4 schools BA 303 Essay

Ariya Kendrick

January 24th, 2018

BA 303

Four schools of thought

The mainstream economics school focuses on employment in the society like employees that work in a competitive market. Majority of the time this isn’t good for them especially when the market is extremely competitive and unemployment rates rise. This is considered a labor problem when there is insufficient labor market competition. This labor problem is solved looking at it from a macroeconomic perspective and realizing when the economy is stimulated more.

For example, creating more unique and independent jobs that we haven’t seen before to reduce unemployment. If there also is a labor problem because of government regulation, it is best to remove this barrier unless it would be more employment would result another problem from these actions.

The Human Resource Management School is abbreviated to “PM” which stands for poor management and personnel management. Poor management for example, is when workers like in the early 1900’s would work immensely long days, get paid at such low wages and put themselves at high risk for injury.

Personnel management agrees with this because their rationale is to work them like a machine and when they can no longer work to fire them and hire on younger employees. This is inhumane and is a labor problem and although the straight forward solution to this problem would be better management, it is not all that simple. Managers would need to create a workplace for their workers where they feel motivated, comfortable, equal and able to talk to their supervisor if they have any issues or concerns on the job with an “open-door policy”. In return this would enhance the performance of workers.

The Industrial Relations School the labor problem roots from bargaining power between workers and firms being unequal. The solution would be to get independent labor unions formed by workers’ bargaining power increase and for them to pursue collective bargaining. This school is all about bargaining power and what it does to a society. Pretty much if one side has all the power then society is worth off. For example, if workers had all the power and could come up with their own rules not as much work would get done and they would be less motivated.

The Critical Industrial Relations School pays “attention on how dominant groups design and control institutions to serve their own interests, albeit imperfectly due to resistance from competing groups” (Budd, 37) Their labor problem is society establishes their productivity for their firm by selecting a specific group or class of people to employ. This is an issue because other working classes and racial groups will feel neglected and treated unfair for not being selected to be employed. This problem can be solved by switching from a society where private owner’s no longer have majority and rather the community as a whole can make majority of the decisions.

Sources

Labor Relations: Striking a balance, 4th Edition, John W. Budd