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United States of America |
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Back to International Industrial Relations It is hard trying to define the USA employment practices in relation to the Japanese and European systems. This is because the true essence of the Japanese and German systems was as a result of post-world war restructuring and the rebirth in both national infrastructure and ideologies. The UK and USA employment practices have in essence remained very unchallenged. We have stated that the UK system missed a vital chance to restructure and regenerate itself in the post war era. Instead it allowed it to remain stagnant, the same can be said for the USA employment system. The USA suffered much in the same way as the UK did in the 1970-1990's period, in the sense that it was one of the major exporting nations of the world, until the impact of German and Japanese products with higher quality and competitive pricing. During the 1980's there was an aggressive USA manufacturing response to accepting some of the Japanese ethics. The whole ethos of USA manufacturing and personnel policies is based on low cost, free trade and high quality of product. GOVERNMENT ROLE - The central (federal) USA government sets out what the minimum wage should be for given industries. The central government also offers support in the contractual arrangements between employers and employees. MINIMUM WAGE - The central (federal) government sets out what it sees as the minimum wage should be for different industry sectors, however the local (state) government can set higher rates. EMPLOYEE INVOLVEMENT - In the USA, it is illegal for a business to set up similar schemes to the German Works Councils or the Japanese low union system. This is because there is a legal requirement for a business to have some form of trade union representation in their business and not someone from the business looking after all aspects of employee welfare. USA TRADE UNIONS - Like the UK, the USA has in excess of 200 trade unions, with the umbrella organisation being the American Federation of Labor - Congress of Industrial Organisation (AFL-CIO). EMPLOYERS ASSOCIATIONS - Where in Japan and Germany, the employers association work in harmony with trade unions, there are very few employers associations in the USA. Moreover there is a greater number of businesses aimed at expressing how a business can be helped by another business. Indeed what tends to happen in USA businesses is that people are paid wages to ensure that they reduce the level of trade union power as much as possible. Which leads to businesses encouraging the use of bribery to prevent unionism. COLLECTIVE BARGAINING - The USA system of wage negotiations resemble the UK system very closely in terms of local and nation unions negotiating with business managers at local or national levels. Despite being the modern day bastion for democracy the US employment practices are a little bewildering, for instance, there is very little legal protection for someone being dismissed. In the USA being involved in trade union activities is not seen as making a person very beneficial to a business, it actually harms employment prospects of an individual. In spite of all this, businesses are supposed to have some form of trade union representatives within their workplace. The true reality is that trade union involvement in the USA is very low compared to Japan, Germany and the UK, in fact almost half the figure. This inherently has something to do with the fact that trade unions under the cold war era unions were seen as being something that resembled communism and something everyone should join. The harsh reality is that the manual workers in USA society have evolved little since the Fordism days of the early 1900's. We say this because little regard is paid to them in terms of benefits, motivation, training, career enhancement other than their minimum wage packets being met. The white collar/office staff seem to be the ones who have all the best benefit and motivational packages given to them. So the USA does appear to, not really progressed greatly in it's industrial relations. There is little union involvement in the workplace, which tends to express a poor industrial relations system. Back to International Industrial Relations |
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