1.

0 Introduction

Generation Y

Generation Y can be defined as millennial. Meanwhile generation Y is those individuals who reached
adulthood around the turn of the 21st century. There is no any accurate description about generation Y (Rouse, n.d.).
According to Neil Howe and William Strauss, millennial consisting of individuals born between 1983 and 1999
(Strauss & Howe, 1991). People who aged around 18-34 which means birth from 1983 to 1999 can be classified to
generation Y. Nowadays employers are concentrating on attracting, retaining young worker as well as leading them
into the leadership roles. On the other hand, generation Y is the first generation engaging in the advanced
technology era (Rikleen, n.d.).

Employee and Labor Relations

Employee and labor relations can be defined as industrial relations. Law forced business to recognize union
and bargain with it sincerely if the workers in the firm want the union to represent them. In the past, employees are
quite emphasizing on industrial relations. Nowadays most firms prefer union-free environment (Mondy & Mondy,
2012). According to perception of Maimunah Aminuddin, industrial relations are the relationship between
employers and their workers within the working environment. Before workers joining union, their relationship with
employers is known as individual relationship. Once the workers join union, relationship between workers and
employers becomes collectivist relationship. In addition, Maimunah Aminuddin also defined industrial relations as
employment relations (Aminuddin, 2007). Industrial relations can be defined as relations of those parties involved
in employment, which are employees and employer. Industrial relations include the regulations of parties involved
in the employment which are employer-employee relations and employer-union relations. However these
regulations are not regarded as an important aspect of industrial relations (Ayadurai, 2013).

Trade Union

Trade union is an organization consisting of group of employees. They join together with the purpose of to
look after their interest such as wages, salaries, their concerning on employers and so on by negotiating with
employers (Joining a trade union - GOV.UK, 2016). Besides that, trade union also refers to a membership based
organization which its members mainly are employees. It is established to strive for the benefits of employees
(Introduction to trade unions | nidirect, n.d.). Union was positioned as third party when dealing with employer for

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the interest of its members. It is one of the external factors affecting human resources management functions since
it is not controllable (Mondy & Mondy, 2012).

Reasons Encourage Workers to Join Union

Obviously the main motivations pushing employees to join union are due to 2 factors. First, there is
difference between employees’ expectation on the benefits and pays and what they actually received. Subsequently,
the worthiness of joining trade union depends on the range of the difference in the employees’ expectations
towards the benefits and pays (Noe, 2013). Great deal of researches have shown that there was no a simple answer
regarding why workers joining union. However, there are three main objectives workers joining union which are
(Ayadurai, 2013):

Seek for protection of their rights

Enhance their economic status(increase salary time by time)
For social reasons???

保护他们的权利

提高经济地位

出于社会原因

Generation Y and Union

Nowadays, percentage of generation Y joining union has decreased obviously compares to older generation
workers (Meltz, 2009). According to the statistic for year 2015, the percentage of participation of union by public
or private sectors workers is roughly 9% or equal to 745,037 people. This means only small proportion from total
workforce had joined union in Malaysia (Aminuddin, 2007). Generation Y usually not identified themselves as
‘worker’(不是为了做工而做工). Hence, they are less concentrating on the affair of workers interest. Besides that,
youth in this era prefer to work in the high return sector 要有高收入. Such sectors are less covered by union. They
are not educated about their rights, what they deserve from the contribution they have made to the employer（他们
不懂作为一个员工有什么权利）. On the other hand, lack of generation Y joining union because there are less
union members around their age group. This limited the union to reach out to the youth. Although union is

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spending time and money on training young workers as union leaders, but the training is time consuming. Once
they completed the training, they are no longer young (Meltz, 2009).

