GLOBALIZATION AND HUMAN RESOURCES MANAGEMENT IN THE PUBLIC…
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allow the employees to organize and form unions. The governments need to permit the labor with the right to bargain in good faith on working conditions. The union movement is under stress because of the globalization and the transfer of manufacturing industries to developing countries. However, with the privatization movement, union movement is diminishing in its influence in western countries. In the developed world, privatization and outsourcing are mechanisms used to break the power of the labor unions. Free trade agreements have also caused diminished influence of their position. The unions tried to prevent the free trade agreements without success. As a result, they have to organize to prevent the export of manufacturing industries. However, the effect of the free trade agreements for the public sector union movement is minimal in comparison with its effects on the private sector. The labor union in developing countries is not organized and powerful. The majority of the countries dominated by powerful groups suppress the rights to unionize. Business interests now dominate the powerful groups. The labor leaders are threatened by persecution and major punishments. Moreover, in the developing countries, the people desperately need employment and are vulnerable to the threat of the loss of jobs if they join unions. Still, in many developing countries, there are more opportunities for unions in the public sector. Kearney and Hays (1994) suggested participative decision-making in improving labor–management relations. Many governments consider the labor–management relation to be a non-zero-sum game rather than a zero-sum game. In both developed and developing countries, many public sector jobs are unionized. In the United States, union activities are more prevalent at state and local levels than they are at the federal level. In most developing countries, unionization is limited to public school teachers. Allowing public servants to form unions and bargain over wage and working conditions is therefore one of the major future challenges for HRM.
Strategic Planning and Human Resource Management Strategic planning has become a top priority for human resources managers in the public sector. Strategic planning, with its emphasis on environmental analysis, is crucial in a globalized world, which has become interdependent. The definition of strategic human resource management, according to Johnson and Scholes (1993, p. 10), is “the direction and scope of an organization over the longer term, which ideally matches its resources to its
