What Is Power & Authority in Industrial Relations?
Power and authority are the same in industrial relations as they are anywhere else. The basic concept of industrial relations involves the interaction between management and labor, as well as ownership and management. Authority and power are at the center of this field, which examines industry, as the main productive mechanism of a nation, and the method by which millions make a living. The way that power and authority are used in the workplace is important for basic moral goods like liberty, equality, fairness and merit.
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Power and Authority
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Power is a more abstract concept than authority. It can be found in every sphere of life. Power is the ability of one person to use another person as a means to an end. In the field of industrial relations, power is about using the ownership of capital to control labor. Authority, by contrast, is the legal and/or moral right to use power.
Power and Labor
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Industrialization created a situation in western Europe where the bosses, those who owned capital, had all the power, while labor had little. Since the owner controlled all the means of production -- such as machines, the shop, the land and the tools -- all the worker had was his own body and the ability to do as he was told. Industry considered itself to have the authority to do this because it was successful, it was making the nation strong and it served the interests of the government and military apparatus. This concept was not to last. Nevertheless, in earlier industrial relations, the issue was the application of "authority" merely to the fact that some industrialists were more successful than others and, hence, could control their labor.
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Authority and Competition
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Capitalist industry and its relations with labor bases the concept of authority on the results of competition. An entrepreneur has the authority to tell his workers what to do and how to do it because he is successful -- he has given the people what they want. Therefore, he has made profits and, therefore, has a great amount of authority that backs up his power. On the other hand, unions base their authority on the fact that they are as necessary to success as the managers and owners. In both cases, industrial relations bases authority on those aspects of production that the two groups have that are indispensable: management coordination and labor power.
Balance of Power
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Organized labor held that mere success did not give anyone the right to use power arbitrarily. Unions came into existence to redress this imbalance, and redefined the notion of "industrial relations." In large industrial enterprises, workers could band together and make demands. The capitalist had as much need of them as they needed the capitalist. They used that power to strike, or to refuse to work. This is an exercise in raw power. Once governments began to recognize the unions' right to exist, to negotiate better working conditions and pay, the worker's union became an authority, not merely an exercise in power.
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