Some reflections on industrial relations

James Prior, Secretary of State for Employment, argues that, although the responsibility for improving industrial relations in Britain rests primarily with employers and trade unions, limited legal changes can achieve a more balanced framework of legal rights and obligations within which trade unions can operate, improve the operation of industrial relations.     

Trends and developments in east central European industrial relations

This article overviews developments in industrial relations in the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland since the fall of the communist regimes in 1989, and assesses the extent to which key developments in these countries reflect both change and continuity from the communist period. We explore the four main institutions through which industrial relations have been conducted: trades unions, workers’ councils, employer organisations, and the tripartite arrangements involving representatives of unions and employers with the state.     

The industrial relations of work-sharing

There is growing recognition in Britain that high levels of unemployment are likely to survive the current recession and economic policies. This explains the continuing interest in the work-sharing issue within British unions; this article examines some of the industrial relations issues and implications of the practice.     

After unification: trade unions and industrial relations in eastern Germany

Following unification the West German unions quickly established themselves in the former East. The system of Works Councils and Co-determination was also imposed on the new Länder. This article examines the experience of unions in the east and considers the impact on industrial relations of the unification process.     

Conflict,militancy and crisis in Italian industrial relations: a response to Terry

Terry's explanation of the role of the law in the flexibility of Italian industrial relations is disputed. Instead the political and social nature of the labour movement is used to explain what amounts to a ‘crisis’ for Italian unions     

Learning from past mistakes? recent reforms in Italian industrial relations

Since the early 1990s, major reform efforts aimed at reducing industrial conflict, rationalising public sector labour relations, restructuring collective bargaining arrangements, and re-establishing tripartite ‘con-certation’ have transformed Italian industrial relations. This article argues that because these new reforms have been accompanied by significant shifts in both Italy's political system and the unions’ own organisation, they stand a better chance of succeeding than previous reform projects.     

The changing structure of industrial relations in South Africa

This is the second of two papers dealing tvith the emergence of black shop-floor union power and the changing structure of industrial relations in South Africa. This paper examines union developments in the post-Wiehahn era, The policies of the major union federations and the impact of the black unions' emphasis on shop-floor bargaining. It is clear that the established unions, the State and individual company managements have been significantly affected by this development. The main issue in the near future is seen to be the dividing-line between managerial prerogatives and worker-participation.     

Factors affecting industrial relations in the electronics industry of Hong Kong - an empirical research analysis

This paper attempts to study the factors affecting industrial relations in the electronics industry in Hong Kong. Comparative surveys were carried out, in selected companies and a major union, with management and workers. Results showed that basic financial, physical and physiological factors are still important for affecting workers' attitude towards industrial relations. However, socio-psychological satisfactions are increasing as a result of demands by younger and better educated workers, the major workforce of the industry. The ‘pendulum’ attitude of workers towards the management and the unions leads to a delicate situation in the industrial relations of the industry.     

Industrial relations and the customer

This article examines the implications for industrial relations of the current enthusiasm for ‘customer care’. It does this by reviewing how the three main industrial relations actors; managers, government and trade unions, have responded to the customer service imperative and by considering some of the implications of a ‘customer focus’ for industrial relations theory.     

Post‐privatisation industrial relations in the UK rail and electricity industries

Commercial firms in industries once under public ownership generally have well‐organised trade unions with significant disruptive capacity, yet overt confict is often low despite major change. This paper examines the experience of two major rail and energy companies after privatisation. The results demonstrate the importance of sectoral characteristics, and the form of privatisation itself, in shaping industrial relations. The exercise of strategic choice at firm level also undermines any general industrial relations ‘theory of privatisation’.     

An industrial relations perspective on the high-performance paradigm

Recent studies have suggested that various human resource management (HRM) practices are associated with enhanced economic performance in organizations. This research has led to what we call the high-performance paradigm, a belief that firms can improve performance by adopting certain high-performance work practices (HPWP). We apply an industrial relations (IR) perspective to the high-performance paradigm to extend the insights of HRM studies. After identifying how the perspective typically adopted in IR research differs from that used by HRM researchers, we briefly review the literature on HPWPs, identify limitations in the existing research approach, and suggest issues and areas for future research. In general, we suggest that research on HPWPs has made a valuable contribution to the literature. We urge HRM researchers, however, to devote more attention to underlying conflicts at work, focus more explicitly on the implications of new forms of work for workers, and pay greater attention to the role that cultural forces, unions, and governments play in shaping the workplace.     

The rise of professional unions in Germany. Challenge and threat for established industrial relations?

The author analyses the rise of professional unions, one of the most remarkable developments in German labour movement since the early 2000s. By means of strikes, they managed to get officially accepted as autonomous partners for collective bargaining. The author asks whether their emergence challenges or even threats the established systems of industrial relations.     

The under-utilization of human resources in industrial relations theory and practice

Industrial relations, as a theoretical and practical system of work arrangements between employees, unions, management and governments, have come under substantial pressure in recent decades, but neither theory nor practice has fully adjusted to the new circumstances. The article describes the changing conditions in relation to one aspect of the industrial relations (IR) system, namely influence and power sharing outside the sphere of collective bargaining. The analysis is based on two theoretical models derived from an accumulation of social science research evidence since the 1960s and further supported by recent comparative studies of countries with significant different IR philosophies.

