Management of Industrial Relations

Case Study- 1:

Shresth Cement Ltd. is a renowned cement manufacturing company in India. It has started its
operation in 1988 with the deployment of 150 on roll workman, 300 on roll Staff and 1800
contractual labour in various areas of the plant operation and in support services. Plant is headed
by Unit Head, Mr. Rajesh and HR Head Mr. Siva Kumar. All 150 on roll workman and around
600 contractual labour are led by two strong registered and recognized unions INTUC & BMS,
although management has not entered into any settlement regarding the demands related to the
contractual labour, raised by both the unions time to time. In 1996, management of Shresth
Cement, has confronted major labour unrest and one day strike in plant, mainly from the labour
and workman from nearby villages. At that time management has taken a decision to appoint
some of the strong persons from nearby villages as Security Guards in existing security contract.
And after ten years these Security Guards has become major challenge for the management as
they have also joined the union.

Incident happened on 14 April 2010 at 8:15 AM, when HR Head Mr. Siva Kumar was busy in
preparation of strategic meeting with top management, received news regarding an incident in
Packing Plant area. Packing plant is the area where most of the unionized contract labour is
being deployed. After reaching the incident place along with Ass. Manager- IR, Sr. Officer IR
(Head IR was on Personal leave) and Security Head, Siva Kumar found, one of the contractual
labour working in Packing Plant as a Housekeeping labour, while cleaning the floor, crushed by
JCB Machines front wheel and passed away, on the spot. Mr. Siva Kumar tried to remove the
body from incident place but packing plant labour did not allowed him to do so and one of the
Sweeper slapped Mr. Siva.

Mr. Siva went back to his office and while a discussion was going on, Mechanical Head entered
into the office and communicated that there was huge crowd at packing plant area is getting
more and more violent by the time and demanding that Unit Head of the plant should visit the
incident place, on which HR Head & Sr. Officer IR , Security Head along with Unit Head visited
the incident place. Four vehicles along with 10 Security Guards came in. After reaching at
incident place, while observing the dead body, crowd has surrounded all the management team
members and one person from crowd, shouted for beating and the crowd started man handling
with all the Six members of management team, mercilessly. Somehow all management team
escaped from the mob and Unit Head and Safety Head, got major injuries and referred to the
nearest town for the treatment. Other team members came to main administration building and
called the police for help. Meanwhile, Sr. Officer, IR, called the Union Leaders for support and
discussion. Union Leader refused for the same and asked HR Head to come on incident place
and communicated that all the discussion/negotiation shall be done at incident place only. After
advising and requests, Union leader agreed to come for negotiation and again Union Leader with
20 to 30 Contractual Labour came to the Conference hall of administration building and a
meeting started at 12:00 Hrs.

At around 15:00 Hrs. after several rounds of meeting and hot discussions, Negotiation ended on
some amount and one on roll employment to the dependent of dead labour. A MOU on all the
agreed points prepared and signed by all the Management representative present and Union
Leaders of both the Unions and present Village Political authorities. Sr. Officer IR, went to the
crowd in front of Administration building and read the MOU, loud, for the communication of all.

Questions

1. If you were in the position of HR Head, how you would have tackle the entire situation?
2. What are the threats & solution of deploying contractual labour for a longer duration, like
at Shresth Cement?
Case Study - 2: Mitra Frozen Food Manufacturers

The workers of this company, who belong to the All India Trade Union Congress (AITUC) ,
have finally had enough of being treated badly at their workplace. The rules and regulations of
the The Basic Conditions of Employment Act (BCEA) are not being followed, and several
workers have been dismissed without the proper procedure being followed. The factory
supervisor, Rahul is very abusive towards the workers, and yesterday, he refused to grant a
permit to Kiran, a worker in the factory to attend his sisters funeral. The workplace is dirty, and
some of the machinery is unsafe. The workers also do not receive wage slips and do not know
what deductions are being made.

They got together after work and discussed what their next move should be. Radha, who is a
food packer, suggested that they should call a strike. She believes that this is the last resort to get
senior management to pay attention to their grievances and to change its attitude towards the
workers. They have tried on many previous occasions to address their grievances with Rahul, but
nothing has changed.

The workers called on their shop steward, Raghava, who again brought the grievances to the
attention of Rahul, their immediate supervisor, but nothing has happened. The workers then held
a ballot during which all but one voted in favour of embarking on strike action. The shop
steward, Raghava, then served a 48-hour notice on Rahul that the workers were going to embark
on industrial action in the form of a strike.

