XLRI School of Business and Human Resources, Jamshedpur, is organising the National Industrial Relations Conference on January 14 and 15, 2012 at its campus. The conference is centered on the theme ‘Revival of Industrial Relations in India - Myth and Realities’ to discuss and draw up a possible road-map for resolving some of the burning issues facing the manufacturing and industrial relations ecosystem in India.
This seminal conference is being organised by the Forum for Industrial Relations at XLRI (FIRE@X) which is partnered by the Indian Industrial Relations Association (IIRA) and FES India. The conference comprises panel discussions, speaker sessions and paper presentations by students from top B-schools of the country. The panel discussion by industry stalwarts, acclaimed judges, renowned academicians and eminent trade union leaders aims to explore the political, legal, social and economic dimensions to the issue.
The speaker sessions would be addressed by illustrious personalities like N S Iyer, GM-HR at Asian Paints Ltd, Ranendra Goswami, Head, HR & Administration at Apollo Health & Lifestyle Ltd, G D Nadaf, general secretary, SBI Officer's Federation, J S R Prasad, director, UNIDOC, P. Somaraju, deputy labour commissioner among others. Paper presentations would see students from top B-schools of the country present their perspectives on the issue.
The theme of the conference revival of industrial relations in India underlines the growing importance of industrial relations consequent to government legislation, growing union collectivism amidst growth of manufacturing sector in India.
The mounting unrest at various industrial pockets that the country is witnessing in recent years portends ominous trends in Industrial relations.
Moreover, from the Honda unrest in 2005 to Maruti strike in 2011, the country has been mired in troubled waters on the industrial relations front and at times it appears that the situation is going from bad to worse. A few infamous industrial disputes in the last 12 months is indicative of the challenges to Indian manufacturing sector.
While various governments trying to push these issues under the carpet by branding them as nothing more than political conspiracies by the opposition parties, it is quite obvious that the problem is more complex and structurally deep-rooted. With years of rapid growth creating skill shortage and thus providing greater bargaining power to labour unions - is it time to give some real teeth to the management to hire and fire? What supply-side labour policies would ease the pressure? And what kind of alterations need to be made to the much-criticised and so-called restrictive, archaic, skewed labour laws so that they be politically more palatable?
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