DC that time. We reconnected on Facebook, exchanged numbers and we got reconnected. He is retired now. During the discussion we discussed our old days. We recollected our memories about the organization. He was very aggressive and one of the strong members of the union. The union was affiliated to the strong political party. The central union had assigned one of the secretaries to the unit of our factory. He was an uneducated greedy chap always expecting gratification in exchange of maintaining the better industrial relations. However, as a multinational company, we had a code of conduct and it was not possible to entertain him. Good part was our workmen were cooperative though they were resistant to the changes and new practices. 

During this period, I was using the framework called CCDP technique, which means Culture, Communication, Directions and Power. (I have explained the framework during one of the panel discussions. Please read the report and the framework). I had presented this framework along with actions and results the organization got in one of the conferences in 2002 and it was recognised very well.

DC was committed to the workmen’s cause. Other members used to put him in front for the confrontation. He was genuine and spontaneous but non-political. Sometimes your good character is the weakness in some circumstances. Because of his nature he was always on my radar.

During 2003, the central body was sacked by the party supremo. New body was inducted. Our local union unit also got a new secretary to coordinate. We decided to give the presentation to the central body about the organization, challenges we were facing, the resistance of workmen while implementing new initiatives etc. We also wanted to give the economic challenges, cost movement of raw material and why we need to be productive and capable. Our sourcing head, Pankaj, supported a lot to make the story convincing.

Before starting the meeting, DC stood up and asked the permission from the President and Secretary to address his grievance. I thought now, DC is going to derail the discussion.

He said, “Bidwaik Saheb, (sir) has not consulted us while making the presentation and we as a committee member are not aware about what he is going to present. Hence, we will not agree on anything, what he is presenting.”

The President of the central body just said, “Let him present. We will see later what to do with that.”

I put my points on behalf of the management. After the presentation, the president asked DC, “What is wrong in this presentation? He presented the data and facts. It is good to know the organization, the story they have. If you have better arguments let's discuss this.”

DC got upset but I was relieved by the response of the central body. It made our job easy to engage them further. However convincing DC was a major challenge. Transparency and genuine interest in the person make your job easy. I did the same. I was always open with committee members, afterall they were our employees. I was educating them about the consequences of their actions. I could implement a lot of change management initiatives afterward because of their support.  

(Opinions are purely personal & does not represent my organization)    

Author's book are available on Amazon, Flipkart and BookGanga 

(Income from books is donated to the NGO which works for orphans, street children & abandoned elders)