Xung đột giữa giới chủ và người lao động xảy ra với tần suất ngày càng tăng xác lập cơ sở lý luận, phân tích nguyên nhân và đưa ra giải pháp e

TABLE OF CONTENTS Foreword I Basics of conflict theory Concept of conflict Types of conflict 3 Levels of conflict Stages of conflict Causes of conflict II Analizing the causes of conflict and increase in conflict between bosses and employees Concepts Some specific causes 2.1 Benefits contradictions between employers and emplyees 2.2 Poor working environments 2.3 Causes from employers 2.4 Causes from employees 2.5 Causes form culture differencies 10 Rise in conflict occurences 11 III An idea to improve the matter of conflict and the rise in conflict occurences between bosses and employees 12 Goals of idea 12 The idea contents 12 Methods for idea 14 realization Plan for implementation 14 Resourses for the idea implementation and difficulties 15 Possible obstacles 16 Conclusion 16 References 17 Foreword It has been 26 years since Vietnam started its Doimoi process, which has brought in many social and economic achievements The economy has been throught a lot of impressive changes: it has become more widely open, developed and intergated fast and actively into international economy, with various kinds of businesses: State-owned businesses, private and joint-stock companies, foreign invested businesses etc As a result, society welcome new elements: employers and employees In parellel with their copperation in doing and expanding scales of business, seeking for most possible benefits and fulfiling their social responsibilities, business men and employees have confronted with many contradictions, conflicts, and most noticeably, in recent years, conflicts between busniess men and their employees have been encreasing day by day In order to improve the matter of conflict increase, we will present some theories and studies of conflicts, analize possible causes and put forward some ideas/solutions for this matter I Basics of conflict theory Concepts of conflict There are various concepts of conflict Some people refer conflict as a process, while the other as a situation: - Conflict is the process by which parties each believe that the other will oppose or harm their benefits - Conflict is a situation in which individuals or group of individuals are taking actions involving their whishes, needs, obligations that are opposite to that of others Conflict is an escalation of disagreement, conflict will not occur without disagreements Specific characteristics of conflict are that parties are attempting to takes harmful actions towards each other For example: labour strikes, armed ect… Types of conflict Conflicts in workplace involves at least two basic forms: - Substantive conflict: is fundarmental disagreements over ends or goals to be pursued and the means for their acomplishment For instance, disagreements over such things as group and organizational goals, the allcations of resources, the distribution of rewards, policies and proccedures, task assigments… - Emotional conflict: involves interpersonal difficulties that arise over feelings of anger, mistrust, dislike, fear… It commonly involves collegues relationships, especially supervisor – subordinate, employer – employee Levels of conflict Possible disagreements and conflicts are likely to be found in daily activities in workplace and at various levels: - Intrapersonal conflict: occur within the individual because of actual or perceived pressures from incompatible goals or expectations - Interpersonal conflict: occur between two or more individuals in a group, experienced emplyees and new persons, supervisor – subordinate, employer – employee This level of conflict in in both forms of subtantive and emotional conflicts - Intergroup conflict: occur between members of differents departments, sections, employer – employee - Interorganizational conflict: occur between organizations, for example, conflicts beacause of direct competition of businesses in the same field, productio and sales of same products There are various levels of conflicts but they have constructive and distructive effects: - Constructive conflict: conflict of low or medium levels, involving work itsef rather than individualism, it may be appropriately driven or controlled for work benefits to lead to contstructive effects: innovation encouragement, creative incentives, creating vivid working atmosphere, nourishing particularity in the whole organization, strengthening the cohesion of the organization This helps the organization become more and more alive and foster its growth - Destructive conflict: high level of conflict will make the organization unstable, lower its productivity and members’ performance, waste resourses (time, energy, minds…) that should be saved for work but for conflict resolution When this type of conflict occurs fiercely, it breaks members’ trust, rises anger, contaminates working atmosphere, the organization loses its cohesion and may face bad damages Stages of conflict - Stage of conflict antecedents: establishment of conditions and causes from which conflicts are likely to develop - Stage of perceived conflict: when the antecedent conditions become the basis for substantive and emottional conflict between people, the perceived conflicct exits - Stage of felt conflict: when conflict is felt, it