Legal Regulation And Employment Relations In Singapore

Identification of relevant issues

Discuss about the Legal Regulation and Employment Relations.

The main purpose of this essay is to analyze and understand the employment relations issues in Singapore. The country is evidently famous and recognized for the ever going conflicts regarding the employment relations in the industry. There are issues prevailing in the country and the main element which governs those issues is that there has been used a unitarist approach by the employment agencies as well as by the government for resolving those issues. It is a significant issue that business instead of taking use of pluralist approach takes use of unitarist approach. The unitarist approach was earlier found to be harmonized and was the only approach for resolving the employees and workplace issues. But in present scenario the businesses are going for the pluralist approach as this basically focuses upon resolving the issues by integrating one more party in between. The third party is the trade unions. These trade unions focus upon the uplifting of the employees by raising their concerns and issues to the higher authorities. The pluralist approach is broader in sense and is much effective in resolving issues. This essay will focus upon the various contemporary examples which will state that the time is changing fast and there is a need that the businesses must have a changed way of looking towards the employment relation issues. To have effective workforce support and reduced workplace issues there is a need that successful strategies and initiatives must be introduced by the businesses (Lakhani, Kuruvilla and Avgar, 2013).

Singapore is highly recognized for the continuous employment relation issues occurring at numerous workplaces. The main and the primary issues are in context with the benefits and salaries provided to the employees. There was absence of collective bargaining in the labor industry. And the failure of collective bargaining has resulted into a number of issues. After its failure the next step was conciliation in context with ministry of power (Thursfield and Kellie, 2013). The failure of conciliation resulted into issues bought under the industrial arbitration court. Before the arrival of the PAP i.e. People’s Action Party the conditions of Singapore were worse in terms of resources and technology and other major elements to run the economy. The entire economy was depended over the human resources and human capital. The workforce of Singapore was the one and the only contributor of country’s wealth and success. And thus it was essential to have improved employment relations in the industry. Earlier there were a number of issues regarding the collective bargaining approach in the industry (Ackers, 2014).

There are number of employment related issues in Singapore related to the employment relations. There are majorly four primary and chief issues prevailing in the country of Singapore. The first issue is regarding the illegal immigrants which are continuously grouping inside the Singapore’s industrial department. The second major issue is that the impact poses on other nations due to the relocation of the investments and the industries. The third issue related to employment is privatization of companies which are state owned and the fourth major issue is there is exceeding number of aging workforce in the nation. And these are the primary issues which have been identified in Singapore (Cullinane and Dundon, 2014).

There are two approaches by which the businesses in Singapore look upon the employment relation issue i.e. the unitarist approach and the pluralist approach. In Unitarist approach there is no such immense concern laid over the resolution of the issue. In this approach it is mentioned that the employment relation issues are not of an inevitable character (Siebert, et al., 2015).  They generally occurs at the workplace and will resolve with time is there is no individual focus given over the issue (Burchill, 2014).  Where as in the pluralistic approach there is no single control over the parties and there is no specific part to given. In this approach the managers are not at allowed to dominate a single group or party, the judgment and decision of the employees can b e suppress. There are unions which have the authoritative power to challenge the management or the employer in behalf of the employees and to solve their workplace issues. In pluralist approach there is a union which is not present in the unitarist approach (Thunnissen, Boselie and Fruytier, 2013).

The issue related to aged workforce brought mixed reactions in the economy. The government aimed at enhancing the retirement age from the age 60 to 67. And this was a major concern for the companies. As the aged workers were not having a friendly touch with the latest technologies and upgraded software and thus the productivity of the organization suffers. The government was taking this initiative so that more number of foreign workers can be restrict to get employed in the industry and thus the issue of illegal immigrations can be restrict. As there is increased number of illegal immigrants in the country there are various negative implications which are associated with this issue (Varma and Budhwar, 2013).  There can be decreased job opportunities for the local residents as the immigrants are ready to work at low wages as compared to the domestic employees. There are various other safety and security issues which are an indirect outcome of the issue. Earlier there was no association or union to listen the grievances of the workers. And thus there arose numerous workplace conflicts and employment relation issues. The other issue that is privatization of the companies was also major issues as the state owned companies are now being privatized. This results into recruitment of the illegal immigrants also at a lower cost which raises the concern of the existing employees of the company (Boxall, 2014).

Contemporary examples

Earlier the unitarist approach was found to be much harmonized way to resolve the workplace and employment relation issues. But with the change in time and development of the pluralist approach, it was found that the companies tried to incorporate this new idea of resolving the conflicts and attain more workplace diversity and workforce commitment. With the change in time the industries are also developing. In present scenario the employees do not have their silent voice against these business approaches.

Earlier the unitarist approach worked but it can’t have the same support or relevance in current business situation. It is not justified as the time is rapidly changing and there is a need to know that the pluralist approach must be in place. The pluralist approach comprises of the trade unions and these unions are a very much essential part for resolving the employment relation issues. These trade unions help in raising the unsolved issues of the employees, provide them the adequate salaries and introduce policies which support the betterment of the employees (Gollan and Patmore, 2013).

There are various contemporary examples which show that now the unitarist approach does not exist anymore and there is a need of other theories and pluralist approach for resolving the employment relation issues. There is a case of AHRI award winners in the year 2009, where it can be clearly stated and identified that in today’s’ time there is a need of the human capital model which will ensures that the application of strategies took place effectively. Now there is much importance given to the industry and the organization. In this award case, Comcare, the Federal Government agency which is a public organization has effectively won this award. The agency was held liable for administering and maintaining the safety and health of the employees at the workplace. The effort which made the agency win this award was the development of the human capital model which ensures that there is rapid and effective organizational change through the HR department. It also assists in encouraging the employees and filing up the gaps appeared in the present and past organizational culture. The agency invested its lot of energy, time and capital for building the workforce planning competence. And for appreciating the huge efforts of the agency, it was honored with the AHRI Award Winners 2009. This is the contemporary example which shows that in present time there is a need that the building of employment relations is a must and only the unitarist approach will not work anymore (Nankervis, et al., 2011).

Conclusion

Conclusion

In Singapore the employment relations issues raised at an increasing rate and this has build up a worsen situation in the country. There are issues in relation with the salaries, wages, and weekly hours. Other issues are related to illegal immigrants who are continuously grouping inside the Singapore’s industrial department, relocation of the investments, privatization of companies and exceeding number of aging workforce in the nation. The businesses in Singapore are resolving these employment relation issues by the unitarist approach (Shields, 2015). This approach takes the issues in a supple manner and the opinions and viewpoints of the employees are not much considered. This is an old approach which was much used by the Singapore’s businesses but this essay concludes that the companies must have a pluralist approach in resolving these issues. The pluralist approach focuses upon the resolution of issues through the involvement of union in between. The trade unions are found to be very beneficial in resolution of employment relation issues. These trade unions support the employees by raising their issues, making them pay appropriate wages and providing them their rights. The essay also provide the contemporary examples which shows that in present time companies are taking a number of initiatives including the government agencies for satisfying their workforce and having their development in every possible manner. Thus from this essay it is clear that to improve the conditions and employments relations in Singapore there must be use of pluralist approach instead of continuing with the unitarist approach of solving employment relation issues (Warner, 2013).

References

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Varma, A., & Budhwar, P. S. (2013). Managing human resources in Asia-Pacific (Vol. 20). Routledge.

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