2.0 Content

2.1 History of Trade Union

Industrial revolution appears since nineteenth century. The explosive growth of the factory system brings a
lot of issues such as poor working condition, job insecurity, exploitation of workers and so on. Thus, unions were
formed for the purpose of protecting the employees. The first unions were formed in Great Britain. In the 19th
century, the existence of unions was threatened by restrictive law and anti-union attitude from employees.
Eventually the union movement won its legal status and right to take industrial action in the United Kingdom
(Aminuddin, 2007). Embryonic form of trade union appears in Malaysia since 1989-1920 mainly leads by Chinese.
It was very famous in the group of skilled workers, tailors, shoemakers, goldsmiths, carpenters and builders
("Education", 2013). In 1930, union succeed to encourage unskilled workers unionize. During that time period
absence of law made unions often took aggressive action against employers to achieve their goal. Several cases of
strike happened at that time period. Hence, employers forced colonial government to introduce relevant law in
order to restrict the activity of union. As result, the first law related Union was introduced. Unexpectedly, the
invasion of Japanese troops in Malaysia made this law cannot function as usual. The communist spring up after the
Japanese troops left Malaysia. The communists tried to exploit union to control working class. In order to avoid the
union been used by communists, government enforce 2 major steps which are

i. Union was set up by appointment of a Registrar of Trade Unions

ii. Trade Union Enactment passed

As a result, approximately 100 unions were disbanded and de-registered. The communists failed to use
union to carry out revolution. Thus, they took union fund and ran into the jungle to begin guerilla warfare.
However, the trade union was revived in 1950 onward but was strictly regulated by the relevant legislation. At the

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same time, government accepted the union status and right (Aminuddin, 2007). Until today, registration and
activities of union are still regulated by Trade Union Act 1959 ("Trade Union Act 1959", 1959).

2.2 Category of Unions

In Malaysia, unions can be classified into Private Sector and Public Sector of employees unions and
employers unions (Aminuddin, 2007).

2.2.1 Public Sector Unions

The public sector refers to the statutory bodies, local authorities and civil service. According to the statistic
of year 2005, there were 218 unions under public sector unions. Those sectors are National Union of Teaching
Profession (113,000 members), The Malayan Nurses Union (14,000 members), Malayan Technical Services Union
(6,000 members) and so on. According to section 27 of Trade Unions Act 1959, there are some limitations for
public sectors employees to join unions. Nowadays, union members in the public sector are on the down trend due
to the loss of interest by public sector employees to join unions as well as policy of privatization launched by
government of Malaysia (Aminuddin, 2007). For instance, National Electricity Berhad had become Tenaga
Nasional Berhad since 1 September 1990 ("TNB Better. Brighter," 2017). Therefore, the numbers of organizations
under public sector were converted to private sector. Different from private sector, public sector unions don’t apply
bargaining collectively (Aminuddin, 2007).

2.2.2 Private Sector Unions

Private sector unions are sub-classified to either national or in house. National unions are formed for the
purpose to cover all workers in the same industry, trade and occupation. On the other hand, in-house union is union
consisting of workers employed by the same employer. Based on statistic of year 2005, the numbers of in-house
unions were 281 with a total 162,000 members. Meanwhile, 44% of private sector union members were
contributed by in-house union. Malaysian Airlines Employees Union (8,000 members) and UMW Employees

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Union (2,000 members) are two of the famous large in-house unions in Malaysia. Usually employers prefer their
employees represented by in-house unions. However, according to Latiff Sher Mohamed (1990), in-house unions
contained some disadvantages which are:

Generally weak due to limited membership

Leadership chosen may be exploited by employer
Insufficient financial strength limited them to carry out normal trade union activities
Unable to provide scholarship and other social benefits to their members

2.3 Industrial Action by Employees

When a trade dispute happened and cannot be solved through a peaceful way, unions have several
aggressive methods to force employers agree and approve their grievance. There are two types of these aggressive
methods approved by law which are pickets and strikes. Apart from these methods, there are still many ways can
be taken by union to threat employer to reach an agreement which are boycott and sabotage (Aminuddin, 2007).

2.3.1 Picket

It is the most common method taken by workers. Workers are allowed to attend their workplace or around
their workplace to reach the information to public and other workers peacefully if trade dispute happened as cited
at Section 40 of Industrial Relation Act 1967 ("Industrial Relations Act", 1967). The prior requirement of picket is
it must be carried out peacefully. Participants are not allowed to threaten anyone or obstruct the entrance or exit of
the organization. Besides that, only parties involved in the dispute are entitled to participate in the picket.
Participant often will display banners which stated derogatory comments about their employer and management.
The main purpose of picket is to embarrass their employer by communicating issues to the public in order to force
their employer to reach an agreement (Aminuddin, 2007).