Questions:

1. Is Radhas suggestion appropriate? Explain your reasons.

2. What are the steps to be followed by the workers in order to call a legal strike?
3. What can the workers do if their strike action fails to elicit any response from the
management of the company?
Case Study -3

Power Motors is an automobile firm near Chandigarh, employing about 10,000 employees.
There is only one recognized union which enters into agreement on many issues containing terms
and conditions of employment of workers. Besides, many matters relating to the terms and
conditions of employment are covered under other instruments such as minimum wages and
quantum of bonus by labor laws, allowances and criteria for promotion by industrial awards, and
disciplinary matters and grievances by standing orders. With a desire to improve the terms and
conditions of employment of workers, the union has placed a charter of demands before the
management. The demands included an upward revision of minimum wages, enhancement of
quantum bonus, additional welfare amenities, recreational facilities to the workers and
revocation of promotions to some favourites. The management considered the demands and
invited the union for negotiations, but it made it clear that it will not negotiate on the issues of
rising of minimum wage and quantum of bonuses as it will be contrary to the legal provisions.

Questions:

1. Was it lawful for the union to demand enhancement of minimum wage when it is regulated by
law?

2. List out the reasons that provoked the trade union to put forth their demands to the
management?

3. Why did management refuse to negotiate on question of bonus?

 Customer Relationship Management
Case Study - 1

Deepak Raj has a company Raj Mills and has been into the business of manufacturing and
refining of rice bran oil in East Godavari District. The area is a rich belt of rice crops, so rice
bran is easily available in the region. Rice bran is the layer that is stuck with the oil after the
cover and the white colour of rice. When this rice is processed in rice mills, the cover of rice is
taken off and used as used as fuel for his company. When this rice is polished, the brown portion
stuck with the rice is peeled off and this is used for extracting oil known as rice bran oil. This oil
is very fruitful in heart diseases. Processing of rice bran to extract eatable oil consists of multiple
stages of refining. During this process useful by products are also obtained like cattle feeds and
wax is used in soap industry. So every product of rice is used and delivers value. Raj mills has
been in refining business and had selling the refined oil to big mills and selling wax to soap
manufacturers of Kanpur. This was a business of limited margin but in steady nature. Raj never
faced the problem of demand.

Later Mr. Raj himself realised why he himself cant sell the products in the market. He realised
that this move will reap him higher margins at least 2 times high when compared to his existing
margins. So he decided to start his own brand of Rice bran oil to retail customers starting first
from Varanasi and then moving to eastern Uttar Pradesh, then entire Uttar Pradesh and Bihar and
subsequently to the rest of the country. For, he hired a research firm and placed before a list of
issues he wanted answers of. He want a complete marketing study to be conducted for the
venture that include:

Questions:

1. List out the relationship Practices those should be adopted by Raj Mills to get the business
going?

2. Give a detail account on Customer Segmentation for the new business?

Case Study 2: Toyota Continuous improvement and mass customization

For three decades, Toyota enlisted its employees to find faster, more efficient methods to
develop and make low cost, defect free cars. The results were stupendous. Toyota became the
benchmark in the car industry for quality and low cost. The same, however, cannot be said for
mass customization, Toyotas latest pioneering effort. With US companies finally catch up,
Toyotas top managers set out in the late 1980s to use their high skilled, flexible workforce to
make customised products at the same low cost as standardised, mass- produced goods. They
saw this approach as more advanced stage of continuous improvement. By 1992, Toyota seemed
to be well on its way to achieving its goals, offering a wide range of options for each model and
manufacturing and delivering a made to order car within three days.

However Toyota ran into trouble and had to retreat at least temporarily from its goal of becoming
a mass customizer. After Toyota investigations revealed that 20 percent of product categories
accounted 80 percent of sales, it reduced its offerings by one-fifth. One of the main causes of the
problem was that while Toyota was pursuing mass customization, it had retained the existing
structures and systems of continuous improvement of organization. Also the engineers
incorporated many elegant features in the acrs without understanding the customer needs and
requirements. In mass customization, customer demand drives the model varieties.

Questions:

1. Identify the mistakes committed by Toyota in pursuing mass customization and make
suggestions on how to rectify them?

2. Explain the ways in which the company should have changed to implement the mass
customization or simply CRM?