IR - Midterm Essays - Production Economics, Business Law

IR - Midterm Essays - Production Economics, Business Law The ongoing negotiations between The Ontario Public School Boards Association (OPSBA), the government and the Elementary Teachers Federation of Ontario (ETFO) have once again broken down. While most of the issues having tentatively been resolved the main sticking point are sick leave and benefits. Craig presented the input-output model of industrial relations system in the late 1960s. In his model, the actors and the context are similar to those of Dunlops model. The main component of Craigs model are: (a) the inputs or the goals, and the values and power of the actors; (b) mechanism for the conversion of inputs into outputs; (c) the outputs of the system are the financial, psychological and social rewards for the workers. The output is in the form of the rules, which govern matters such as pay, working conditions, and hours of work. One of the major objectives of theorising industrial relations is to help the practitioners to understand what is taking place and causes for the same. Industrial relations theory might be useful to practitioners if it could help them in three respects: first, to understand the present industrial relations situation; second, to forecast trends and to predict what will happen under specific given conditions; and third, to help the practitioners to bring about certain desired changes and to avoid certain other changes in the present or in the future state of industrial relations. One of the most difficult attempts in industrial relations is to build up a theory and to generalise on its activity, which is highly dynamic. A host of factors, both internal and external, and conflict generating as well as conflict resolving factors, influence the shape of industrial relations activity. The industrial relations system in an organisation works in the context of pressures, tensions and conflicts, and is mainly related to power politics, economic, cultural and other differences. An inter-mix of such dynamic factors, and key institutional variables, is necessary in theorising industrial relations. - See more at: http://ilrexpert.blogspot.ca/2009/03/approaches-to-study-of-industrial.html#sthash.lsDhrDrB.dpuf