2.3.3 Strikes

Strike is an action taken collectively by workers to stop working in order to force their employer accepts
their demands. Section 2 Industrial Relation Act interprets strike as stopping of work by a group of employees or
attempt to slow down production on purpose (Aminuddin, 2007).

2.3.4 Boycott

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 It is a weapon used by unions against employer. When come to this stage, employees will refuse to use or
buy a company’s goods or services. Besides that, they will encourage other workers and supporters to follow suit.
The main purpose is creating economic pressure on the employer to fulfill their demands. In fact, boycott is rarely
happens in Malaysia (Egizi, 2012)

2.4.5 Sabotage

Sabotage is derived from French word ‘sabot’. It refer to workers attempt to reduce the production or rate
of work. This tactic is not recommended to use unless the dispute comes to the heated level ("Sabotage in the
workplace", 2006)

3.0 Case Development

3.1 Malaysia Airlines Berhad (MAS)

MAS is a company engages in aviation industry. It was founded on 1 May 1947. It provided low cost
airline around Malaysia as well as international airline. Its main airline operating flights located at Kuala Lumpur
International Airport. It had won the World's Best Cabin Crew award and Skytrax five-star rating. Its airlines daily
guests carried around 40,000. MAS offering carrier services more than 1000 destinations or approximately 150
countries which are across Asia, Americas, Middle East and Africa ("Corporate Info - Our Story - About Us |
Malaysia Airlines", 2017). It was listed on Bursa Malaysia on main market before 31 December 2014 due to
privatization. The privatization was exercised by Khazanah Nasional, which is the investment fund under
government of Malaysia. Khazanah proposed to buy the remaining share from minor shareholders with the price
RM 0.27 per share (Pooi Koon & Chew, 2014).

After the privatization launched, MAS appointed new CEO named Christoph Mueller to replace the former
CEO, Ahmad Jauhari Yahya effective on 1 May 2015. Since MAS had been getting deficit year to year, the new
CEO decided to launch restructuring to cut down the work force in order to increase the efficiency and reduce cost.
The termination letter was issued to employees on 1 June 2015 (Regan, 2015).

Restructuring, known as downsizing, is an act to cut down large numbers of employees in order to increase
organizational effectiveness. It is come under the human resource planning. Human resource planning can be
defined as a systematic process of matching internal and external supply of workforce with job opening anticipated
within an organization (Noe, 2013).

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 The first factor make the organization to launch downsizing is to reduce the operation cost. Labor cost
usually occupied large proportion of the total of operation costs. Second, if new technology or plant implemented
in the operation, the demand of labor will be decreased. Furthermore, when economy facing recession, it may lead
to downsizing for company to survives in the uncertain economy environment (Noe, 2013).

Although restructuring is one of the ways to help organization to slash down the operation cost, it may
cause negative impacts too. First, first-line workers productivity will reduce as they are worried about their future
due to uncertainty. Besides that, workers will start to seek for other opportunities as they might be the next victims
of downsizing. In addition, loyalty of those remained after downsizing will significantly reduce (Mondy & Mondy,
2012).

The downsizing proposed by MAS management which involved around 6000 employees from its
workforce of 20,000 had arouse the negative effect from the employees and The National Union of Flight
Attendants Malaysia (Nufam). Nufam had urged the MAS to retract the termination letters by notifying
government of Malaysia about their intention to having picket (Blemin, 2015).

Nufam had been trying to seek for the MAS management and Khazanah Nasional co-operation to sit to the
roundtable and bargain about this issue. However, their effort seems like not working. They get no responds from
these two parties and felt like nobody concerned about this issue (Blemin, 2015).

Eventually, Nufam was trying to use strikes to force MAS and its owner, Khazanah Nasional to bargain
with them. They warned the MAS to retract the order of downsizing within 48 hours or Nufam will hold a strike
(Nambiar, 2017).

