Abstract

Organisations are established in order to achieve institutional goals and contribute to national economy. Trade unions fight for the rights of employees so that with happy workforce organisations achieve their goals more efficiently and effectively. This study was undertaken to investigate the effect of trade unionism and organisational productivity by comparing commercial and semi-subvented parastatal organisations in Malawi. Specific objectives were to establish the effect of trade union activities on employees’ output, determining managers’ activities on trade union-employees output, analyzing trade union-management relationships’ effect on employees output and determining trade union-employees’ outcomes on organisational productivity. Using mixed methods, questionnaires were administered to 68 members of staff in commercial and semi-subvented parastatal organisations. The results have shown that there has been moderate effect (between 50% - 75%) by trade unions on organisational productivity in both commercial and semi-subvented parastatal organisations. This is due to delayed full participation by trade unions as strategic partners with management. Trade unions have focused largely on financial employee benefits irrespective of economic factors in the organisations. Further, trade unions have remained silent on some of the critical activities of organisations for fear of being branded as sellouts or being bought by management. The results further revealed that the performance of trade unions in organisations was dependent on the character and views of existing management, financial capabilities of the organisation and the quality of union leaders some of whom have no pre-requisite ability for strategic negotiations with management. It seems that organisations must accept and promote trade-unions to embrace organisational productivity.

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School	: School of Humanities and Social Sciences
Issued Date	: 2017

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