The Political Economy of Occupational Family Policies: Comparing Workplaces in Britain and Germany

With a shift in the political debate to more market‐driven social policy approaches during the past decade, politicians in a number of European countries have argued that employers should take on greater responsibilities in the provision of social policy. But why should employers get involved? After reviewing the relevant literature on firm‐level social policy, we analyse the conditions and causal pathways that lead to their provision. Our findings show that (i) the skill structure and level of the workforce are important conditions for firm‐level engagement; (ii) employers have usually been the ‘protagonists’; (iii) the role of unions has been more limited — in Germany they can largely be characterized as ‘consenters’, whereas in Britain, their impact is negligible; (iv) in accordance with the specific systems of industrial relations, the design in Germany very much follows the concept of social partnership; in Britain the design is usually based on unilateral management decisions; and (v) based on these conditions and causal pathways, ‘enclave social policy’ is the likely result of the expansionary policy development, although in Germany, these policies have the potential of becoming an element of ‘industrial citizenship’.     

German Employers’ Inputs to Employee Skills Development

Using organizational level survey data, this article analyzes larger German private employers’ inputs to employee skills development, to test the theory that unions and employers’ associations raise employer incentives for training. Large German employers maintained their overall contribution between 1995 and 1999. Indicative data for 2004 suggest that this has continued, yet neither membership of employers’ associations nor high union densities influenced it.     

Taiwan: An Exploration of Labour Relations in Transition

This paper explores the emerging relations between workers and employers in Taiwan. The lifting of martial law in 1987 and other reforms have set in motion a basic restructuring of the industrial relations system. A union movement dominated by the interests of employers and the ruling political party has given workers little leverage in the employment relationship. Constrained collective bargaining plus consultation with employers offers the best long-term prospect of providing a systematic basis for worker participation in the workplace and broader business and economic decision-making.     

Procedures and Third Parties

Procedural reform, with the help of third-party intervention, was at the heart of the Donovan Commission's recommendations. This paper looks at what happened since then, and why. In the 1970s considerable progress was made, although this was hidden from public perception by a number of economic and industrial relations traumas. In the 1980s, with the swing in the balance of power to employers, change was often imposed, rather than negotiated, and the role of third parties diminished. The proportion of workplaces recognizing unions and the proportion of employees covered by collective bargaining was much reduced. Formal procedures remained in place, but this hid major changes in the conduct of workplace industrial relations.     

The Future Role of Government in Industrial Relations

The future role of government in industrial relations depends on the choices made by employers, workers, and especially governments. Technological change and internationalization have reduced the viability of both Keynesian economics and the mass production system, once integrally related to the industrial relations systems of industrialized democracies after the 1930s. Economic success will require new policies and high-performance systems more appropriate for a global, knowledge-intensive economic environment     

The Foundations of Social Partnership

‘Social partnership’ between capital and labour is a distinctive characteristic of German industrial relations. Based on a survey of 142 German employers’ associations, we investigate differences in their support for partnership with unions. We find that organizational characteristics (e.g. membership density) as well as positive experiences with their union counterparts explain why employers’ associations adhere to the norms of social partnership. Building on an analysis that combines political and organizational institutionalism, we find that the positive evaluation of social partnership held by employers is associated with their positive experiences in more recent interactions with unions in collective bargaining, a more encompassing definition of an association's policy domain and a long‐term history of mutual collaboration.     

Redundancy and Early Retirement: The Interaction of Public and Private Policy in Britain, Germany and the USA

Labour force reductions have been a major issue in industrial relations in Western countries since the mid-1970s. Early retirement has enabled employers to structure these reductions better to suit their interests, and to reduce the damage to industrial peace which would otherwise occur. This paper looks at the role and nature of early retirement in cases of redundancy in three countries with different industrial relations and social insurance systems. Attention is given to how compensatory policies undermine protective policies; how the costs of early retirement are shared between the state and enterprises; the adequacy of early retirement benefits and their impact upon post-retirement income; and whether the state can be said to encourage early retirement.     

Wage-fixing Behaviour of Managers in Australia

Researchers have conducted surveys of firms in an attempt to test various theories of wage rigidity. The survey of Australian firms reported in this paper found strong support for the view that hiring and training costs are important reasons why employers do not reduce wages, consistent with the surveys of Blinder and Choi (1990), Bewley (1995, 1999) and Kaufman (1984). All the surveys find pervasive support for the notion of fairness as an explanation for wage rigidity. Qualified support was found for the idea that fear of unemployment motivates worker effort.     

