Workers’ Obligations and Management’s Rights, Duties and Limitations in Employment Relationship

The implication of workers’ obligations and management’s rights, duties and limitations is that there must be a process for reconciling both workers and management’s interests in the employment relationship. This can be done through formal collective agreements where there are recognized trade unions or even workers’ associations. The absence of these may indicate clearly that management adopts an unpopular unitarist philosophy. But it is to be expected that in these circumstances, management’s efforts to increase mutuality and to gain workers’ commitment it adopts a stakeholder or partnership mentality which should, at least, involve consultation with workers on how the interests of the super-ordinate organization and its members can best be served. Thus, reconciliation of interests would involve the development, negotiation and application of formal rules and procedures for collective bargaining, handling disputes and regulating employment. These serve to determine the reward for effort and other conditions of employment to protect the interests of both employees and their employers and to regulate the ways in which employers treat their employees and how the latter are expected to behave at work