The application of the human resources and motivated competence models to IR leads to the conclusion that long-term interests of employees and management as well as governments are best served by having a dual system of influence and power sharing, only one of which is adversarial.     

Co-operation and conflict in industrial relations: what are the implications for employees and trade unions?

This article explores the effects on employees of co-operation and conflict the workplace, outlining six workplace types. A survey of union representatives UK steel industry reveals evidence of co-operative industrial relations linked to superior terms and conditions, employee involvement and health and safety outcomes. However, it fails to find evidence that co-operative industrial relations are associated a broader HRM package of workplace restructuring, high performance work teams security provisions. Nor is any association revealed between co-operation and a greater role for trade unions. These findings suggest workplace co-operation in this industry remains part of a traditional gainsharing package and an 'alliance of insiders' than an HRM partnership or union incorporation. This raises broader questions the ability of co-operation to deliver important aspects of organizational competitive advantage.     

Citizenship and industrial relations

Under the Victorian ideal of laissez-faire, industrial relations are conducted unilaterally by employers unimpeded by employees' rights of citizenship. The four facets of citizenship—civil, political, industrial, and social—impinge in a variety of ways on the employment relationship. Civil citizenship, by barring discrimination on account of race or sex, interferes with maintenance of segregated pools of cheap secondary labor. Political citizenship enfranchises propertyless workers and alters the enactments of legislatures. Industrial citizenship creates the institutional basis for collective bargaining. Social citizenship confers economic benefits and protective regulations not driven directly by market forces. Political ascendancy of laissez-faire advocates undermines rights of citizenship and has a retrograde effect on industrial relations.This article is a revised version of a paper presented at the First Industrial Relations Congress of the Americans in Quebec City to the Study Group on Industrial Relations as a Field and Industrial Relations Theory on August 27, 1988. I thank Jack Barbash for the opportunity to present it there.     

Spatialising industrial relations

In this article, we argue for a deeper and more theoretically informed engagement between the fields of industrial relations and geography. We lay out a number of concepts developed more fully by geographers and show, through four vignettes, how such concepts can add to our understanding of industrial relations practices.     

The genesis of private dispute resolution in Irish industrial relations

This article examines the genesis of private dispute resolution arrangements introduced by employers and unions in Ireland. These forms of collective alternative dispute resolution (ADR) comprise three‐person panels or sole adjudicators, who mediate and issue findings on collective disputes. Findings may be non‐binding or binding. Using data and interviews covering 11 private dispute resolution arrangements in 10 organisations, the paper identifies the circumstances in which they have emerged and a series of influences that lead employers and unions make path‐breaking changes in dispute resolution procedures.     

Organisation strategies and industrial relations

Stuart Timperley discusses two important themes in the management of industrial relations in organisations: firstly, that it is possible, through managerial decisions and actions, to influence industrial relations and, secondly, that a case can be made for such decisions and actions to be implemented.     

The industrial relations practices of multi-plant foreign owned firms

Data from a survey of 143 enterprises indicates that foreign-owned firms are likely to devote more resources to, and be more advanced in, modern human resource management techniques while being similar in the extent to which unions are recognised for collective bargaining.     

Human resource management and industrial relations in European companies

The paper explores the different patterns of labour relations in European companies. It is based on comparative research carried out in fifteen companies in Italy, France, Germany, Great Britain and Spain. ^{1 1}This paper is based on a comparative research study conducted in 1991 in fififteen industrial companies in Italy, France, Germany, Great Britain and Spain. The research team consisted of Paolo Perulli and Ida Regalia (Italy), Alain Lipietz (France), Bruno Cattero (Germany), Paul Marignson (Great Britain) and Fausto Miguelez (Spain). In each country, three case studies were made of companies in thse chemical, food-procesing and engineering industries. Interviews were conducted with the company management as well as with workers' representatives and trade unionists. Of course, this methodology does not allow us to gen eralize our findings, even less to compare national or sectoral patterns. What it does allow us to do, however, is, first, to sugest hypotheses on common trends and major differnces by using the cases studied as anecdotal evidence; second, it allows us to show how apparently similar patterns of personnel management and of labour relations display different features im different cases; third, it enables us to see whether some of these features are systematically asociateed with other variables. View all notesIn each country, three companies in the chemical, food-processing and engineering industries have been studied, through interviews with the company management as well as with workers' representatives.

The starting point is the observation that employers' policies of Jabour relations are today more differentiated than in the recent past: while many employers tend to involve unions in the re-organization of work, have frequent meetings with them and grant them full recognition, others pursue more unilateral paths to industrial adjustment and others still adopt a mixed policy of union involvement on some issues or for some categories of workers and of individual bargaining on others.

An analysis of the major differences among the companies studied is then developed by illustrating three types of choices that managers have to make. The first concerns the extension of the involvement of workers' representatives in decisions. The second has to do with the use of direct relationships with individual workers, as an attempt to bypass the unions or simply as a new method to increase the overall information and communication. The third alternative regards the degree of homogeneity in the management of human resources, in which some rules and advantages may apply to either the whole labour force or some professional (and possibly age or gender) groups only.

In the final section, some possible determinants of the differences in employers' strategies of labour regulation between firms and countries are examined. Special attention is paid to two institutional factors: the role of legal rights to information, consultation and negotiation in different national contexts, and the type of workers' representatives which are present in the companies.