experienced as tension that motivates the person to take action to reduce feelings of discomfort - State of manifest conflict: conflict may be resolved by removing or correcting its antecedents or it may be suppressed, ignored and lead to conflict accumilation and reoccurance Causes of conflict There are possible situations and causes of conflict in workplace as below: - Vertical conflict: occurs between hierarchical levels It commonly involves supervisor-subordinate disagreements over goals, benefits, resourses, deadlines or performance results - Horizontal conflict: occurs between persons or groups at the same hierarchical levels These conflicts commonly involves incompatibilitites, resource scarcities, or purely interpersonal factors - Role conflicts: occurs when communication of task expectations proves inadequate or upseting - Workflow interdependencies are also causes of conflicts: individuals, units may come to disagreements or disputes when they are required to co-operated to meet challenging goals When interdependencies are high, or ambiguties of domain exist, conflicts tend to occur - Resource scarrities can foster destructive competition, which exert bad influence in work relations - Finally, power or value asymmetries are the causes of conflict: They exist when interdependent people or groups differ substantially from one another in status, influence or in values In general, in workplace, conflicts always exist in various forms and levels They have constructive but greater parts are destructive effects Conflicts may occur in short time, they not or poorly accumulated and can be resolved or eliminated by daily routine works and behaviours of individuals and units in workplace However, there are conflicts, that come from different causes and accumulate for long time, unsolved Typically, employer-employee conflict is one of them This is the big, high level and usually destructive conflict If this type of conflict is not resolved peacefully, it will break out into slowdown work protest or strike as employees fighting for their benefits with employers In recent years, there have been more and more strikes, which mean that businesses have not yet paid due attention and tried to figure out solutions for them, leading the conflicts to accumulate and break out in due time Hereunder, we will present some analysis on causes of conflicts between employees and employers and their increase II Analizing the causes of conflict and increase in conflict between bosses and employees Concepts: - Employers: are business owners They invest and run the businesses themselves or managers who represent the owners’ benefits and manage the businesses for owners– they are normally the high level manager - Employees: those who get hired and paid for their work, including low or medium level managers Some specific causes 2.1 Benefits contradictions between employers and emplyees - Employers are business owners They invest and run the businesses They set up and apply management policies, regulations and operations to ensure that the business will reach their goals, which may vary in different periods, but finally and unchanged, their benefits These policies and regulations shall affect employees A system of policies, regulations that are appropriate, harmonious benefit-sharing, oriented to fairly meet needs of both employers and employees, will be welcome by all people, otherwise, they will become causes of conflicts In fact, some policies are strongly protested because they are designed to protect the benefits of employers and not to care about the needs of employees In a survey in 2010, carried out in two companies, one of which is Vietnamese company, the other is a foreign-owned company, that had just been gone through strikes, the survey organizer splited questions into small groups of causes and got the answers of 150 emplyees in each company, in order to find the reasons for fierce conflicts between empoyers and their emplyees The results showed that the reasons involving benefit contradictions took a very high rate of domination Details are as below: No Viet Pacific Dagaco Clothing (Vietnamesec (Foreign owned ompany) company) Reasons Inadequate salary 98,7% 38,7% Excessive exploitation of employees’ energy 90,7% 82,7% Employees suffer from too poor and hard lives 49,3% 82,7% Inadequate allowances 2,7% 79,3% Other welfare and material interests are poor 2% 76% Inadequate overtime pay 2% 85,3% * Source: The Communist magazine 21st Edition 2010 The data clearly presents the fact: for employees, they received deprived material benefits and their physiological needs are poorly met; for employers, in order to guarantee benefits, as many as possible, they cut down the employees’ salary, welfares, allowances and bonuses; so the benefits of the two parties are in contradiction and without reaching a commmon solutions, the conflicts will finally come 2.2 Poor working environments - Regulations and procedures are lack or indadequate to guarantee appropriate rights and benefits of employees: safety in workplace, inadequate resources provided to carry out their assignements, incompatibilities of power and responsibilitites - Poors working conditions: lack of safety clothes, labour safety is not fully guarantees,work overloads… - Employers not their duties for employees as regulated by law, or