In fact, there are two questions that management needs to concern when planning to hold strikes which are:

I. Whether particular company is able to maintain its profitability if agree with employees’ demand.
II. Whether company can keep operating in the short run

For the first question, the answer definitely should be yes. It is because increasing labor cost can be
eliminated by the company profit or passed the burden to the customers without reducing their profit. Union will
consider the company’s ability to maintain its competitiveness. When the company losing the competitiveness, it
will result in the unemployment or human resource cutting-down. The second question union will take concern is
because the purpose of holding strike is to urge the employers fulfill the employees’ demand. If the company might
not be able to operate in short run, employees are not only taking the risk of losing wages but losing job as well

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(Noe, 2013). In fact, MAS is not able to maintain its profitability if strike happened. The core reason MAS
proposed downsizing is because it has been achieving net loss year to year. For instance, MAS recorded net
loss RM 1,168,839,000 in financial year 2013, RM 430,738,000 in financial year 2012 and RM 2,521,325,000 in
financial year 2011 respectively (Malaysian Airline System Berhad [MAS], 2013) .

In addition, below are the factors that may affect the successfulness of the strikes (Noe, 2013):

Product demand- if the demand on the product is high, management will try to avoid strikes as the
loss of revenue may more than the demand of employee
Period of time- for instance, strike by farm workers during the harvest session
Production technology- if company is labor intensive, it will try to avoid strike
Availability of replacement- if the workers can be easily replaced, strike is not that effective
Integrated facilities- if products of one department are linked to other department, management is
not willing to let strike happen
Availability of substitution goods- if the product has a lot of substitutions, management is not
willing to let strike happen as their sales will flow to Competitors Company.

Malaysia Transportation Minister Datuk Seri Liow Tiong Lai suggests MAS should hold talk with their
employees. MAS would not be able to afford a huge loss from the flight disruption if their employees attend the
strike, said by Deputy Transport Minister Datuk Abdul Aziz Kaprawi ("Hold talks with MAS, union urged - Nation
| The Star Online", 2015).

Subsequently, more than 33.33% out of 20,000 MAS workers will be paid for their compensation on the
termination based their collective agreement (CA). The decision was totally different as the initial compensation
was only half of the figure stated in CA. According to memo of MAS CEO-Christoph Mueller, those who served
MAS less than 10 years can get 1 month salary as compensation while who serve MAS more than 10 years entitled
1.5 month salary. Some say the achievement to get the higher compensation was the contribution of the strike
threatens. But according to source close to the matter, MAS had kept studying the suggestion and demand of
employees but union did not know at all (Sidhu, 2017).

Theoretically, strike is used to force the employer to concern about employees demand. However, strikes
are likely to cause negative impact to the company as the employees are refusing to work (Heriyanto, n.d.). Besides
that, many parties believe that strike will influence other parties who are innocent. For instance, strike by public

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transport workers may cause other people late to work on time. If this kind of incident happened, the cost incurred
will be borne by other party (Aminuddin, 2007).

Advantage of Strike

Labor and union can achieve the objective they want by putting the pressure on employers (Aminuddin,
2007). In Malaysia, union members who participated legal labor strike was protected under the provision of
Industrial Relation Act 1967 and Trade Union Act 1959.

Disadvantages of Strike

If majority of workers vote for strike, it is the union members’ obligation to participate in that strike in
order to enhance the bargain power. However, it will cause financial hardship to the members. In addition,
participants will be ostracized as "scabs." ("Strike off Advantages and Disadvantages - Company Debt Advice",
2016).

Besides, strike must be carried out carefully. If leader of union does not comply with the relevant law, it
might become illegal strike. Illegal strike will be deemed as offence which is punishable by imprisonment or fine
for those who participated in or even financially supported the illegal strike as cited at Section 46 to Section 48 of
Industrial Relation Act 1967 (Ayadurai, 2013). 如果工会领导不遵守有关法律，可能会变成非法罢工

Strike will affect a company’s profit. For instance, the strike organized by Hyundai Union which is the first
strike over the recent 12 years. The strike held on 2016 had caused Hyundai’s operating profit declined
approximately 2.5% (Chandran, 2016).

