Advanced application of IR theory Value: 35% Due Date: 07-Oct-2018 Return Date: 26-Oct-2018 Length: 2500 words -/+ 10% (A: 2000: B: 500) Submission method options: Alternative submission method Task...

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HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT
ADVANCED APPLICATION OF IR THEORY
USE OF INDUSTRIAL RELATIONSHIP, A CASE STUDY ON RTBU, NSW
(Word Count 2585)
Table of Contents
Part A    3
Introduction    3
Elements of Conflict    3
a) Symptoms of Conflicts    3
b) Root Cause of the Conflicts    5
Relevant Theories to determine positions of RTBU and Transportation Department of Sydney in the Conflict    5
Recommendations and Solutions to the Dispute    6
Conclusion    7
Part B    9
Industrial Relationship in the Context of Industrial Conflict    9
References    11
Part A
Introduction
    The relationship between employers and the employees is a very complex aspect, which determines not only the level of internal transparency but also measures the organisational consistency, profitability and ethical standards. The employers are responsible for the employment of the employees and are indeed the source the income. It is also true that the employees do not pay the employees on their maximum level in order to generate profit, which again is used for business. As employees work under heavy workload, they expect hike in their salaries over time, at least one in a year. The degree of offering salary hike does not come in close proximity of the offering of the employers and the expectation of the employees, increasing rift in the industrial relationship. In the current report, the industrial dispute-taking place between Rail, Tram and Bus Union (RTBU) and the Transport Department of Sydney, in January 2018 has been selected in order to assess the causes of the conflict, the role of opposing parties and the probable solution to the problem.
Elements of Conflict
    Taking place in the month of January 2018, the RTB Union of New South Wales started protesting against the offering of annual salary hike of 2.5% than the previous year, by stating the fact that the employees under the RTBU are offering greater service and bearing heavier workload than they are supposed to. Therefore, they deserve to get at least 6% hike. The RTBU felt that the interest of the employees were ignored by the Transport Department of Sydney and felt the need of 24 hours strike as a means of making their claims worth noticing. There were some major symptoms observed in the context of the issue and offer route to the root cause (Herald, 2018).
a) Symptoms of Conflicts
Lack of Communication
    The employers, managers and the lower level employees work on different level of organisation functional frames. As mentioned by (Varoutsa & Scapens, 2018), being stationed at different part of the organisation the communication role-plays a big part in generating efficacy of order transferring, change implementation and assessment of organisational status. A lack of communication between the upper and lower level employees of an organisation, leads to functional disputes, mismanagement and hints at upcoming conflict (Zagelmeyer, Sinkovics, Sinkovics, & Kusstatscher, 2018). Lack of communication gives wrong assumptions to the management, and it often leads to initiatives that are either not aligned with demand of the lower level employees or are inadequate. As seen in the case of the conflict between RTBU and Transport Department of Sydney, there have been serious communication gaps, which made the employees face huge workloads, longer than usual duty hours and need of sufficient salary increase.
Structural Hierarchy
    The structural hierarchy of an organisation shows the ratio between the numbers of upper and lower level employees, the way authority is disbursed and the scope for employees to exert their needs to the employers, namely the uppermost management. As identified by (Kaur & Awasthi, 2018), when organisational hierarchy becomes much segmented and the employers operate from a distant organisational position, the chances of conflicts increases. The positioning of the managers, who are directly in contact with the employees due to organisational hierarchy forward their issues to the upper management and they do the likewise, making the issue reaching the employers delayed and often deviated from the topic (Diefenbach, Wald, & Gleich, 2018). As seen in the case of Transport Department of Sydney, the employers had developed different sections of its transportation branches. Each section of the Rail, Tram and Bus departments had their own sectional divisions, which led to the forwarding of issues delayed, generating inadequate measures and ultimately major conflict.
Excessive Workload
    As organisational management and employers offer their employees limited amount of salary, they are expected to offer their labour for a limited period and excessive labour for temporary periods. As the change in the tasks take place and the needs of the customer increases, the employees are forced to work for longer period to tackle the excessive workload. As mentioned by (Liu, Fan, Fu, & Liu, 2018), when management deploys more employees to workplace in order to tackle the workload and reduce the stress of work from the existing employees, the expectations of the employees remain minimalistic. However, as the employees are to bear the excessive workload for longer period, they feel that the employers are exploiting them, which leads to disagreement, anger and eventually organisational conflict.
The excessive workload shows that the management is unaware or ignorant of the condition of the employees (Chander, et al., 2018). In exchange of the additional labour employees provide for managing excessive workload, they expect the management to offer them more salary hike than usual to justify their efforts and a failure to offer sufficient hike in salary, result in conflicts. As seen in the case of RTBU the employees were unhappy with the 2.5% hike of their salaries as they were subjected to heavy workload and expected higher increment rates, leading to conflict.
b) Root Cause of the Conflicts
    The declaration of a 24 hours strike from the side of the Train employees might be marked as a direct outcome of the disagreement of the allocated increment rates; however, the disagreement of the rates of increment percentage is only the last layer of the...