they but not enough, by ignoring rights and benefits of employees: right to joint Labour Union, associations, to have social insurance, health insurance … - Inappropriate acknowledgement and puninshment, freedom and dignity of employees is not guaranteed - High work pressure, excessive workloads over employees that affects badly the health and private lives of employees Some results from the survey proves the reasons: No Viet Pacific Dagaco Clothing (Vietnamesec (Foreign owned ompany) company) Reasons Time spent for work and leisure Inadequate Labour Safety regulations and conditions Working rules are not in accordance with law and legal regulations 4,7% 80% 2% 73,3% 1,3% 76,7% 1,3% 19,3% Inadequate working conditions No Labour Agreement signed and impemented 0% 22% Working without labour contracts 0% 20,7% Issues in Social Security 0% 20,7% Issues in Health Security 0% 21,3% Issues in Personal Security 0% 22% 10 Inadequate bonuses and rewards 1,3% 86% 11 Employees punishments carried out not in accordance with legal regulations 1,3% 74,7% 12 Rights to set up, join and take part in Labour Union are blocked by employer 0,7% 17,3% 13 Freedom, health, dignity of employees are trodden down by employer 2% 19,3% * Source: The Communist magazine 21st Edition 2010 The upper stated causes are the fundermental and esential to lead to big, high level conflicts (Intergroup conflict: owners, managers and employees) It take place commonly and tend to accumulate and breake out into greater conflicts exert worse influence for businesses Besides, there are other causes that lead to minor and lower level conflicts (between managers, manager and individual, groups of employees, units in the businesses ), details are as below: 2.3 Causes from employers - Conflicts caused by leadership manner: not every manager are able to practise appropriate leadership and uphole nice leadership manner Effective personnel management requires good management skills and due enthusiasm If managers fail to care about feelings and desires of employees, they will not understand all the needs of employees If they fail to proper training for their employees, they will not get high skill and professional employees There can be three main kinds of leadership manners: democracy, generous dictatotship and arbitrainess Wise manager may apply appropriate manner depending on situations If the manager tends to be an imposer, always stick to his ideas, not to listen and consider ideas of other person, he will face conflicts with his employees, especially those who are capable and desire to actualize themselves - Conflicts caused by individualism of employers: in workplace, if individualism exists and affect employers, they tend to make wrong decisions An example in Hoang Gia Marine Joint stock company, when the owner decided to appoint his just-graduated son for the position of Manager and the son’s fiancé, who also has just got the university degree, as Chief Accountant, It supprised all employees His newly appointed son and daughter-in-law have low professional knowledge and skills, which lead to the decrease in business results over times And as as results, all employees feel frustrated with the unfair decisions of their employer - Conflicts caused by the fear of power erosion and subordinate excellence of managers: this is the common thought, and infact not many manager are comfortable to create favourable conditions for their subordinates to promote their capabilities Some managers hesitate that high capable subordinates may excel them and threaten their power, as a result they tend to impede their subordinates’ talents so that the subordinates will lose their motivative spririts and may leave the workplace This can be seen widely in state-owned enterprises Managers usually get promoted by the length of services and they will feel upset when high capable employees join the organization They will put the new employees under pressures and will not create favourable conditions for the new comers to prove themselves, which is easy to lead to conflicts - Conflicts caused by ethical issues of managers: good managers must have not only efficient skills but also good examples of ethics so that their subordinates can learn from Subordinates will have bad assessments over a manager with unhealthy way of life and bossy behaviours… The cohesion in worklace may break, performance results are low, accumulation of disegreements and conflicts may come along 2.4 Causes from employees - Conflicts caused by employees’ personalities: a number of employees are dependent and lazy and wish to get more benefits than what they can contribute Thesse people will create themselves conflicts with others in workplace - Conflicts caused by excessive work pressures: Pressures at work have their constructive ans destructive effects With fairly high pressure, employees will get moderate stimulation to better job Otherwise, too much pressure will make employees tired, exhausted and frustrated when they can not fulfil their work And if this matter keeps happening time over time, the employees may loose their tempers and in sultry status, which may lead to conflicts with their employers - Conflicts caused by different opinions in work: an organization is built up by different individuals with various kinds of personalities and capabilities Each