A Study into the measures of improving Industrial Relations in new era with special reference to the West Bengal Collieries

Harmonious Industrial Relations (IRs) within an organisation are essential for its efficient running. No organisation can function efficiently and produce the goods and services if there are constant strikes, work stoppage and turmoil between the management and the labour. Therefore, healthy Industrial Relations between workers and management are essential for the growth and development of the organisation and the country as well. It is impossible to introduce any innovation on productivity improvement exclusively through the various industrial engineering techniques, if the sounds Industrial Relations do not exist in the organisation. One of the major problems of a developing country is to increase the per capita income of the population through rapid industrialisation as well as through improvement in agricultural field. Industrialisation will create more employment opportunities and help in achieving a better standard of living. For rapid industrialisation, healthy climate has to be created which will encourage investments and attract entrepreneurs. One of the major factors which attract investment is the state of industrial peace. No nation can take up a programme of industrialisation unless the proper climate prevails. Strikes, unrests and lockouts only lead to loss of man-days in industries and consequent monetary loss to the nation in terms of lost production. Promoting harmonious human relations and maintaining cordial relations with the workers, trade union officials and management are the important business objectives of the public sector coal industry. A clear idea about the actual industrial relations situation in the West Bengal collieries could be made with the help of careful studies on the available primary data and through personnel contacts and also from official records. Here we have already observed that the industrial relations of West Bengal collieries are very complex in nature. To study such complex industrial relations situation of West Bengal collieries we have chosen some useful parameters in that way which the other behavioural scientists follow. Here it may be noted that there are many other parameters that may be suggested but we have given weightage on the parameters that we have chosen because according to us these are the most effective and also important to draw a clear picture on the actual industrial relations situation in the West Bengal collieries.