Dynamics of Neo-Liberal Workplace and Employment Relations: Implications and Challenges to Social Partners

The challenges facing social partners in Employment Relations occasioned by evolving global dynamics continue to task the actors; stretching the capacity of institutional arrangements for managing employment relations, even in the face of globalization and socio-economic challenges. Indeed, one of the inevitable implications of global capitalism on contemporary workplace has been the accentuating challenges, and evolving “new” roles for social partners in employment relations, within the tripartite arrangement of industrial relations system. In the context of this evolving challenges, institutions and actors of Industrial Relations are confronted with how to tackle emerging issues such as; the volatility of the labour market, vulnerability and precarity, mobility of labour, labour policy reforms, part-time work and flexible work arrangement, on the one hand, and how to cope with the consequences of neo-liberal dictates such as privatization and restructuring, with implications for industrial harmony, and productivity in the workplace. In the emerging context, social partners are to be more innovative and strategic in coming up with approaches, attitudes and practices, not only at sustaining employment relations, but indeed on the need to further ensure decent work for all. For instance, Labour (trade unions) as one the strategic partner in Industrial Relations, has come to realize that beyond negotiations on working conditions, they wish to extend their mandate to participate in the formulation of productivity polices at a consultative level, with the management, and even on broad national public policy that have direct impact on the living conditions of the entire citizenry, at the national level. This posture, the State (also a strong partner) is often uncomfortable with; arguing that Labour should limit itself to its traditional roles of improving the terms of employment and welfare of workers. In view of these diverse interests in which industrial relations constituents are pitched, this paper contends that priority should therefore be given to ways of evolving sustainable framework of social dialogue that will continuously assure industrial harmony within the context of ever-fluid environment. This paper contributes to understanding the relevance of participative (social) dialogue as resilient institutional framework in the context of the new challenges.