individual has his own considerations, and when employers and employees can not work out a common solution for the contraditions in their opinions, conflicts may come When a new policy is issued, it may get agreements or oppsotions from employees Employees will protest when contradictions in opinions exist 2.5 Causes form culture differencies Culture in working environment is also one of the causes of conflicts between employers and employees There are numbers of organizations that have members with variuos kinds of educational levels, personalitiesN and languages that has both advantages and disadvantages Different languages, cultures between countries can cause conflicts if no acceptable treatment is applied to reduce differences.This matter commonly exists in foreign owned companies such as Taiwanese, Chinese companies… Most of employees in those companies are low-educated, with limited communication ability in foreign languages, as a result, they have difficulties working for foreign employers Besides, some employees are not able to meet the conditions as well as working manners of foreign employers, which lead to conflicts and force the employees to try to adjust themselves or to leave their organization The enequality in professional levels and skills also cause disagreements A manager with high professional level will find it hard to accept his low level subordinates who can not or poorly meet work requirements Vice versa, highly qualified subordinates find themselves unease to work under managers who are not eligible for the postions Harmonious benefit and professional factors will help an organizations to get stable developments Rise in conflict occurences - From the causes of conflicts stated, it is clear that, conflicts are likely inevitable and they exist in various forms and levels in workplace - Conflicts between employees and employers are common and they accumulate over times For the minor or normal conflicts at low levels, if the parties in businesses try to eliminate their causes, they will decrease and may generate positive effects, so that the business become better, the cohesion is strenthened, the employees and their employers can direct themselves to the same goals and find their benefits through that process - For serious, high level conflicts with various, fundermental, difficult and hard- to-solve causes involving parties’ benefits, they will accumulate over times and when the acccumulation excess the bearable limits of the party who is suffering bad effects, conflicts will break out The conflict breakout may come in several forms: + Letters of accusation, letters of complaints, lawsuit letter of employees of employers These types of letters are sent to concerned organizations such as Confederation of Labour, Higher management level of businesses, even to the Court + Work slowdown demonstration, strikes, demonstrations to fight for benefits These types of conflicts are in the rise According to the Ministry of LabourInvalids-Social Affairs, “Since 1995, there have been more than 4.100 strikes, of which the greater parts are in foreign owned companies from such contries as Taiwan, Korea, Japan with 3.100 strikes, equivalent to 75,4% The rate have been in the rise over years, especially since 2006 In 2011, the number of strikes reached its top of 857 strikes in 11 months The numbers are 422 in 2010, 218 in 2009, 720 in 2008 ” 10 (Souce: 2011Summary – 2012 Preparation report by Ministry of Labour, Invalids and SocialAffairs) It is clear that conflicts between employees and employers have not decreased but they have increased over times This reason will explain the fact: all the parties, who take part in conflict, have not paid due attentions to the causes of conflicts and tried to figure out solutions and take according actions to decrease, eliminate such courses, in order to prevent orccurance/break out When conflicts break out, the solutions applied were not adequate, appropriate and thoroughful, which means basic, fundermental cause still exist, and they continue to accumulate, and together with new causes arising in the process of running business, they tend to break out again After figuring out the causes of the increased conflicts between employees and employers, we hereby put forward an idea to improve the matter as below III An idea to improve the matter of conflict and the rise in conflict occurences between bosses and employees Goals of idea - Strengthen relationships between individuals in workplace, uphold the cohesion of employers and their employees in order to unify the business, make it a strong and concrete entity to sucessful business and resist bad impacts from outside - Decrease causes of conflicts between employees and employers in workplace Contribute some suggestion to buid up a healthy working environment, a business culture upholding its high responsibilities for its members, forming up a management mechanism with high interactive communications between employees and employers so as to help its members to regconnize and assess any contracdiction or conflict in workplace and in daily routine works themselves, and then they can seek for efficient and thoroughful solutions for conflicts whereas prevent curent and potential conflicts from accumulate and break out - Contribute ideas for setting up law-abiding and