Analysing the industrial relations pressure in an industry or Research Paper

Analysing the industrial relations pressure in an industry or organisation in Australia - Research Paper Example The paper tells that the latter half of the twentieth century saw a progression of elite sports in Australia from the amateur and weekend pursuits towards the full time multi-million dollar enterprises. Along with the increasing professionalism in this industry the labour and industrial relations too has begun to resemble the traditional industries in various sectors. The sector has faced constant pressure to provide high wages to these elite players as they have taken up a more serious attitude towards negotiating and bargaining industrial relations issues. Sports are regarded as a lucrative business in which the players’ lifestyles can be determinant of the financial contracts that they can negotiate. Development of the enterprise bargaining (EB) in Australian sports bears relevance to bargaining in Australia. Negotiation occurring between the different parties occurs at the individual as well as the enterprise levels. However, the position of players’ associations as well as the sporting leagues in the bargaining process remains week and demands attention. The professional sporting players associations or unions have a chequered history. Out of thirty three attempts to form the players associations in the professional sports team in Australia only six remain in existence till date. Another important issue in the professional sports sector in Australia is that it is found to be very oppressive in terms of the employees’ labour rights. It is seen that players belonging to the major professional team sports remain strictly restricted by the league mandated labour regulations or industrial relations regulations.... Mobilising of members actually provides unions with the power to use their voice collectively to influence their employers and actions of institutions to benefit the cause of employees (Brooks, Callen, Singh, Felman & Thimann). The players associations particularly use such industrial actions in the same way and have successfully strengthened their positions in the industry which poses threat to this sector. Literature reveals that these associations capacity to engage in such industrial actions actually determines their success in the industry in terms of wages and salaries. These have yielded positive gains for these players in terms of their wages and other conditions of employments (Hanley & Rogers, 2004, p.4). There has been the generation of organizational conflicts in this industry. Common causes of conflicts identified are in terms of revenue sharing, refusal to compromise, welfare of players, and administrative incompetence. The failure to arrive at common objectives by the negotiating parties for the IR processes coupled with the reluctance of such parties to compromise on self interests are identified as two of the major reasons for organizational conflicts in this industry (Hanley & Rogers, 2004, p.5). Industry/ organisation The Australian sports industry has proceeded a long way since the last fifteen years. There are great entry of funds via such avenues as coaching, facility development, sports sciences, national sporting schemes, institute establishments, sport management and talent identification program. Being a relatively new industry in the market, this sector is quite unregulated and is yet to define its boundaries completely. Lack of minimum salary structures, dispute resolution procedures or