Indian Journal of Industrial Relations: Economics & Social Dev.

Jerome Joseph ¹, Srinath Jagannathan ²

Affiliations
1 Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, IN
2 Centre for Labor Studies, Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai, IN

Abstract

Three representations of worker insecurity emerged from the lived experiences of three workers from the informal/unorganized sector in India. The authors argue that these three representations of worker insecurity from the three narratives captured through this engagement are the drivers around which the unorganized organize themselves as they struggle to eke out livelihoods on the margins of society.

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Jerome Joseph ¹, Srinath Jagannathan ¹

Affiliations
1 Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, IN

Abstract

The Payment of Gratuity Act, 1972 is an important legislation governing retirement benefits received by workers, and acquires particular significance in the absence of pension and lack of access to adequate social security for a large number of workers. We discuss here case laws pertaining to the Act in the last decade in the light of increasing the upper limit of gratuity payable to Rs. 10 lakhs. Case law pertaining to this important social security benefit suggests three broad areas of concern: inclusion-exclusion dynamics related to access to gratuity rights, the linkage of the denial or grant of payment of gratuity to reward for compliance and punishment for dissent, assertions of managerial prerogatives over the rights of workers in the pursuit of unilateralist dominance over employment relations.

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Jerome Joseph ¹

Affiliations
1 Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad, IN

Abstract

The collectivisation efforts of employees evoke strong responses from managements seeking to survive in an uncertain and turbulent environment. The contours of these responses are explored through the analysis of a union mobilization initative of pilots of an Indian airline company. The pattern of response which emerges from this foray into contemporary industrial relations can best be characterized as "strategic militant managerialism". The company has its own threefold compulsions revolving around commercial pressures, customer service conisderations and competitor actions in responding the way it did in the face of union mobilization efforts of the pilots. The union forming efforts are resisted through a variety of means and interventions based on the "hard positional bargaining mode" with all the consequencs for industrial relations processes as well as outcomes.

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Jerome Joseph ¹

Affiliations
1 Personnel & Industrial Relations, Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad 380015, IN

Abstract

Based on a study of twenty six Supreme Court judgments during the previous decade the author argues that performance management represents a pathological feature of contemporary organizations. It can serve the purpose of subjugation as the dissent of employees is held against them and they are expected to concur to prevailing hierarchies even if they strongly feel that the organisation could perform better if these hierarchies were democratized. It is extremely difficult to separate appraisals from prevailing political realities which could easily vitiate social relationships between employees. By reinforcing hierarchy, the performance management discourse ensures that alternative conceptions of organising are not allowed to emerge. At a broader philosophical level, the performance management discourse is embedded more in repressive than democratic constructions and often ends up strangulating the potential and performance of employees in organizations.

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Jerome Joseph ¹

Affiliations
1 Personnel & Industrial Relations, Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad 380015, IN

Abstract

Differences and disputes are intrinsic to employer-employee relationships thus necessitating fair disputes resolution mechanisms and processes. The increased demand for labor law reforms and the general trend underlying the target provisions for change point towards an assertion of the managerial prerogative of employers on grounds of competitive survival and growth through labor market flexibility. However, disputes resolution reforms need to bear in mind that in the pursuit of shareholder centric dividends, the democratic dividend of workplace democracy should not be sacrificed. The reforms related to fair and speedy disputes resolution deliverability therefore should be geared towards creating workplace "ombuds-committees" and strengthening conciliation services while leaving the democratic rights of labor untouched.

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Jerome Joseph ¹

Affiliations
1 XLRI School of Management, Jamshedpur 831001, IN

Abstract

This paper seeks to re-examine questions of justice and its modalities in the context of performance assessment practice in organizations by drawing upon the critical and insightful debate by Amartya Sen in 2009 with John Rawls work in 1971. The discussion is situated within the Rawlsian preoccupation with the crafting of the "perfectly just institutions" and the Amartya Sen submission that the focus should be on dealing with "manifest injustice" in order to come up with a theoretical and methodological positioning which can provide an alternative frame for future research and practice related to performance assessment in employer- employee relations.

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Mridul Maheshwari ¹, Jerome Joseph ²

Affiliations
1 IIM Kashipur, Kundeshwari, 244713, IN
2 XLRI School of Management, P.Box 222, Circuit House Area (East), Jamshedpur 831001, IN

Abstract

Professional working women face workplace conflicts out of the combined effect of social expectations, pressures and career role aspirations. This study focuses on a particular stage in women’s career continuity – entry into motherhood roles in their early careers which creates attendant dilemmas and anxieties due to organizational-managerial dispositions and biases. A grounded qualitative research approach was adopted and in-depth conversational, unstructured interviews were conducted with eight professional women subjects holding managerial positions using the snowball technique. The subjects and the geographies have been held anonymous to protect sources. Five frames representing the work role-motherhood role dynamics at the workplace emerged from the study which can become the basis for sensitizing organizations on this issue.

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Mridul Maheshwari ¹, Jerome Joseph ²

Affiliations
1 IIM Kashipur, Kundeshwari 244713, IN
2 XLRI School of Management, P. Box 222, Jamshedpur 831001, IN

Abstract

The question of whether and why women prefer self-employment to wage-employment in dealing with social space-work space interface has been on the research radar for some time. A careful scrutiny of research depictions of women in selfemployment points towards three frames for a better understanding of whether and why women choose self-employment over wage employment while engaging with social space-workspace dilemmas - the “pragmatic-accepting” (self-employment as an arrangement at the person level in tune with social space-workspace ground realities), the “organizational-managerial” (self-employment as flight from insensate managerialism), and the “structural-contradictory” (selfemployment as a fission triggered by resentful distress and strident protest against deeply embedded heedlessness).

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Leena Sachdeva ¹, Mridul Maheshwari ², Jerome Joseph ³

Affiliations
1 Doctoral Scholar, Indian Institute of Management, Kashipur 244713, IN
2 Assistant Professor, Indian Institute of Management, Kashipur 244713, IN
3 Chair Professor (Industrial Relations), XLRI School of Management, Jamshedpur 831001, IN

Abstract

The objective of the study is to capture the lived experiences of women-as-employees in their own words, to interpret the subject’s words for a deep insight into the latent world of the subject’s lived gender experiences on the sociooccupational segregation front. This is not, therefore, a study of the organization as an objective entity which may have its own narrative of gender initiatives but of the subjective experiences of ‘women-as - employees’ on the gender front. Data was collected through interviews of 44 women respondents. Fusing together the insights from this exploratory attempt from a gender- based socio-occupational segregation study, the subjectively experienced reality by ‘women-asemployees’ can be characterized as latent, pervasive “regimes of exclusion”.

Keywords

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Jerome Joseph ¹, Muncherji N ²

Affiliations
1 Chair Professor – Industrial Relations, XLRI School of Management, P.Box 222, Circuit House Area (East), Jamshedpur 831001, IN
2 Associate Professor - OB & Communication Area, Institute of Management, Nirma University, Ahmedabad, IN

Abstract

The sociological construct of “culture lag” which suggest that human response always lags behind technological advance can also be extended to the reality-theory and realitypractice context of the world of work. Human resource management and industrial relations theory and practice, discipline and function whose role is to help in understanding and dealing with the reality of work and the reality for workers seem to be in a different world al t oge t her di sconnect e d f rom today’s reality. This study seeks to examine this lag between today’s reality and yesterday’s theory-practice constructions in the context of the workers and their working conditions in the national garment industry supplier units linked to the global supply chain of international brands.

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