The role of workers
Recently, especially on countries such as Germany, the workers have had an increasing participation on the decision making process on the companies due to the fact that the labor unions in those countries are unified nationally and have gained more power due to this unity. In fact, in some cases, the employees and their representatives and the senior directives have the same power on the decision making process and the workers become as important as the stakeholders. This is the principle of Co-determination.
Image taken from http://xroads.virginia.edu/~ma98/pollklas/thesis/cod.html. Accessed on October 18th 2010.
Regarding the co-determination and the unionization, the employees are not just union members since their participation in the company goes beyond their labor activities by being part of the board of directives, having the same voting rights than the directors. Additionally, they also have the ability to influence the firm’s decisions and the distribution of profits.
Image taken from http://www.bryangbrown.com/editorial12.html. Accessed on October 18th 2010.
This co-determination makes that the workers have more empowerment than in countries where the labor unions are more divided and these unions protect more the rights and interests of the workers. Additionally, they may prefer business diversification in order to avoid a firm default in order to reduce risk and may also contradict the owners’ interests and objective to make them a more collective goal instead of a focused goal.
Migrant workers
A migrant is a person who moves freely from one country to another, for reasons of personal convenience and without intervention of an external compelling factor. However, one should consider the fact that in this definition the “freely” expression refers to the fact that they are not violently forced to leave, but probably the economic and/or social conditions of the home country make a person to choose to leave in order to have better conditions for him/her and his/her family.
Image taken from http://www.cartoonstock.com/newscartoons/directory/m/migrant_workers.asp. Accessed on October 18th 2010.
But, in order to understand the concept of migrant worker, there must be a distinction between migrant and immigrant, since the first one has a temporary residence and the second one looks for a permanent one. The categories of migrants are mainly:
· Job seekers, who look for a better work.
· Students who are looking for better educational opportunities.
· Family members of migrants who want to be reunited with family members, but they are not as influential for this subject, since they travel for a very short time period and they don’t affect directly a company.
The types of migrants could be classified as:
· Migrant workers: person who is to be engaged in a remunerated activity in a State different from his/her nationality.
· Special cases: such as students and trainees, refugees and Stateless people and people employed by a State but who live outside its territory.
The role of workers
Based on the required reading and the class presentation about this topic, please answer the following question:
Analyze the potential implications of the Co-determination principles over the organization’s decision making process from the perspectives of the managers and the employees.
Required reading: Piette, Jean-Jacques. 2004. “Understanding Management German style”. Les Amis de L’ecole de Paris.
Image taken from http://www.smud.org/en/board/Pages/brdmtgs.aspx. Accessed on October 18th 2010.
Managers’ perspective
· More time would be required to take decisions, since there are more people involved in the decision-making process and having everybody agree with a choice will take more time.
· Since most of the Unions are conformed by workers who have just a high school degree or a technical degree, they might want to take some decisions that are financially impossible to achieve to the company, and if the company doesn’t take into account those wishes, then a powerful Union might cause some troubles to them.
· Due to the fact that strikes are not allowed in some countries that apply the co-determination, therefore the workers won’t leave their jobs to claim their rights since they have an important representation on the board of directors and the productivity will not decrease as a result of a massive strike.
· A powerful Union might impose some policies that are not easily achievable to the company; such as a high salary rise, huge improvements to the work conditions, among others; and those policies might ruin the company if there is a critic environment.
Employees’ perspective
· Since, in order to have consensus the board of directors must take into consideration the position of the unions, some arbitrary decisions will be abolished and the workers view will be considered when taking some decisions and their welfare will be taken into account.
· They might give some opinions and thoughts about the productive, and even managerial, processes; which give them more chances to increase their position in the company.
· Since strikes are not allowed in some countries that apply the co-determination, they won’t need to leave their jobs if they are not agree with the union’s point of view and, therefore, they are not forced to make strikes if they want to keep working. That’s why the workers have a representation in the board of directors, to have a voice there in order to protect their rights.
Resources
- Class presentations: The role of workers, Migrant workers and Expatriate assignments.
- Piette, Jean-Jacques. 2004. "Understanding management German style". Les amis de L'ecole de Paris.
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