Please read the two extracts and answer the questions at the bottom.

Extract 1:

Mr Bruce Johnson has worked as a manager at B Company for 30 years. Company B uses line management and policies that are legally required to manage the production process in the company. The Company had generally been fair and respectful in dealings with staff pre-COVID. However, post-COVID the culture has changed. Employees have been threatened with dismissal because they were caught not smiling at customers, and other workers who had received customer feedback scores below 6, * were cautioned. Furthermore, to manage the effects of COVID on the business, the company had implemented digital tablets that customers could use for frontline enquiries and placement of orders in the stores. Although there is an employee/employer consultative committee at the workplace, there was little formal consultation with employees about these changes. Therefore, while employees were happy to stay behind if needed and had been a source of ideas about how to make the work more efficient pre-COVID, today employees strictly work the hours that they are employed, and only do what is in their job description; many employees are looking for another job. After 30 years as a successful manager at B company, Mr Bruce Johnson was fired after lodging a complaint of bullying with the Fair Work Commission against his supervisor. In his claim, Mr Johnson alleges that he was pressured to terminate members of his team who he claimed had been doing a good job. Mr Johnson alleges that his supervisor often referred to his team members as idiots, and dumb in front of other staff and customers. When he refused to terminate them, Mr Johnson alleges that his supervisor began bullying him by forcing him to take unpaid overtime leave and threatening to sack him and bring in a replacement. Whilst refusing to comment on the case itself, Company B management had said n response to Mr Johnsons claim that they had a zero tolerance policy on bullying, pointing out their anti-bullying polict as evidence. However, in his submission Mr Johnson said management paid little attention to these policies. In fact, meetings have been organised by workers to discuss Mr Johnsons treatment, and his case has also been discussed at the employee/employer consultative committee.

Extract 2:

Terrys is wondering if he really wants to keep working at PastaCo. Terry is a sales supervisor for a leading national pasta company. During the past 13 years that he has worked for the company, he progressed beyond his basic salesperson job of promoting pasta products to supermarkets and shops to overseeing the work of 7 part time and full-time sales staff. Terry had never been a member of the union, although his wages, working hours and working conditions had in recent years been regulated by the Federal Commercial Sales Award 2010. Unions and awards, however, had never been an important part of his working life because the company had treated him well and relations with management were cordial. This patter was suddenly disrupted in August last year. Under the direction of a new national human resource (HR) manager, the state sales manager announced that all sales staff would be offered individual contracts - these were to be common-law contracts. The wages specified in the contracts were well above the minimums set out in the award, which was good, but there were several other clauses that were less clear-cut. The company/s expectations about working hours were one issue, while its denial of any overtime and penalty rate payments was another. A peculiar provision in the contract stated that all employees would, on signing the document, become probationary employees subject to confirmation of continuing employment. Staff like Terry, who had worked for the company for many years, considered these provisions of the contract to be not only insulting but also highly suspicious. What was the company up to? Terrys natural reaction to these events was to talk with other sales staff and supervisors, both whenever they met at work and through evening phone calls. After a lot of discussion and argument, many of the staff feel that the company was not abiding by the award and refused to sign their contracts. They organised a meeting with the state sales manager, who was sympathetic and prepared to raise their concerns with senior management. By Christmas, it was obvious that management was not sure what to do next; no one from management was prepared to admit that they had been poorly advised in this initiative. However, earlier this year the company issued a revise plan, with a longer timeframe and a mechanism for consulting existing staff before changes were made. Things are now back to normal, but Terry and his colleagues still feel bad about the episode several have now accepted jobs with rival companies and moved on, while terry is not quite as committed to the company or motivated about his work as he used to be.

Questions:

1. Compare the Extract 1 to Extract 2. How does Foxs frame of reference describe the behaviour of management in each case? Discuss whether you think there are any similarities in managements behaviour in the cases
2. Compare the Extract 1 to Extract 2. Discuss whether the forms of employee representation are the same in both cases. Which form of employee representation do you think is most effective in ensuring that workers' views are taken seriously by management? Why?