responsible-for-community businesses: seeking for appropriate benefits, ensuring adequate mental and material lives for all employees, contributing to community at the same time The idea contents - Set up and put into practice the Committee for Conflict Prevention to promote the implementation of means and measures of conflict prevention The Committee shall 11 be a sub unit of City Department of Labour-Invalids-Social Affairs, who is currently responsible for affairs involving labour - Principles: emphasizing preventive activities, upholding accordance, utilising the means of communication and training, preventive punishments for ensuring effect of its measures - Reasons for the idea: + Currently, legal regulations on labours, salary, protection of benefits of employees and employers, working conditions, work safety and hygienic conditions… are almost adequate However, practical implementation is not thorough or not in a firm status , which may lead to the fact that, employers who are aware of the regulations still ignore them on purpose, in order to cut down their expenses, maximize their profits; this situation turn employees into their victims This is the favourable condition for the rise in causes of such fierce conflicts as benefits conflicts between employees and employers, inadequate working environments… + Organizations responsible for administering the fields of labour, jobs, labour safety, working environment, labour training and education, protection of labour interests, relationship between employees and employers…such as functional units of City Department of Labour-Invalids-Social Affairs, Labour Union, Labour Association… have not yet fulfilled their tasks, and there is poor connections and cooperation between them to ensure effects of administration tasks + Regarding the representative of labour interests – Labour Union, its role is currently limited for the reasons that Labour Union personnel is dependent on employers, they still receive salaries and other allowances from employers and work on two-role principle More over, Labour Union is not a regulatory organization and therefore does not have mechanism to ensure the effects of implementation of labour related regulations initially, which means that it is hard for the Union to carry out conflict preventive measures (it concentrates on conflict resolution) + In the upper stated organizations, units, preventive funtions are not clearly stipulated and emphasized, most funtions are conflict resolution (for example, the Council of Conciliation, a sub-unit of Labour Union: when they the conciliation, it means that conflicts have already broken out) 12 After careful consideration of all the maters stated, in order to improve conflicts between employers and employees, it is necessary to carry out preventive measures before conflicts break out (stages of conflict antecedents and perceived conflict) Therefore, a Committee for Conflict Prevention to promote preventive measures, restrict the rise in conflicts and step by step reduce conflict occurances Methods for idea realization Committee for Conflict Prevention is set up based on the functional units of the City Department of Labour-Invalids-Social Affairs, who are involving in such substantial functions as labour, salary, labour safety, training, law, inspection The Committee has two substantial roles: - It is the regulatory and co-ordinating unit, entitled to carry out the task of regulation and co-ordination of other functional departments, units of the City Department of Labour-Invalids-Social Affairs in order to establish and implement policies, measures to: + Foster businesses to put into practice preventive measures + Organize training courses and guidance for practical implementation in businesses - It plays the main enforcement role to regularly supervise and assess the implemention of legal regulations involving labour interests, in businesses Plan for implementation - In order to guarantee the effects of enforcement, the Leader of the Committee must be one of the Leaders of the City Department of Labour-Invalids-Social Affairs, the Committee officers are the managers of sub-units, who are in charge of labour conflict matters The Committee have to set up cooperation mechanism with other organizations such as Labour Union, Asssociation of Women, profession associations - The Committee organizes a permanent group to daily works This group should gather personnel of high capabilities and specialized in law, especially laws on labour and work matters - The Committee set up a system of reporters, utilised current human resourses of Labour Union personnel in Businesses, or full time Union officers A mechanism of reports, communications, uninterruptible and sufficient information 13 - To conduct a survey and buid up database system on businiesses, labours, labour relationships, status of labour in businesses, salary systems, welfares, insurance, safety and hygien conditions, unions and associations activities, spiritual welfares… Analizing and classifying businesses acording to their possible conflict status, whereby save main and prior resources to exert influence on businesses that have high possible conflict status - Set up a set of standard criteria for assessment of management activities in businesses This set of standards will be oriented to guarantee the