Facing an Illegal Strike: How Can HR Prepare for Worker Unrest?

Hi, I am working as an HR Executive in a business concern. Recently, we are facing drastic difficulties as our workers have gone on an illegal strike. As an HR professional, I want to know how to handle these challenges. Our workers are displaying harsh behavior. How can I prepare myself to handle such a crisis? I hope for your kind reply.

Dealing with Worker Strikes: A Guide for HR Professionals

An HR person, especially one who is a fresher, cannot deal with such situations alone. Unless given a clear mandate on how to settle it, even a senior person in the IR (Industrial Relations) Department may not succeed in settling disputes. Before going forward, we should also know how you declared it an illegal strike. Didn’t they give notice of the strike? Is it that the demand is not genuine, unreasonable, or abnormally high compared to industry standards or the company's profitability?

Being an HR person, we should have a perception of the workers’ attitude. They are not educated like us, nor do they care for the consequences, and therefore, very often, they will react very harshly. It may not be due to their fault; it may be due to our lack of communication or sometimes due to ill-treatment or the general attitude of persons sitting in the Admin/HR office.

I would say that even an HR head may not be a decision-maker in many organizations. There may be exceptions in big corporations, but still, they will have to satisfy their boss or the Board of Directors. To safeguard everyone’s interest, they will wait for approval from their boss or the BOD. It is also true that if a strike/dispute is not settled in time, the performance indicator of HR (especially IR person) will come down drastically, and sometimes they will be out of the company forever. At the same time, if they settle it in time and build up cordial industrial relations within the organization, they may not get much recognition because, at that point, the actual owners will say that they did their duty for which they are paid, and there is nothing special in it to honor them. They may also present the increase in the cost to the company, which has been incurred additionally to settle the dispute. In all these cases, HR is only a facilitator and not a final decision-maker.

Steps to Address Worker Strikes

Being an IR person, you should first drop the feeling that you are responsible for all these problems in the organization or that you are the only one to settle them. You should also consider whether the strike is genuine or not and then take a positive call from both sides, i.e., from the workmen’s perception and the employer’s perception. If you do this exercise, you will find where you have to act and mediate. You can call the workers’ representatives and study what they really want. Then you can present it before the management. The management may not accept it but will give you at least a mandate on how to take it forward. Now the table is set for discussion, and in the initial two or three discussions, you can directly discuss with them and then start adding more persons like Directors. Meanwhile, you can declare that the strike should be called off immediately to proceed with meetings. Each meeting should be promising or should give the workers a feeling that their demands are being considered. This will mitigate the fire in them, and when you present the Managing Director in the meeting, they will get relaxed and be ready for a compromise.

Another way of dealing with the situation is to write to Labour Officials to intervene and call for conciliation. Though Conciliation Officers do not have the authority to instruct, it will be a good platform for discussion. There also, you can start the discussion by yourself and then gradually call the decision-making authorities.

Without the assistance of heads of other functions, HR cannot settle general disputes related to workers raised collectively through a trade union. If your organization thinks that this is the KRA of an HR person and they should do it by themselves, it is wrong. Just as other departments need the help of HR for recruiting, retaining, and dismissing people, the HR department would also need their help in such situations.

Regards, Madhu.T.K

Handling Industrial Relations and Strikes

Mr. Madhu has discussed in detail the difficulties faced by anyone, including HR professionals, when dealing with an IR situation that culminates in an illegal strike, a wildcat strike, or even a legal strike by workmen. Industrial Relations is a complex subject, and its effective handling depends on the concerned manager's thorough understanding of Industrial Psychology, Labour Laws, Management's IR Policy, the company's financial position, the genuineness of the demands raised, the factual circumstances leading to the strike, the timing of the strike, necessary negotiation techniques, etc. As aptly stated by Madhu, a sense of defeat is always imminent if you attach too much importance to your role. An effective IR expert's role should be that of a buffer between the conflicting parties; otherwise, it will become a thankless job sooner or later.

Let me narrate an anecdote in this connection:

In the early 1950s, the General Manager of a large textile mill in the southern part of Tamil Nadu was given a free hand to deal with the issue of revising wages for the workers while protecting the company's financial commitments. He took a tough stance in negotiations, proposing a proportionate increase in workload without accepting the union's reasonable suggestion to upgrade the plant and machinery. This led to a prolonged strike and violence, resulting in the dismissal of around 30 workers who were union office-bearers. The situation deteriorated into a lockout due to the illegal strike. After several months, a settlement was reached regarding wage revision, and normalcy was restored with the intervention of the State Government. However, the GM influenced the management to reject the truce of rehiring the dismissed workers, leading to an adjudication on the dismissal issue. It took nearly 10 years, and by the middle of 1961, an award was passed ordering the reinstatement of all 30 dismissed workers (some of whom had passed away in the meantime) with back wages, continuity of service, and all associated benefits. The next morning, as the GM's car arrived at the mill gate, a security guard handed over an envelope to the GM and another to the driver. The driver promptly asked the GM to alight, moved the car inside, and placed the GM's lunchbox by the roadside. Meanwhile, a procession of reinstated workers approached the gate.

Always strive to be sincere and tactful in highlighting the gravity of the situation to both management and the workers in conflict so that tensions subside, and good sense prevails for an amicable solution.

Best regards, [Your Name]

Both Mr. Madhuji and Umakanthanji have very candidly expressed their views, which are very useful and guiding to all HR/IR people. There is hardly anything left to add to their posts. But I just feel differently about why freshers overlook providing some vital information when they seek advice from the forum.

Missing Information in Original Post

In this case, the original post contains many details, but it fails to inform us about the burning issue that led to the workers' strike. This vital information is completely missing. Additionally, the original poster also failed to let us know what efforts management made to solve the issue and prevent the strike.

Perception of Strikes in HR/IR

In my experience, many IR/HR people simply shrug their shoulders and tell me that a strike in a factory is not an IR/HR problem. They claim it is a problem for the Legal Section/Department, and therefore, their department has nothing to do with the strike. I think I have not come across a better joke than this.