Reference no: EM133465084

CASE STUDY

The leadership of the MWUC (Marginalised Work Union Coalition) has been very disappointed in Harry Pothane. Harry was the MWUC chief negotiator and a senior member of the printing department in a multinational company (MNC), and part of the annual labour salary negotiation team. In the past the MWUC would start preparing for salary negotiations well in advance and decisions were based on solid research and proper due diligence was applied. Recently, however, they changed to a rather superficial approach. Now the first step of the pre-negotiation phase is a general shop stewards' meeting where strategies and tactics are discussed for days, followed by the granting of a mandate based on feelings rather than facts.

The demand for a salary increase will be 10 per cent above inflation as a starting point, and this will lead to a protracted period of negotiations until a settlement is reached, normally after a strike. The union's attitude has been very negative, and the departure point was a perception that the union members were marginalised, discriminated against and bullied by the employer. This confrontational approach led to many conflict episodes between management and shop stewards during the year about real and perceived conflict, and as a result to strained relations between management and labour. Harry is busy studying towards a BCom in Business Management and has an entrepreneurial spirit, but is also very realistic about the challenges the union faces. Over the years, he has been concerned about the approach the union has taken towards salary negotiations and decided that he would like to convince the MWUC leadership to take a different approach to these. He had the idea that in the annual salary negotiations he would counter.

management with the same "tactics" they would want to use against MWUC. Management is normally very competitive in their approach and always require the union to motivate their demands in writing. This usually creates tension within the union leadership, in that consensus cannot be reached in the MWUC about the final position on demands, with the result that negotiations do not progress because of delaying tactics being employed by the union. Harry decided that he would suggest to the union leadership that they change their approach to a more cooperative style and request management to have briefing sessions before negotiations start, on relevant topics such as the MNC's "strategic plan" and "three-year budget plan". This would allow MWUC to obtain first-hand knowledge about the direction of the MNC and would conjure up an opportunity to meet senior management members. With this idea in mind, Harry waited until the first "negotiation team" meeting. At the meeting Harry shared his ideas with the team, but the response was not positive. Harry was blamed for being too "soft" and playing into the hands of management; the union said that management would think the MWUC leadership was weak and would speculate whether the MWUC leadership had the capacity to "lead", whether they had "training" and whether they could comprehend the complexity of MNC operations. In fact, the MWUC team decided that they would obtain a mandate from their members to be more confrontational and to agree that the majority of their members would go on strike if required. The more Harry tried to convince the leadership, the more suspicious they became. At one point during the meeting a "production department" representative on the negotiation team shouted: "Harry Pothane, we cannot trust you - you must leave!"

Question 1

Predict the approach the MWUC will take during salary negotiations.

Question 2

How would you approach resolving the conflict between Harry and the MWUC leadership? explain extensively?