The Sociological Understanding of Labor Relations and Social Solidarity in the Environment

Purpose: According to history, industrial relations have always suffered fromtensions in Iran. Analyzing this difficult tense relationshipin the context of the economic enterprises paves the way to understand various aspects of social solidarity of the Iranian society. The present article studies the industrial relations and social solidarity in our current economic enterprises.
Method: The researcher has used mixed methods research in this study.
Findings: The process of employer-employee disputes and the beneficiaries andactors’ interaction in the workplace is examined in a tripartite social dialogue in this framework. Tensions and disputes between employers and employees, and increasing temporary contracts, threatens the social solidarity. Feeling unstable, improving discrimination and a tense working environment alienates the workforce with the enterprise’s benefits. The same feeling is of major concerns of the employers as well. Disputes can rapidly change to tensions due to the weakness of dispute resolution institutions and the weakness of trade unions and employers.
Conclusion: Evidence shows that labor relations inIran are organized to contributeto the decrease of social solidarity. Mutual acts that are based on maximizing personal and group benefits, violates the principle of flexible labor relations underlying social solidarity. Each party tries to improve its own profit instead of redirecting a part of that profit toward the other party. This phenomenon which is called tension and conflict in organizational and industrial relations, challenges the social solidarity in workplace.