Dear Banerjee,
I think that in the backdrop of her past experience and her present place of work as a HR manager, Ms.Bhavana's doubt is quite natural and genuine.
In any labor-intensive manufacturing industry, the problems relating to IR are distinctly different in scale and substance due to many reasons such as repetitive and continuous nature of work, employment accident proneness, defiant attitude of workmen to change, their socio-economic background, lack of promotional avenues, personal habits which can affect efficiency in the longer run, unionization based on political ideologies, lack of internal grievance mechanism in the organization and the like.
Therefore, the job of a HR in any manufacturing industry is always more demanding. He should be very adept in industrial and social psychology so as to solve occasional bliffs which can result in concerted work stoppage to corrective actions of behavioral issues affecting shop floor discipline apart from his regular statutory compliance works. This requires a high degree of rapport with functional heads and top level managers of different departments like finance, R&D and outside stakeholders like labor-supply contractors, trade union leaders, Government agencies like Factories Inspectorate, EPFO, ESIC etc. He should take a proactive approach in workers' education programs and always very tactful in bringing the Labor problems to the notice of the higher ups in a positive manner and be able to be persuasive in arriving at amicable solutions to such problems. He should always keep himself abreast of amendments to all the Labor Laws applicable to the industry.
In short, the HR manager of a labor-intensive industry has to effectively play his role in balancing the interests of both the management and the Labor failing which his job would become a thankless one.