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Managing relationship in Organization
• Organizations as systems use resource
including human, finance, materials,
technology and information.
• Human resource (employees) are vital but
complex resources needed by organizations.
• Managing people is so difficult because it
requires dealing with complex relationships,
involving behavioral legal, social, economic
technological, psychological and ethical
issues that do not apply to other resources4
• Industrial relations is concerned with
contractual relationship between the
employer and the employees.
• It involves , regulation of conditions of
service, collective bargaining, management of
strikes, industrial democracy, employer-trade
unions relations, and organization personnel
policies etc.
• Some terms used to explain relationships
include industrial relations, trade relations,
labor relations and employee relations, labor
movement 5
Relations

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Feudalism (Agrarian)
• No industrial relations
Capitalism
• Industrial relations started with industries
(factories), when labor was bought and sold
as a commodity.
• To increase productivity Capitalism divided
work (fragmented) into smaller segments
• Resulted in increase in productivity
• By fragment ting work, and with the use of
machinery capitalism deskilled workers and
made them easily replaceable or
dispensable. 8
Industrial relations aim:
• To fulfill the needs and expectations of
employees, employers, government and the
society.
• To bring better understanding and
cooperation between employers and workers.
• To establish a proper channel of
communication between workers and
management.
• To avoid industrial conflicts and to maintain,
industrial piece and harmonious relations.
The prime actors in industrial relations are the
employers (management), Employees (union) and
government.

Government

Management Union
 Management is the
representative of the
Management

employer (owner)
appointed (employed) with
the responsibility of
achieving objectives for
which an organization is
established.
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1.Role of the Employers (Managers) in
Industrial Relations
• Devise strategies with which the
organization can successfully utilize
available resources to produce goods and
services.
• Ensure that employees add value
• Compensate workers for their contributions
• Establishing and respect contractual
relationship between the organization and
the employees.
• Recognize labor union and respect labor law
• Contribute to industrial peace and society
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 Union is the
representative of the
Labor Union

employees appointed with

the responsibility of
protecting and achieving
employees objectives.

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2. Role of Unions in Industrial Relations
Look after the interest of their members,
providing welfare
• Insuring financial support
• Contribute to the reduction of industrial
disputes
• Improve better working conditions and
service
• Representing the workers;
• Engage in collective bargaining in good faith
• Go beyond the general interest of worker to
contribute to society
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 • Government is the representative
of the society with the
responsibility of fulfilling
Government

Society’s objectives.
• Government enact laws and
regulations concerning rights and
obligations employers and
employees based on:
• The political, economic and social policies
of the country, and
• In conformity with the international
conventions and other legal commitments
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3. Role of Government in Industrial Relations
The government as the third party plays an
important role through its interventions
• It produces the necessary legislations for the
protection of the economic interest of the
country (society). Enact a range of public
legislation regulating the day-to-day activities
of the employers and the industrial unions in
the course of industrial operations.
• It intervenes in maintaining industrial peace
• It uses strategies such as mediation,
arbitration and conciliation besides

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What is a contract?
When do we say that
a contract exists?

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1.1 Industrial Dispute: Meaning
• Industrial dispute’ means
disagreement or difference
between employers and employees,
or between management and union.
• It refers to differences that
affect groups of workmen and
employers engaged in an industry.

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1.2 Causes of Industrial Disputes
The causes of industrial conflict may be because of a
psychological or social political, economic reasons.
Some factors of industrial conflict include the
following
Management Attitude of towards workers
• Employees as people who want more and more economic
or monetary rewards and want to do less work.
• Lack of proper consideration of wages inconformity
with cost of living and a reasonable wage structure
generally.
• Bad working conditions.
• Attempts by management to introduce changes (such a
rationalization, modernization or automation) without
considering employees 29
Causes of Industrial Disputes (contd.)
Employees and their attitude
• Regarding employers and managers as exploiters
• Lack of competence or training of workers
• Lack of strong and healthy trade unionism
Systems and Environmnt Problen
• Inadequate collective bargaining agreements.
• Combination of too much law and too little respect for
law
• Political environment of the country; and
• Agitation and wrong propaganda by selfish labor leaders
to further their own interests of their own party.