Moreover, strike may harm a country’s economy. For illustration, South Korea Economy was affected after
the Hyundai Strike. As evidence, its GDP had reduced from 0.6% in third quarter of 2016 to 0.4% in last quarter
of 2016 (The Bank of Korea, 2017).

Furthermore, labor strike can damage a company reputation(image). Consumers will lose their confident on
that particular company. As an example, telecom giant, Verizon‘s customers had lost their customers confidence
since nearly 40,000 union members left the job (C. White, 2016).

On the other hand, strike may lead to social problems. For instance, if the employees in public transport
industry go to strike, many people might be late to work. More seriously, traffic jam will occur since everybody
has to go to work by their own car. The negative impact of strike will be more serious when it involved

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professional group (Aminuddin, 2007). For illustration, strike happened in South Korea which involved doctors in
clinics and hospitals since 2000. They participated in the strike to against the government on the issue of changes
in the law regarding pharmacies right to dispense medicines (BBC News, 2000).

Other Disadvantages of Strike

Relations between employer and employee will be deteriorated

Even though laws provide protection to employees who participated in strike, employer can
terminate them by abusing the loopholes of the law. For instance, they can refuse to extend the
employment contract
Cause financial problems to workers as well as union. Some union will provide allowance to
members who participated in strike. However, it is fell far not enough to maintain their condition of
life in long term.
Strike may be abused and becomes violence, subsequently destroys the union’s reputation (Time Inc,
2016).

4.0 Recommendation
4.1.1 Lock-Out
There are several methods employer can implement to against the strike. One of the famous methods is
lock-out. Lock-out refer to employer prohibit his workers to work until conflict between employees and employer
solved ("Strikes and lockouts » Employment New Zealand", 2016). Sometime lock-out is declared to counter the
illegal strike by employees. Lock-out defined as ‘the closing of a place of employment; or the suspension of work;
or the refusal by an employer to continue to employ any number of workmen employed by him, in furtherance of a
trade dispute, done with a view to compelling those workmen to accept terms or conditions of or affecting
employment’ as cited at Section 2 of Industrial Relation Act 1967.
Alternatively, the employer can overcome the strike by replacing the strikers’ job with non-union members
or hiring new workers. This method can end the strike very soon when the strikers realized their effort bring no
negative economic impacts to employer. For illustration, MAS faced a serious strike since 1979. Eventually the
management solved it by bring ing in trainees from a training center, Dusun Tua, to replace the cabin staff.
Those trainees were given intensive and special training before they were put to work (Aminuddin, 2007). This
method is effective when management dealing with a weak union.

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4.1.2 Continue Operation without Strikers
Application of this course depends on the nature of the industries. Industries which are not labor intensive
can apply this method to against the strike. For instance, Petroleum Refinery industry may apply this course due to
the high capital intensive of this industry. International Association of Machinists had achieved a crucial contract
with the strikers by applying this method. In 26 May 2006, management decided to continue to operate the plant
since the workers refused to work. Initially, majority workers rejected the proposal from management. Thus,
management sent an official letter to all the union members regarding the replacement of their position in the firm.
Consequently, another vote was carried out and majority voted for accept management proposal (Mondy & Mondy,
2012).

4.1.3 Mediation
This solution is rarely to use in solving the trade dispute. It is not included in the employment law.
However, it is occasionally used. Mediation is quite similar to conciliation which will discuss later. It relies on the
intervention of a neutral third party to figure out the solution to settle the dispute. The difference between
mediation and conciliation is it relies on the unbiased person who are trusted and respected by both parties. Local
leader and politician are the significant representatives that both parties seek to rely on. They may intervene in a
dispute requested by parties and bring about a solution. This method is rarely to use in Malaysia because finding a
reliable and neutral third party not belongs to government is difficult. Moreover, the mediator may need to be paid.
Since the conciliation is provided for free, it is more attractive to use (Aminuddin, 2007).
4.1.4 Conciliation

Under this method, settlement for trade dispute can be arrived from a third, neutral party. Normally
Department of Industrial Relations is the third and neutral party who playing the important role to solve the trade
dispute. Conciliation can be voluntarily requested by employer or employees. Sometime Director-General of
Industrial Relations may order the parties involved to attend a conciliation meeting when the trade dispute related
to the public interest. Industrial Relation Officer/s will meet the parties separately or jointly to seek for the
settlement which is acceptable by both side. However, the officer does not have legal authority to force the parties
to accept any recommendation. Conciliator responsibility is advising both parties involved in the trade dispute.
Indeed, 70-80 % of dispute trade disputes are solved by this way (Aminuddin, 2007).

