Management style and large scale survey evidence

In this article supposed differences in the way industrial relations is managed are examined in the light of evidence from the 1980 Workplace Industrial Relations Survey. The author, in considering the Survey's classification of management styles, finds little evidence to support the belief in distinctive differences in the way industrial relations is conducted.     

Book Reviews

Inside Japan–Wealth Work and Power in the New Japanese Empire Peter Tasker Managing Owners: The National Freight Consortium in Perspective K. Bradley and A. Nejad Sharing the Success: the Story of NFC Sir Peter Thompson The Political Economy of Industrial Relations: Theory and Practice in a Cold Climate Richard Hyman Beyond the Workplace: Managing Industrial Relations in the Multi-Establishment Enterprise . Paul Marginson, P. K. Edwards, Roderick Martin, John Purcell and Keith Sisson New Perspectives on Human Resource Management John Storey (ed.) Precarious Jobs in Labour Market Regulation G. and J. Rodgers (Eds.) A Secretary and a Cook, Challenging Women's Wages in the Courts of the United States and Great Britain Steven I. Willborn Change in Industrial Relations P. B. Beaumont Changing Patterns of Employee Relations Mick Marchington and Philip Parker Industrial Relations Strategies M. W. Nuttall     

In from the cold? Ben Roberts and Conservative industrial relations reform

Over the course of his career Professor Ben Roberts became an increasingly vocal critic of the trade union movement and a firm advocate of the case for legal restrictions on their activities. The growing influence of neoliberal ideas inside the Conservative Party, driven by think tanks such as the Institute of Economic Affairs, could have provided him with the opportunity to exert some influence over industrial relations policymaking, after years of political isolation. In fact Ben Roberts remained on the margins of the policy networks that constructed the Thatcherite programme of industrial relations reform. His labour movement background and lack of involvement in think tank seminars and activities made it difficult for him to penetrate the tight and cohesive networks that were integral to Conservative policymaking. In any case his main focus was institution building in the academic world of industrial relations, rather than policymaking in the political world, and his legacy continues today in the British Journal of Industrial Relations and the International Labour and Employment Relations Association.     

European industrial relations in 1999: chronicle of events

This article chronicles industrial relations developments throughout the European Union (EU) during 1999. The information is gleaned from articles published by the European Industrial Relations Observatory (EIRO). The text therefore contains numerical references to records contained in the EIRO database in order to allow the reader easy access to the relevant records. The article is divided into five sections. The first contains an overview of political, economic and legislative events at EU‐level, the second looks at EU‐level developments in employee representation, the third looks at the impact of European economic and monetary union (EMU) on industrial relations and collective bargaining and the fourth and fifth give a more detailed country‐by‐country analysis of main trends in key industrial relations areas—collective bargaining and industrial action; and employment creation, working time and new forms of work.     

Shop-floor attitudes to industrial relations change

Whilst the shop-floor workers interviewed showed a high degree of interest in, and knowledge of, the Industrial Relations Bill, there were deep divisions over the necessity of introducing the law into the industrial relations system and of the results of doing so.     

Organisational Change and the Tensions of Decentralisation: the Case of Royal Mail

Miguel Martinez Lucio and Mike Noon, who are Lecturers in Industrial Relations and Organisational Behaviour respectively at the Cardiff Business School, draw on a case study of Royal Mail to explore the reasons for decentralisation and the issues this poses for managers and employees. They argue that the restructuring of Royal Mail was the result of three different imperatives for change: market, technological and political – pressurising managers to decentralise the formal structures of management-trade union relations. Decentralisation of these structures, however, has been far from a straightforward process: it has led to considerable tensions in the management of industrial relations, created scope for the development of new workplace industrial relations institutions and agendas, and given rise to a constant process of management reform.     

Industrial relations and the IRJ

Brian Towers reviews the industrial relations changes which have taken place over the last few years and offers an agenda for the discussion of reform. He also discusses the aims of the Industrial Relations Journal in the context of the decision to expand the number of issues per year which makes it possible to increase the number of articles published and add new features.     

Workplace industrial relations in Britain, 1980–2004

The Workplace Industrial Relations Surveys marked a radical departure in the study of industrial relations (IR) by ‘mapping’ IR in Britain with nationally representative large‐scale surveys of workplace managers, thus permitting investigation of the incidence of practices and changes over time. This article reflects on some of what we have learned in the five surveys over the quarter century since 1980, focusing selectively on the demise of collective IR, pay determination, the IR climate, and union effects on wages and employment growth.     

