CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION
"When planning for one year, there's nothing better than planting grain, when planning for ten years, there's nothing better than planting trees, when planning for a lifetime, there's nothing better than planting men". Chinese philosopher, Guanzi (551 - 479 BC) 1.1 BACKGROUND OF STUDY OF HUMAN RESOURCE DEVELOPMENT Human Resource Development is an important discipline of present time. It is considered by scholars of Business Administration as a sub discipline of Human Resource Management (HRM), concerned with developing productive skills by imparting them training. Werner and DeSimone (2006 p.5) defined Human Resource Development (HRD) as a set of systematic and planned activities designed by an organization to provide its members with the opportunities to learn necessary skills to meet current and future job demands. Werner and DeSimone (2006) described HRD as a function of HRM. According to Rao (1995) the scope of HRD is extended, at one side, to developing competencies of human resource by enhancing knowledge, building skill, changing attitude and teaching values, and at other side, creation of conditions through public policy, programs and other interventions to help people to apply these competencies for their own and others benefits and making things happen. Bacchus (1992) asserted that the ultimate goal of HRD in any country is to improve the quality of life of all its people and not merely concerned with providing necessary skills to individuals. The concept of HRD deals with many facets of development of individuals including their physical, intellectual, emotional, political, and spiritual aspects. People earn their food and living by working and engage themselves in productive activities for which a combination of both physical and intellectual

2 development is important. Physical development comes from good nourishment and medical care. Intellectual development comes through the process of education and socialization. Social development involves developing the ability to live as the member of the society or a group and contribute to it, at the same time deriving benefits from it. The need for existence of all human beings makes this development imperative. Political development ensures human dignity through freedom of expression, democratic participation and an opportunity to influence things that in turn influence the individuals living. Moral and spiritual development is required to bring order, discipline and peace in the life. Thus all aspects of development are integral part of HRD. According to Rao (1995) ultimately what is important, is human satisfaction and the quality of life. Developing people is the essence of any HRD effort and it is an important goal of all other development activities (plans, policies, programs, establishment of new structures, mechanism). All forms of development (economic, technological, ecological, agricultural, industrial, etc) are ultimately meant to serve people in terms of improving their happiness through better quality and standards of life. The focus of the present study is on improvement of quality of life of workers due to unions active role in negotiating higher wages and good working conditions for them because workers of any organization have weak bargaining power as employees without their collective representation by a labor union. Labor unions exert their pressure to convince or compel the employer to extend financial benefits i.e. good wages, bonuses and allowances, and non financial benefits i.e. health facilities, better working conditions, recreation facilities, training opportunities, job security, facilities for education, reasonable daily working hours and paid leaves. These facilities improve the living conditions of workers who in turn exert more efforts to enhance their productivity and profit of the organization. 1.2 EXISTING PROBLEM Presently in Pakistan the supply of labor is more than its demand causing unemployment in the country. The unemployment rate in Pakistan is estimated as 5.3 percent in 2006 -07 (LFS 2007). Due to surplus supply of labor, its price (wage/salary)

3 is low. Government has raised minimum wage recently to Rs. 6000/- per month which was only Rs. 4600/- per month. With this limited income workers can not meet their needs making them healthy and motivated to work efficiently and dedicatedly. Management builds the skills of workers by training to increase their performance and efficiency but even, if workers are skillful and well trained, their performance may not be up to mark of satisfaction until they are not physically healthy, mentally satisfied and motivated or developed in HRD context. But employers usually do not pay attention towards this or do not desire to pay good remuneration or provide better atmosphere in the pretext of higher labor cost. Unions try to convince or compel the employer for better remuneration and better atmosphere. If unions are playing a role, by protecting the rights of workers and making efforts to secure benefits for them then the membership of unions must increase, but a declining trend in membership of unions has been observed globally Freeman and Medoff (1984), Hyman (1999), (Jose, 2000), Hirsch and Schumacher (2000), Machin (2000), Bryson (2001), Saavedra and Torero (2002), Ebbinghaus (2002), Knox (2004) and Eisenbrey (2007). The question is (1) why workers are not joining labor unions? (2) Are unions not protecting the rights of workers or exerting efforts for securing benefits for them? A few research studies have looked at the negative image of the labor unions. Ghayur (1996-a) has pointed out that quiet often labor unionism is seen as undesirable intervention in the smooth functioning of organizations with out realizing the positive contribution it could make towards industrial peace, harmony and progress. Employers allege that labor unions, only talk about workers rights and ignore their obligations. They believe that unions are largely responsible for low productivity and lower production.

4 1.3 PURPOSE OF RESEARCH The purpose of this research is to answer three questions. 1. Are unions protecting the rights of workers or exerting efforts for securing benefits for them. 2. Do labor unions play any role in promoting physical, intellectual and emotional development of workers and 3. Do unions put any effort to enhance the productivity of the workers and improve peace at place of work? The effectiveness of trade unions in promoting HRD is determined by some of the benefits workers receive due to unions. Particularly the focus is on the role of unions in: 1. Securing financial benefits for workers in the form of wage rise, bonuses and other allowances. 2. Securing non financial benefits for workers like health facilities, workers education, better working conditions, decrease in working hours, increase in annual leaves, training opportunities etc. 3. 4. 5. Giving the workers sense of awareness about their rights. Improving the productivity, or efficiency of the employees. Making harmony at work place between the management and employees and making efforts for a peaceful industrial atmosphere. 1.4 RESEARCH QUESTIONS 1. To what extent the unions in Pakistan are effective in development of HR by securing benefits for workers, such as: i) ii) Wage rise Fringe benefits like Bonus

5 iii) iv) v) vi) vii) viii) ix) x) xi) xii) xiii) xiv) xv) 2. Job Security Time decrease or resistance against time increase Health or Medical treatment facilities Education facility Overtime payment Better working conditions Leaves increase or resistance against leaves decrease Post-retirement benefits like pension Arranging recreation facilities Training opportunities Decreasing wages inequality Informing workers about their rights Children education facility

To what extent the unions in Pakistan are effective in promoting employers interest by developing HR by putting efforts in: i) Motivating workers for increasing productivity/ improving efficiency. ii) Improving peace and harmony at workplace.

The answers of these questions will determine the effectiveness of unions in promoting Human Resource Development (HRD).

6 1.5 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE RESEARCH The findings, conclusions and recommendations of the study will be beneficial for: 1Governments labor policy maker to frame out workers friendly policies. 23451.6 Employers while deciding workers benefits. Unions while demanding facilities for workers. Workers while making decision of electing their union/CBA. Industrial Relations researchers to search further in the matter.

LIMITATIONS OF RESEARCH The limitations of the study are:

1.

The sample covered in the study is only individuals of Rawalpindi/ Islamabad and therefore the results can not be generalized to whole of Pakistan.

2.

The role of trade unions in promoting HRD is measured through employees benefits and that too is based on the responses of the workers which may introduce biasness in the results.

3.

The scale used in the questionnaire for measuring performance of unions is arbitrary and that too can introduce bias.