4.1.5 Arbitration

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 Dispute is submitted to an impartial third party to seek for his judgment. The third party will examine the
information provided by both sides in prior. Subsequently he will make the judgment of the trade dispute base on
the facts provided (Walker, 1977). However, in Malaysia, only Industrial Court has the right to arbitrate labor
disputes (Johar, 2017).

4.1.6 Direct Negotiation

Direct negotiation is the most common and most effective way to solve the trade dispute in prior both
parties (employer and union) must have the intention to bargain in good faith. Both parties will sit around the
bargaining table to discuss the issue facing, propose solutions until a satisfactory compromise is reached. The
suggestion arrived from the parties either employer or union without intervention of any third parties. Negotiation
is seen as a harmonious and mature way to settle the trade dispute (Stagner & Rosen, 1969).

4.2 How Trade Union Helped the Younger Generation

Nowadays, all generation facing the same issue which is low wages including young generation. Besides
that, slashed benefit, harassment and slashed of benefits also have to be overcame by the young generation. More
seriously, young workers may be the target when the company is launching restructure. In fact, workers in the
manufacturing industry suffer to the low wages as the management purposely to do so in order to slash down the
operating cost. Young workers don’t know how to address the issue they are facing as well as they don’t know
what their rights are. Therefore, they choose to quite rather than dealing with it (Fontes, M., & Margolies, K. 2010).
How to help the generation Y to overcome these issues become the crucial factor to motivate generation Y
join trade union. Solution for the young workers to settle the issues above becomes their expectation on trade union.
In short, how to attract young workers join trade union depends on the efficiency of the union to solve the issues
faced by young workers.

5.0 Conclusion

In conclusion, we can define industrial relations as the relation between employer and trade union Trade
Union refers to the organization formed with the purpose of helping employees obtain the benefits they deserve.
When trade dispute happened between employees and employer, Trade Union represents those employees bargain
with employer. Trade Union has more bargaining power since all employees joint together to bargain collectively
with employer (Mondy & Mondy, 2012).

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 There are several ways Trade Union may apply to achieve the agreement they desired from employer which
are

Picket
Strike
Boycott
Sabotage

Picket can be concluded as employees attend their workplace to convey important information to employer
peacefully. Strike is an action carried out by union members. They will refuse to work and attempt to force
employer to accept their claim. Boycott can be deemed as workers refused to use and encourage society not to use
the company’s products (Aminuddin, 2007). Sabotage refer to workers purposely reduce the productivity
("Sabotage in the workplace", 2006).

In employer side, they have solution to counter the actions taken by Trade Union too which are

Lock-out(停职)
Continue Operation without Strikers（for 某些公司才可以将做）

Lock-out refers to employer disallowed strikers to work until the dispute solved ("Strikes and lockouts »
Employment New Zealand", 2016). Continue Operation without Strikers applied by replacing the strikers’ position
in organization by new workers (Mondy & Mondy, 2012).

Since both methods are taken by employees and employer not works in every circumstance, other solutions
are recommended. Those solutions refer to ‘

Mediation（调停中间人是 employer & employee 相信的人）

Conciliation （department of industrial relation）
Arbitration （调停中间人是 court）
Direct Negotiation

Mediation, conciliation and arbitration are both involved third party to arrive the settlement for the dispute
(Aminuddin, 2007). Perhaps Direct Negotiation is the best way to derive dispute solution if both parties have bona
fide in solving the dispute (Stagner & Rosen, 1969).

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 In recent years, trend of young workers joining union is going down. How to match the expectation of
young workers and solve the issues faced by them becomes the crucial factor to attract them to join Trade Union.

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