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Relations industriellesIndustrial Relations

Les relations industrielles: une pratique et une disciplineJean Boivin

Volume 42, Number 1, 1987

URI: https://id.erudit.org/iderudit/050291arDOI: https://doi.org/10.7202/050291ar

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Publisher(s)Département des relations industrielles de l'Université Laval

ISSN0034-379X (print)1703-8138 (digital)

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Cite this articleBoivin, J. (1987). Les relations industrielles: une pratique et une discipline.Relations industrielles / Industrial Relations, 42 (1), 179–196.https://doi.org/10.7202/050291ar

Article abstractIndustrial relations can be defined as the management of labour problems inan industrial society. Implicit in such management is the development oftheories, techniques, and institutions to resolve the conflicts arising from workrelations. These conflicts resuit from the permanent interaction ofmanagement efficiency, worker protectivism and the public policies developedby the State. The two processes that corne into play because of this inevitableinteraction between management efficiency (whether at the level of theorganization or society in gênerai) and the need for worker protectivism arehuman resource management and the establishment of working conditions,which in North America is called «labour relations». By «human resourcemanagement» we mean ail the activities or programs promoted byorganizations and the State to acquire, maintain, develop, deploy and useeffectively the persons doing or susceptible of doing useful work. And by«labour relations» we mean all the phenomena and activities related to theestablishment of the rules for work. These rules are of two types: thesubstantive rules, which determine working conditions and the proceduralrules, which determine the steps to be taken to change or apply the substantiverules. These two basic processes bring together three agents: the organizationand its managers, the employees and their work society (union), and the State.The latter is involved in human resource management through its policieswhich seek to correct the imbalances in the labour market. It also adoptspolicies for the purpose of establishing minimum conditions for wages, hoursof work, health, safety, and job discrimination. The State also determines thelegal framework and the rules for the two other agents. Finally, since the Stateitself is an employer, it must like other employers develop a human resourcemanagement system and set the working conditions for its own employees. Ifthe empirical presentation developed previously is now examined from ananalytical or academic viewpoint, we see that industrial relations include threeareas of study: human resource management, labour relations, and publicpolicies on work. Also, when the Systems approach is applied to industrialrelations, each of the agents is seen to have goals, values and even a certaindegree of power, which allow them to organize, and to evolve their ownphilosophies. The interaction of the three gives rise to two types of activity thatconvert «inputs» to «outputs». Among the «outputs» are the turnover ofpersonnel, absenteeism, worker attitudes, productivity, management rights,working conditions, and conflicts.