Employment Relations and Law - Law Assignment

Internal Code: MAS5788

Law Assignment:

1) What are the strengths and weaknesses of the different analytical perspectives (unitary, pluralist and radical approaches) to understanding the contemporary employment relationship in different settings? 2) Requires ability to outline the main features of the unitary, pluralist and radical perspectives and compare the limits and potential of their respective vantage points of analysis 3) Provide reasons for identifying the perceived most relevant approach. Make an assessment of its practical relevance to an understanding of the modern employment relationship 4) Use of some contemporary examples to illustrate the case 5)  Is HRM ‘a wolf in sheep’s clothing’? 6) Requires ability to outline the main features of the ‘sophisticated paternalist’ managerial style, relating this to contemporary HRM theory and practice 7) Compare this approach to a variety of different managerial styles towards employment relations (including ‘traditionalist’, ‘sophisticated modern’ and ‘standard modern’) and contextualising these within both non-union/union settings 8) Provide an assessment of both the limits and potential of HRM approaches, with specific consideration as to whether, and to what extent, it is an approach that is inherently (if not explicitly) exploitative of workers 9) Use of some contemporary examples to illustrate the case 10) Evaluate whether the claim that trade unionism is outmoded and unnecessary in the contemporary employment relationship is unjustified or not. 11) Requires ability to assess the fortunes of trade unionism today (notably the decline in membership figures and overall density, collective bargaining coverage, workplace influence, and strike activity etc) in the content of features such as globalisation, austerity, public spending cutbacks, and restrictive employment legislation . 12) Make some comparison with the years of ‘union power’ of the 1970s and evaluation of the transformation that occurred from 1979 onwards 13) Provide some assessment of different trade union strategies for meeting current challenges and potential revitalising their organisations utilising contemporary case study material 14) Can non-union forms of employee engagement provide workers with any effective voice and representation at work? 15) Requires ability to outline and assess different forms of employee involvement (including communicative involvement, task-centred involvement and financial involvement) 16)Make comparison with employee participation and considering the extent to which managerial decisions and actions are constrained by such mechanisms