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Conflict Theory And Sociology Essay

Employer/Employee Relationship Issues The issue that the author of this paper will discuss is employer/employee relations. This issue is an important one for many different reasons. Firstly, the history of labor relations is really the history of civilized society. There has always been tension between the working class and their employers who frequently exploit them. As such, this is a timeless issue that is much more worthy for the author to address than some of the fleeting issues of technology or collegiate cliques that the author could have chosen to analyze.

The functionalist perspective is highly important to examining employer/employee relations. This viewpoint would maintain that relations between employers and their employees provides a critical function in society. Specifically, those who embrace a functionalist perspective would state that it is necessary to have a relationship for these two classes of people in order for society to properly function (Mooney et al., 2007). The core of that relationship is based on the fact that there are those who need to get work done, and their there are those who are willing to labor to complete that work in order to provide for themselves.

Furthermore, the two different roles in employee/employer relationships help to provide critical functions for society as well, those who adhere to this notion would argue. Employers function as a means of using jobs to those who need them. Granting jobs to those who need money is the explicit function that employers provision to society. Therefore,...

As such, employers are authoritarian in their role in the labor relations -- which is required of a society in which a certain function is needed to employ people.
Additionally, there are certain cultural ramifications that those who follow the functionalist perspective of society would attribute to employer and employee relationships. Specifically, training is frequently administered at different jobs in which employers teach employees the necessary skills to succeed. In this respect, employer/employee relations are providing another function for society: the means of disseminating knowledge and helping the very culture of society to progress through learning.

Those who approach the subject of employer/employee relations through the perspective of conflict theory would have a decidedly different viewpoint than those who approach it from a functionalist perspective. The former viewpoint is based on the notion that conflict is an inherent part of society. Additionally, this theory contends that one of the reasons that conflict is necessary is because it helps society to evolve and to ultimately achieve more than it could with the absence of conflict (Iowa, 2016). Thus, those who utilize conflict theory would tend to emphasize some of the tension and points of conflict that traditionally exist -- and which still persist -- between employers and employees.

To their credit, it is easy to…

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References

Mooney, Knox, and Schacht. (2007). The Three Main Sociological Perspectives. Retrieved from https://laulima.hawaii.edu / Retrieved from https://laulima.hawaii.edu/access/content/user/kfrench/sociology/The%20three%20Main%20Sociological%20Perspectives.pdf

Iowa State. (2016). The sociological perspective. http://www.soc.iastate.edu Retrieved from http://www.soc.iastate.edu/sapp/socphil235.html
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