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3. Settlement of Industrial Dispute
•Industrial dispute can be settled in different
ways
• Through Court
• Out of Court (Through Alternative Dispute
Resolution-ADR)
Through Court
•When disputes arise the party who feel hurt
take the issue to the court.
•The court makes rulings based on legal
requirements.
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Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR)
or Litigation
• ADR resolution of disputes is a
voluntary method, that involve the
intercession and assistance of a
neutral and impartial third party.
• It involves out of court resolution
of disputes
• Some of the methods used in ADR
include mediation and arbitration
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 Why ADR?
• Benefits for clients
– Cost – usually cheaper
– Time – usually faster
– Relationships – can be preserved. Consider
the effect of litigation on relationships.
Court system always adversarial.
• Benefits for courts
– Pre-trial/case management processes
reduce workload of court
– Reduces costs and delays across the system
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• Mediation/ Councilation
– A neutral third party who help the
disputing parties to negotiate
– The mediator listens to both sides of
a dispute objectively and help them to
mutually beneficial
– Meats with each party separately and
then schedule face to face to face
meeting. Responsibility is the
facilitation of negotiation.
– The mediator may offer
opinion/Concileation 34
• Arbitration
– Is more formal than mediation.
– Arbitrator need to have legal
knowledge (retired or active
judge or attorney) like the legal
court
– The arbitrator makes decision
(ruling) which the parties are
expected to honor.
– Arbitration may be indicated
during the contract just in case
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 2. Weapons of Labor and Management
The employer and the union use weapons to force
the other party to comply with demands.
Strike and Lockout are the two grounds permitted in
labor relations
Weapons of Union
•Strike: means the slow-down of work by any
number of workers in reducing their normal out-
put on their normal rate of work or the
temporary cessation of work by any number of
workers acting in concert in order to persuade
their employer to accept certain labor
conditions in connection with a labor dispute or
to influence the outcome of the dispute. 36
 Weapons of Union
• Slow-Down Strike: Employees deliberately work
slow
• Stay in Strike: Employees control over production
facilities but do not work
• Sympathetic strike: workers of one organization strike
on sympathy to other organization employees which
are on strike
• Boycott: Asking or requiring union members to
boycott products made by a firm engaged in a
labor dispute with another union (secondary
boycott). However, a union can call a boycott of
products produced by its own firm (primary
boycott).
• Picketing: Union members dissuading others to
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join strike by standing at the factory gate.
 Weapons of Management
• Lock-out: an economic pressure applied by
employer by closing a place of employment in
order to persuade workers to accept certain
labor conditions in connection with a labour
dispute or to influence the outcome of the
dispute;
• Yellow dog Contract: dissuading an employees
to sign a contract as a means of breaking the
unions employees not to join union (now illegal)
• Black list: black listing employees who join strike
and circulating the list to other employers to
restrict employment (Illegal)
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Grievances Handling
1. Grievance: Meaning
• A grievance is a sign of the employees’
discontent with job and its nature
caused due to the difference between
employee expectation and management
practice.
• Any dissatisfaction or feeling of
injustice in connection with one’s
employment situation that is brought
to the notice of the management.
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Grievances Handling (contd.)
Grievance: Meaning
• Grievance is the representation by a worker, a
group of workers or the unions to the
management in relation to the terms and
conditions of employment, breach of the
freedom of association or the provisions of
standing orders or non-implementation of the
Government orders, conciliation agreements or
adjudicators’ awards”.
• The accumulation of grievance leads to strikes,
lock outs and other forms of conflicts, proper
disposal of grievances deserves special and
adequate consideration. 41
2. Causes of Grievance

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4 Steps in handling grievances
It is important that grievance must be handled in a
systematic manner. The following steps should be taken in
handling grievances:
1. Defining, describing or expressing the nature of
the grievances as clearly and fully as possible;
2. Gathering all facts that serve to explain when, how,
where, to whom and why the grievance occurred;
3. Establishing tentative solutions or answers to the
grievances;
4. Gathering additional information to check the
validity of the solutions and thus ascertain the best
possible solution;
5. Applying the solution, and
6. Following up the case to see that it has been
handled satisfactorily and the trouble has been 43
eliminated.
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Introduction
• Labor relations in Ethiopia have been very low and
slow in development. The cultural, religious and
legal settings have had their respective shares for
such an outcome.
• Culturally, the Ethiopian society‘s attitude
towards labor and laborers has been very
discouraging.
• The traditional Ethiopian society despised both
trade and manual work. All the remaining
occupations excluding priesthood were relegated
to members of the population who were thought of
as a lower class.
• Metal work, for instance was left to population
with a low reputation that nobody dared to mingle
45
with segment of the population.
Introduction
• King Menelik issued a proclamation in
1908 with the following content:
“Let those who insult the worker on
account of his labor cease to do so.
You, by your insults and insinuations,
are about to leave my country
without artisans who can even make
the plough. Hereafter, anyone of
you who insults these people is
insulting me personally.
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• Religion: The religious rules were unfavorable to
industrial activity and industrial development.
• The clergies require holidays, several in a month (non-
working days) to be strictly observed by the population.

• Slavery: Slavery had legal protection and was

entrenched as a system for long time in Ethiopian
history. It was in 1931 that an attempt to abolish
Slavery, through law, was undertaken in Ethiopian
history and in 1942 that clear governmental
commitment to abolish slavery was manifested.
• Feudal order: Worked against the development of
the labor class. Peasants were tied to the land leaving
only small sector of the population to labor work.
• The feudal system was largely agrarian and used slaves
and peasants as a mode of production the development 47
and growth of labor (industrial) relations was greatly
Industrial Relations: Haileselasse’s Regime
• Factories began to be established during the Italian
colonial period. However, workers were not allowed to
form unions.
• The oldest union in Ethiopia is the Franco-Ethiopian
workers’ union established 1945.
• There was no law in the country giving legal recognition
to unions and the attitude of employers was very
hostile.
• The right to form workers association was granted
through the 1955 constitution, and 1962 that the labor
relations decree was issued.
• Since its establishment the Ethiopian Industrial
Relation has gone through several challenges
• CELU, AETU, ETU. CETU
Military Regime
Industrial Relations: Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia 48
49
 The Labor law consists of preamble and is organized in twelve major parts,
several chapters and articles. The major parts include:

PART I. GENERAL 
PART II. EMPLOYMENT RELATIONS
PART III. WAGES
PART IV. HOURS OF WORK, WEEKLY REST AND PUBLIC HOLIDAYS
PART V. LEAVE
PART VI. WORKING CONDITIONS OF WOMEN AND YOUNG WORKERS
PART VII. OCCUPATIONAL SAFETY, HEALTH AND WORKENVIRONMENT
PART VIII. COLLECTIVE RELATIONS
PART IX. LABOUR DISPUTE
PART X. PERIOD OF LIMITATION AND PRIORITY OF CLAIMS 
PART XI. ENFORCEMENT OF LABOUR LAW
PART XII. PENALTY AND TRANSITORY PROVISIONS

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The end
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