Opinion Sur
Disagreements hinder the development of our countries. An enormous amount of energy is sterilized; while others advance we miss opportunities. It is claimed that it is the others who generate the conflict, but all parties are co-participants in it. Standing tall above our disagreements is not a magical or voluntarist thing. It requires that trust and understanding be built among parties that are leery of one another; which does not mean forcing consensuses or inventing false coincidences, instead, it involves aligning ─rather than eliminating─ interests. The example of wage negotiations.Disagreements among fellow countrymen are one of the most dramatic remoras hindering the development of our countries in the Southern Hemisphere. An enormous amount of energy is sterilized as a result of these disagreements.
Even though it is true that conflicts are a normal component in the dynamics of any society, many times we slip into situations of permanent conflict, where it is impossible to close discussions and find creative ways of aligning the interests at stake. As a consequence of this, spirits are upset and the focus is shifted from solving problems and building future to giving back offenses, revenge, or retaliation.
As a result, opportunities are missed while the rest of the world moves forward at a fast pace. A high price is paid for the relative lag, because it is not the same thing taking an initiative today than later on, since the circumstances and the strength of players change over time.
It is always claimed that it is the other one who generates the conflict and, hence, must change, understand, become aligned with our interests and initiatives. But, in fact, all parties are, to a certain extent, jointly responsible for, or at least, co-participants in the conflict and, hence, we must all change, understand, seek to align interests in order to reach win-win situations that may serve all.
For instance, the parties to a wage negotiation include workers, owners and executive officers. Workers seek to maximize the financial and non-financial compensations they earn; owners, their return, executive officers, their permanence and bonuses. All these expectations depend on the company’s performance, on its success or failure, on its economic and organizational viability. Past and forward-looking performance delimits negotiation margins and possibilities. If the same were trespassed, the company would see its success or viability affected.
Within those parameters of economic viability what is at stake is how the parties are to share in the results (it is assumed that a portion will be earmarked to ensure its normal operation and capital replacement). From that perspective, the negotiation should be easy and transparent; yet, it is not.
The wage negotiation is not easy because many circumstances must be taken into consideration, such as:
_ – The future risk against which it is advisable to provision defenses: What are those risks? What should be the magnitude of such defenses? When and where should they be built? It is not easy to estimate risks and defensive investments.
_ – The competitive context: It is necessary to improve constantly in order not to lag behind in terms of productivity, return, accumulation pace, which is a subject that is open to interpretation; besides, quantifying investments to ensure competitiveness is a complex task.
_ – The firm’s labor nature: it is not the same thing whether the firm is labor-intensive (in which case the wage bill has a decisive impact on results) or capital-intensive (in which case the impact of wages on the cost structure is lesser).
_ – The own corporate development strategy: the same may be more or less aggressive, short-term or mid-term oriented, cutting-edge or standard relative to the industry in which it operates.
_ – The workers’ needs and urgencies and the level, relative to market, of their compensations.
_ – The level of compensation earned by owners and executive officers.
_ – Several other circumstances depending on the economic moment, region, sector, type of market, political system in which the company operates, etc.
The wage negotiation is not usually transparent either, because each party twists, adjusts or interprets the actual data according to its interests or, at least, to its honest perspective on things. The needs that each party seeks to meet are not the all same and yet, if they cannot be worked out to the parties’ satisfaction, the struggle implies that every negotiation ends up in a conflict, with effects on the performance of the company where they all hold an interest.
In addition there are many ways to disguise corporate results, which constitute the basis of wage negotiations, or to skew in favor of one of the parties the allocation of distributable resources, such as:
_ – In the case of international companies, by under-invoicing exports and over-invoicing imports, in order to concentrate the group’s results in such locations where the tax burden and wage negotiations can be maximized.
_ – By increasing product stocks to levels exceeding the necessary ones.
_ – By advancing equipment and capital goods replacement.
_ – By increasing executive officers’ compensations.
_ – By exaggerating future risks and present financial difficulties.
_ – On the part of trade unions, by taking advantage of situations of institutional weaknesses of the company, in order to impose disproportionate demands.
_ – Other modalities.
Any of these conducts affects the good faith, understanding and prudence of the other party; the negotiation becomes extremely rocky, and solutions are reached by forceful means rather than with understanding and discussion. Instead of win-win solutions, there appear winners and losers, which brings about resentment, greater mistrust, loss of loyalties, a whole spiral of antagonisms and disagreements.
If all these dimensions, aspects and implications emerge in a wage negotiation within a company, we can infer how complex it is to agree through dialog and negotiation on a national development framework, where players and interests multiply several times. Yet, attaining this is of critical importance.
Standing tall above our disagreements is not a magical or voluntarist thing. It implies good will to build trust and understanding among the parties that are leery of one another. This does not mean forcing consensuses or inventing false coincidences. On the contrary, it requires determination, skill, and hard work to align ─rather than seeking to eliminate─ disparate interests.
An honest facilitator or mediator always helps; but it is even more critical to be able to develop, both individually and collectively, conciliatory attitudes appealing to the generosity, not the naivety, of spirit. Summoning prudence, temperance, courage, justice, compassion, gratitude, humility, good faith, and humor, which deactivates anger and helps live better. It is certainly a question of building together for the good of all, not just a few. It is worth the effort.
