The Conflict Management Strategies of the Central Bank of the Philippines in Handling Employee Associations: A Case Study

Abstract

A union, or any association of employees within a company, is “voluntary established by workers to protect their rights and improve their conditions in the workplace” (IBON Socioeconomics Workbook, 1995). It would be very important to study how a Government institution handles these groups because of its role to be played for the welfare of the people, whether it be economical, political, social, etc. This brought to the researcher the problem: How does The Central Bank of the Philippines handle the intergroup relationship between management and the union or employee associations working under them? What management strategies do they use to solve conflicts between management and the association? Since the complaints of some of these unions are towards the Government, the researcher found interest on finding how they handle their own employees amidst the endless criticisms before them. It would be of great help to know whether there are problems on how the Government handles its employees to serve as an example of good communication management that the people in the private sector would avoid or follow The research aims to know how The Central bank of the Philippines handle conflicts between management and the employee association under them, to know the various strategies (if any) that the management uses to solve conflicts between management and the association, to know how what type of group interdependence the employees in Central Bank practice, and to make suggestions, if applicable, for alternative ways of handling employee management relations for future studies. The researcher conducted this study in The Central Bank of the Philippines, located in 1004 Manila, Philippines. Bangko Sentral Employee's Association, Inc. (BSPEA) is the name of the group present in this institution. The department/group subjected to the study is the Treasury Services Group of the Treasury Department. Questionnaires were distributed to the employees and only one minor interview was done because of the limits of time. The study would be based mainly in the Model of Intergroup Conflict in Organization by Richard L. Daft (1998) to know what strategies Central Bank uses to handle their BSPEA and what sources of conflicts are present. Methods in getting the average, particularly the mode, is used to get the frequencies of the respondents in each category, the percentages of which is also included. The Constitution and By-laws was made available for the researcher for the general description of the Association. The results indicate that Central bank of the Philippines handles employee associations, as what have Richard Daft have proposed, in an ideal way. Even though the structure suggests little interaction with each other, the employees work with a team in mind. All of the respondents related to their superiors well and vice-versa, as manifested in the frequency of making them feel included in a team.