Exploring How Industrial Relations Theories Either Overlook or Can Better Integrate Gender Dynamics

Abstract: This work is a critical review of the traditional industrial relations (IR) theories that have been sidelining the gender dynamics aspect of the labour systems for a long time. The major class conflict and institutional arrangements are at the heart of the gender, powered relations that through these changes in the work, representation, and labour policies, typical IR frameworks, like unitarism, pluralism and Marxism, , are inclined to focus solely on these aspects thereby ignoring the ways in which gendered power relations are affecting work, representation, and labour policies (Acker, 1990; Rubery & Fagan, 1995). This paper looks at how this neglect changes the concepts of workforce participation, union activity, and employment outcomes. The paper layers feminist institutionalism and intersectionality (Crenshaw, 1989; Mackay et al., 2010) to present gender, aware methods that reconstruct labor as a mix of female and male, dominated, part, time, and full, time jobs. It also avows the rethinking of core IR ideas such as "worker", "collective action" and "labour market" along with the use of gender, sensitive research tools as a means to arrive at fair and more inclusive studies. The document ends its argument by proposing a complete overhaul of IR theory as a way of achieving a more nuanced, gendered perspective of modern day labor relations. Keywords: Industrial relations, gender dynamics, feminist theory, intersectionality, labour market, union representation.