Trade unions are regarded as an essential part of the communication process, by legitimizing management's decisions in the employee's mentality. As an alternative to dealing with individual employee or set up communication systems, trade unions can be useful in issues relating to pay bargaining and grievance handling.
3. Joint decision-making.
"The practice in which employees take part in management decisions and it is based on the assumption of a community of interest between employer and employee in furthering the long term prospects of the enterprise and those working in it.".
This refers to the participation of non-managerial employees in the decision-making processes. The primary purpose was to strengthen competitive powers, and stimulate employee commitment by extending the worker's influence in task-oriented issues.
Large organizations will have long-term objectives and may priorities growth or sales rather than profits. Thus it will have more leeway in the conduct of employment relationships, and are more likely to recognize unions and foster participation schemes. Clearly, firms that are maintaining growth and profitability in the face of intense competition in a depressed world market can only do so with full cooperation of their workforce. Thus these organizations will have an interest in employee participation, driven by their need to obtain high levels of "employee commitment".
Economic factors that influence the organization are market powers, rate of profit, sales, growth, the degree of industrial concentration and competitive pressures. Therefore, an organization struggling to survive will cut its labor force in order to reduce costs, and priorities profit making. Consequently, the essential long-term thinking is displaced by short-term coping, and needs is dealt with in an ad-hoc piecemeal fashion. Inevitably the organization will continue to struggle through poor quality productions, and low moral.