Book Reviews

Book reviewed in this article: Industry and Society in Europe: Stability and Change in Britain, Germany and France Christel Lane Labour Relations and Political Change in Eastern Europe John Thirkell, Richard Scase, Sarah Vickerstaff (Eds.) Politics and Ideology in the Italian Workers’ Movement Gino Bedani The Puzzle of Strikes: Class and State Strategies in Postwar Italy Roberto Franzosi The Politics of Quality in the Public Sector Ian Kirkpatrick & Miguel Martinez Lucio (Eds.) Making Quality Critical: New Perspectives on Organizational Change Adrian Wilkinson & Hugh Willmott (Eds.) Cold War in the Working Class: The Rise and Decline of the United Electrical Workers Ronald Filippelli and Mark McColloch The New Industrial Relations In Australia Ian Hunt and Chris Provis (Eds) Mediation of Industrial Disputes Macken, J. J. and Gregory, G. Negotiation as a Social Process Kramer, R. M. and Messick, D. M. (Eds.)     

Union recognition in Ireland: one step forward or two steps back?

In this paper a variety of union recognition procedures and their effect on union density levels in a number of countries are considered. The crucial importance of the national institutions that govern industrial relations are emphasised. While in Ireland, conditions such as social partnership and the buoyant economy of the 1990s would appear to favour union growth, the reverse has been the case. Recent legislation to establish more formal procedures for union recognition, we argue, is likely to be a dismal failure. Indeed, an unintended consequence of the Industrial Relations (Amendment) Act 2001 may be the exclusion of the union from the workplace and the legitimisation of a firm's non‐union status.     

Human resource management in foreign-owned workplaces: evidence from Australia

Multinational companies have assumed a position of considerable prominence in the Australian economy. Drawing on the 1995 Australian Workplace Industrial Relations Survey, this paper examines the character of human resource management in multinational companies operating in Australia. The findings suggest that investments in the human resource function and the utilization of human resource practices were generally more widespread in foreign-owned than Australian establishments. This was especially the case for workplaces belonging to American and British-owned firms. It is concluded that the more strongly regulated industrial relations environment as well as the legacy of protected domestic markets have not made multinational companies reluctant innovators in human resource management in the Australian context.     

Book reviews

Conflict and Order: the Police and Labour Disputes in England and Wales 1900–1939 Jane Morgan Strikes in Essential Services Gillian S. Morris Mansell Policing Industrial Disputes: 1893–1985 Roger Geary Taking Japan Seriously: a Confucian Perspective on Leading Economic Issues Ronald Dore Management Reforms in China Edited Malcolm Warner Frances Pinter Managing Labour? Essays in the Political Economy of Australian Industrial Relations Mark Bray and Vic Taylor Marginal Manager: The Changing Role of Supervisors in Australia Peter Gilmour and Russell D. Lansbury Comparative Factory Organisation: An Anglo-German Comparison of Management and Manpower in Manufacturing Arndt Sorge and Malcolm Warner Gower     

Book reviews

Book reviewed in this article: The Industrial Relations Practices of Foreign-Owned Firms in Britain Peter J Buckley and Peter Enderwick Japanese Participation in British Industry John H Dunning Employee Consultation and Information in Multinational Corporations edited by Jacques Vandamme The Transformation of American Industrial Relations Thomas A Kochan, Harry C Katz and Robert B McKersie The Making of Labour Law in Europe edited by Bob Hepple Mansell Management and Society in Sweden Peter Lawrence and Tony Spybey Routledge and Kegan Paul The Trade Union Situation and Industrial Relations in Hungary The Trade Union Situation and Industrial Relations in Norway The Trade Union Situation and Industrial Relations in Spain The Trade Union Situation and Industrial Relations in Yugoslavia Labor-Owned Firms and Workers' Cooperatives S Jansson and A B Hellmark (eds) Towards a Democratic Rationality The Cooperative Workplace—potentials and dilemmas of organizational democracy and participation J Rothschild and J Allen Whitt Power and Performance in Organisations: An Exploration of Executive Process I Mangham Warwick Papers in Industrial Relations—School of Industrial and Business Studies, Industrial Relations Research Unit, University of Warwick     

