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Unit 7: Industrial Relations

set up to deal with matters pertaining to labour. These special courts vary in nature from Notes
country to country. They include labour courts and tribunals and arbitration systems—the
latter sometimes the creation of collective bargaining agreements which provide for
arbitration to settle disputes. Labour courts have been established in several countries
because the normal system of courts and the system of law they administer cannot adequately
deal with labour relations issues, which require an equitable rather than a purely legal
approach. Therefore labour courts are often empowered to decide industrial relations issues
on a mixture of equitable and legal principles. For instance, a demand for higher wages
cannot in many legal systems be decided by the civil courts except on the basis of what has
been contracted for or has been prescribed by a statute if any; in short, only as an enforcement
matter.
Courts and tribunals have generally not been a major factor in bringing about change in
industrial relations in industrialized countries. The role of the ‘courts would normally be
limited to their powers of interpretation, which do not provide much scope to effect major
changes in industrial relations. As in the case of legislation, the role of the courts can have
little impact on the basic attitudes of management and workers towards each other at the
enterprise level and can, therefore, do little to improve relations as such. The normal civil
courts have not evinced an appreciation of labour issues, especially in Britain where, at the
turn of the century, many decisions of the courts had to be reversed by legislation to enable
trade unions to fulfil their role. However, there are some exceptions. In Germany the Federal
Labour Court has become at least as important as the legislator as far as regulations in the
field of labour are concerned. In that country the courts have been responsible for formulating
many of the rules relating to strikes. The use of the injunction in the USA during the early
stages of its industrial relations evolution is another example. Australia is a good example
of an industrialized country in which the courts system, as represented by the earlier Court
of Conciliation and Arbitration and since 1988 the Australian Industrial Relations Commission,
has had a fairly major influence on industrial relations. In India and Sri Lanka a labour court
system, coupled with the pronouncements of appellate courts, have had a significant impact
on the formulation of the rules applicable to the relations between employers and workers.
In those two countries thousands of court decisions have enunciated the rules regarding such
issues as the grounds on which termination of employment may be considered fair or unfair;
the principles of wage fixation; when trade union action may be considered legal or illegal,
justified or unjustified; and even what forms of trade union action are permissible or not
permissible.

Self Assessment
Multiple choice questions:
1. The increasing .............. of women into workforces has raised issues relating to gender
discrimination.
(a) influx (b) numbers
(c) work performance (d) None of these
2. Changing patterns of work such as ................. have created concerns for unions in
particular.
(a) more homework (b) part-time work
(c) sub-contracting (d) All of these
3. The production of goods and services requires the coordination of ..............
(a) labour (b) women
(c) supervisor (d) managers

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