It is undeniable that with the change and development of employment relationship there is a new management philosophy was happened. That is human resource management. Employment relationship has been claimed by Brown and Nolan (1988) means that under a certain condition, employer and employee agreed to reach an agreement, under the employer’s require and supervision that the employee supply their own ability for employer to provide service, skill and labour. Then the employer will pay wage that form the corresponding rights and obligations. The relationship was described the employment relationship.
The recent years, the employment relationship arouse wide public concern that is because deal with the enterprise internal employee relations that may guide enterprises to establish a good working environment, it could improve the employees’ working enthusiasm and creating higher performance. To building a harmonious employment relationship that plays an increasingly important role in the companies, which is important aspect of the corporate culture and completion. Thus, in order to ensure the development of the enterprise stable and orderly, create a harmonious working environment and strengthening the communication with employee is necessary to a company.
However, the employment relationship was affected by five key characteristics; they are indeterminacy, unequal, and dynamic, labour with labour power and worker exploitation or alienation. The indeterminacy was reflected in the employment contract and exchange. The employment contract claims that he employer using their service and skill to exchange the wage from employer and be protected by the law.
And according to Gintis (1987) as the employment contract was mentioned that the capitalists to pay money for worker and the labour effort to produce goods and deliver services, the money exchange to the worker and bring value. That is the exchange between the employer and employee, but it is unequal. Unequal reflect in the working environment and the employment relationship, the employees pay the same service but been treated unequally by employers. This is the important factor to influence the employment relationship. Dynamic exists in co- existence of conflict and co- operation two forms. In Marxist views, as Braverman (1974) concludes the primary conflict is the produce relationship of private ownership of capitalist between the social productive forces.
The conflict shows at in different views, needs, desires and demands. An excellent company could resolve conflict and avoid negative effect that attract and retain employees to improve performance. Labour with labour power, in the Marxism view, according to Sawyer (1989) labour is the most important factor in the production process and using labour activity effort to produce goods or deliver service, at this time labour is stressed on the people. Yet the labour power is the individual s ability to do the job and the social groups that have the potential to be employment.
According to Braverman (1974) the capitalist who possession and combination labour and production material in the process of production that creating the surplus value, and gradually become capitalism. According to Marx (1876) the nature of capitalist is work exploitation. As Gintis (1987) suggest that the capitalists through continuous taking possession of the surplus value to expand capital, so as to further to exploitation and control labour.
From the three perspectives, the employment relationship could be understood to another form of human social relationship. The three perspectives can help manager to learn the issues of conflict, control and regulation and the different perspective stand for to take different approaches and tools. These three perspectives are Unitary, Pluralism and Marxism.
Under the Unitary perspective that is focusing on employment relationship with in a harmonious group and the two sides of employment relationship with the common interest. Employees believe managers completely, they claim that the manager will focus on the interests of the whole company and the benefit of all employees. First of all, manager encourage employees to work hard and create some extend profit, and then managers will pay salary as the reward. Under the unitary perspectives, this is an equal exchange. The view of Fox (1965) that points out the both side in the employment relationship without any conflict in the interest, even if the conflict was happened, the reason must be poor communication or some misunderstanding between employer and employee; the conflict is not fundamental difference.
The Perspective of Pluralism is emphasis on that to admit the conflict in the employment relationship, the conflict of employers and employees happened occasionally (Fox, 1973). As Clegg (1979) in the employment relationship, employer and employee pursue their difference interests that could formation of the conflict, however this conflict could be resolved by a third party intervention, such as using trade union to organize the collective bargaining that could effectively solve the contradiction. Therefore the Trade Unions were produced, and then it relies on the power of labour fight for more benefit.
Through the intervention of the third party that could protect the interests of employees and help employer reduce losses in minimum. On the other hand, some people who disagree with the above claims. To quote Fox (1973), the Pluralism is over ‘accepts the status quo’, which same as ‘a management ideology’ that stress the trade union is unnecessary. Goldthorpe (1974) argues that this measure is ‘fundamentally conservative’. By comparison, the Pluralism view about the aspect of Trade Union has been convincingly refuted by other opinions. Thus, most of the European countries support the Pluralism perspective.
The perspective of Marxism stressed is the conflict and control in the employment relationship is irresistible, inconsistent with the interests of employer and employee that is a irreconcilable contradictions. The situation is determined by the nature of capitalism, the nature of the capitalist is the exploitation of the surplus value of the worker through continuous accumulation of the surplus value to reach capital expansion (Marx, 1987). As this perspective, the employee is the essential resource to create value and expand the capital, at the beginning, the employee from the work to produce the value, when the value is more than consumes that is surplus values to get greater profit. Thus the conflict is the class conflict and irreconcilable in the relationship.
The conclusion by Hyman (1975) there is some unstable and dynamic factors under this kind of class structure and unequal wage. With the power imbalance, Allen (1960) suggests that the third party (such as the Trade Union) could be an inevitable production in the industrial relationship. The Trade Unions can help the worker bargaining with profit and ease the conflict in the employment relationship. As Rose (2004) pointed out that ‘both Unitary of Pluralist are ideologies’, they change with society change. The Marxist perspective is radical view that using critical opinion to comment the capitalism.