harmonious benefits of both employees and employers Every period of months, the Committee shall conduct a survey and assessment of working environments in businesses and then report results in public The reports have to cover contents of status of labour use, labour relationships, levels of law abidance, concerning issues and implications or solutions for the issues, and be sent to the business, with request to implement in the business (parties involving this task include both employees and employers) - Making arrangements for supervision of abidance, punctual reports of performance results following the time frame - The Committee prepares action plans of: + Training, updating knowledges about legal regulations related to labours, work, labou rights and interests, strikes… for those who hold key positions of businesses, business owners, human resource management staff in businesses + Playing leading role, together with Labour Union to set up, strengthen and improve capabilities of Consulting teams in tbusinesses by utilizing current Labour Union personnel resourses Consulting contens cover all matters already stated Training and consulting activities shoul be done regularly, continuously, in various forms like: training, cunsulting on site, on the web site , consultation may be done over telephone + Set up plans to survey, consult in business management This matter needs to co-ordinate with Profession associations and its purpose is to find out, consult and adjust punctually concerning issues that tend to cause labour conflicts Resourses for the idea implementation - Legal resource: legal regulations related to labours and labour use, rights and responsibilities of involved parties, labour union, association…(Labour law, Social Insurance, health Insurance, Labour Union law …) 14 - Information resources: collecting current available information from functional units of the City Department of Labour-Invalids-Social Affairs, information of Labour Union and reports of supervision, survey carried out by the Committee - Human resources: Except for the Specilised personnel of the Committee, it utilises current personnel from sub-units of the City Department of Labour-InvalidsSocial Affairs, local labour unions and also the human resource management personnel fo businesses - Material resources: expenditure from State budgets allocated for Ministry of Labour-Invalids-Social Affairs A part of expenditure from Labour Union will be used when two parties cooperate for joint tasks When carrying out compulsory training and consulting, businesses will pay the expenditure Possible obstacles and difficulties - Resourses: + Human resources are limited Available personnel are working on two-role principle, as a result, it affect the capabilities to meet the requirements of quick and quality task fulfilment + Information resource: information is currently shattered and insufficient The task of standardizing and systemizing information takes time and and may face difficulties + Expenditure: currently limited and need to be recalculated and further provided when starting processes - Awareness: + The awareness of higher administration levels, sub-units of Labour-InvalidsSocial Affairs is currently not in full agreement +The awareness of employers is dominated by benefits The affects and participation of another party in business internal management activities are hard to be accepted and the employers usually try to oppose to that or not to cooperate - The effect of laws: the effects of law are currently fairly low Legal system is relatively adequate but there exist lots of gap, punishments are not strict enough, which may cause the desire to oppose or avoid laws of people affected Conclusion Conflicts between employees and employers are the burning issues currently They cause negative effects on the society After finishing the course of Organizational 15 Behaviour, we, group VI, have done some studies on the rise in the conflicts between emplyees and employers, tried to figured out the causes of this matter, and whereby put forward an idea to improve the matter We hope that this study’s result will be a feasible solution, and it will contribute to the process of building up a healthier working environment at present Our group would like to express our thanks to Professor, Doctor Tran Van Binh for all he had done for us in the course References - Organizational Behaviour Textbook by Professor-Doctor Tran Van Binh - Organizational_Behavior by Jonh R.Schemerhorn, Jr., James G.Hunt and Richard N.Osborn - 7th Edition of University of Phoenix and Jonh Wiley & Sons, Inc - 2011Summary – 2012 Preparation report by Ministry of Labour, Invalids and SocialAffairs - The Communist magazine 21st Edition 2010 16 ... levels, if the parties in businesses try to eliminate their causes, they will decrease and may generate positive effects, so that the business become better, the cohesion is strenthened, the employees... manner: not every manager are able to practise appropriate leadership and uphole nice leadership manner Effective personnel management requires good management skills and due enthusiasm If managers... low or medium level managers Some specific causes 2.1 Benefits contradictions between employers and emplyees - Employers are business owners They invest and run the businesses They set up and