Knowledge Concerning Employees’ Legal Rights at Work among Banking Employees in Malaysia

This study was conducted to determine the level of knowledge concerning employee rights under the Employment Act, Trade Unions Act and Industrial Relations Act among banking employees in Malaysia. This study also identified the specific areas of employee rights that employees are most familiar with and compared this level of knowledge by gender, age, tenure, and level of education. The findings revealed that the respondents do not possess sound knowledge of their legal rights. The respondents have the highest level of knowledge on employee basic rights, and have the lowest level of knowledge on rights to termination and dismissal. There was a small difference in the level of knowledge between male and female; however the level of knowledge increases with employes’ age, tenure and level of education.     

Book Reviews

Book reviewed in this article: Global Japanisation?: The Transformation of the Labour Process Tony Elger & Chris Smith (Eds.) Organized Labor in the Asia-Pacific Region: A Comparative Study of Trade Unions in Nine Countries Stephen Frenkel (Ed.) Human Resource Management on the Pacific Rim: Institutions, Practices and Attitudes Larry F. Moore and P. Devereaux Jennings (Eds.) Management in China during the Age of Reform John Child Industrial Restructuring in Mexico: Corporate Adaptation, Technological Innovation, and Changing Patterns of Industrial Relations in Monterrey María de los Angeles Pozas. Translated by Aníbal Yáñez The Struggle for Australian Industrial Relations Braham Dabscheck Irish Industrial Relations in Practice Thomas V. Murphy and William K. Roche (Eds.)     

Ireland's conundrum on union bargaining rights: assessing the Industrial Relations Amendment Act 2015

Anglophone countries address the question of workplace-level union bargaining rights via the mechanism of statutory recognition. Existing literature has evaluated such regimes as underpinned by several weaknesses. In contrast, Ireland presents an unusual case whereby the question of bargaining rights is resolved via collective dispute resolution procedures combining voluntary and statutory provisions. However, employer challenges and civil court rulings resulted in the weakening of these procedures from a trade union perspective. We assess the latest attempts to reform the Irish provisions via the Industrial Relations (Amendment) Act 2015, evaluating the implications for unions and their capacity to represent members' on pay and working conditions in comparison to Anglophone statutory recognition regimes.     

The non-union workplace in Australia: bleak house or human resource innovator?

This paper compares the employee relations practices and outcomes of non-union and unionized workplaces in Australia. It also examines the nature of those practices to ascertain whether non-union workplaces can best be characterized as human resource innovators or 'bleak houses'. The data for the study are drawn from the 1995 Australian Workplace Industrial Relations Survey. The findings suggest that non-union workplaces are distinctly less innovative in a number of their employee relations practices and in general have less favourable employee relations outcomes than unionized workplaces in terms of dismissal and turnover rates. The non-union workplace is also distinguished by the individualistic nature of its contractual, remunerative and bargaining arrangements.     

An IR perspective on collective bargaining

In examining collective bargaining, industrial relations (IR) emphasizes a number of things of interest to HR scholars. First, IR adopts a different level of analysis from HR — that of the economy and the broader society — in contrast to HR's primary focus on the employing organization. Second, IR has an understanding of workplace conflict that emphasizes its collective and inherent nature, complementing HR's focus on managing individual conflict for the good of the organization. Finally, IR addresses the value of collective bargaining in promoting democracy and correcting “labor problems” arising from competitive markets, even in situations in which there is excellent personnel management.     

A stakeholder perspective of employee responsibilities and rights

This article offers a perspective that serves as an alternative to dealing with workplace issues within the framework of managerial capitalism. In accomplishing this, the article questions managerial capitalism by drawing from some of the same arguments used to justify it—such as those based on corporate morality, the law, notions of bureaucracy, and social construction of reality. Introducing and applying a strategy of inquiry known as deconstruction helps fulfill the underlying analysis. The result is an articulation of a stakeholder perspective of employee responsibilities and rights. This is an extended version of an Invited/Guest Paper presented to the Study Group on Employee Rights and Industrial Justice of the International Industrial Relations Research Association, at the 43rd IRRA Annual Meeting, Washington, D.C., December 27, 1990.