Determinants of Israeli Judicial Discretion in Issuing Injunctions against Strikers

The study examines all cases (1990–7) in Israel in which employers petitioned the labour court to issue an injunction against striking workers, and identifies how judges use their discretion in deciding the petition. The findings indicate that, judicial rhetoric to the contrary, the labour court limits its considerations almost solely to the parties' formal compliance with the legal rule. The implications of these findings for the relationship of the legal and industrial relations systems are discussed, particularly with reference to the dual task of labour law: to govern the industrial relations system, and to facilitate its autonomy.     

The Involvement of Civil Society Organizations in British Industrial Relations: Extent,Origins and Significance

This article examines the involvement of civil society organizations (CSOs) in UK industrial relations. Organizations of this type, including advocacy, campaigning, identity and community organizations have attracted increasing attention from employment relations scholars in recent years. The study reported in this article demonstrates that CSOs have become increasingly active in the sphere of work and employment, partly in response to trade union decline but also owing to political opportunities, afforded by the labour market policy of the New Labour government. It is claimed that CSOs operate at multiple levels of the industrial relations system and interact with the state, employers and trade unions. They generate significant effects within UK industrial relations and can rightly be judged significant ‘new actors’ on the UK employment scene.     

The Rise of Experimentalism in German Collective Bargaining

This paper addresses the debate on union strategies by analysing industrial relations change in three of Germany's most internationalized sectors: chemicals, metalworking and construction. It characterizes two logics of change in German industrial relations: a battlefield logic and an experimentalist logic. It demonstrates historical trends towards centralization of wage bargaining in each sector before looking at recent pressures for decentralization and flexibility. In chemi‐cals, the social partners control decentralization. In metalworking increasing flexibility is characterized by a mismatch between the national‐level union and the district‐level employers. Finally, the construction union seeks to replace the centralized bargaining system with a state minimum wage.     

Defending Dock Workers—Globalization and Labor Relations in the World's Ports

Globalization has precipitated a major restructuring of the world's ports and brought in its wake a marked deterioration in dock workers’ terms and conditions of employment. Many trade unions have found it difficult to protect their members’ interests against this international “race to the bottom,” most notably in those countries where dock labor has been historically poorly organized but also where industrial restructuring has been used as a vehicle to de‐unionize the industry. Other unions have been more successful, either by working in concert with private employers and public port authorities or by mobilizing their membership to contest and contain the process of industrial restructuring.     

Citizenship in transition: Globalization,postindustrial technology and education

This paper explores the changes associated with the move from an industrial to a postindustrial society and discusses the corresponding shifts in education. After reviewing a number of contemporary responses to the present crisis within society, the paper examines some of the implications for the concept of citizenship and suggests that, while much remains unknown, the task of education in a postindustrial society will still be to furnish knowledge and skills that articulate with the requirements of social life.This paper is adapted from Royal Bank Lecture presented as a keynote address at the Annual Colloquium of the MSTE Group, Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario, Canada, April 7th, 1995. Proceedings of the Colloquium are available as Hills, S. (ed.) Life after School: Education, Globalization and the Person, Kingston Ontario, MSTE Group, 1995.     

Informal Employment Dispute Resolution among Low‐Wage Non‐Union Workers: Does Managerially Initiated Workplace Voice Enhance Equity and Efficiency?

The decline of collective industrial relations has shifted the focus of industrial relations research to the study of individual employment disputes. In this article, we investigate whether employer‐initiated workplace voice is associated with improved resolution of individual complaints or grievances workers make against employers. We find that our measure of workplace voice is associated with less serious problems, more informal methods of dispute resolution, more satisfactory outcomes for workers and lower quit rates. However, these findings need to be set against generally low rates of satisfactory dispute resolution for all employees in our sample.     

Survival and Decline of the Apprenticeship System in the Australian and UK Construction Industries

The preservation of the apprenticeship system in the Australian construction industry contrasts with its decline in Britain over the last three decades. This decline is conventionally ascribed to changes in industrial structure, specifically a decline in the role of the public sector, intensification of subcontracting and growth of self‐employment. Given that the Australian construction industry has undergone similar structural changes to those in the United Kingdom, this difference in outcome requires explanation. This article suggests that the contrasting outcomes are the result of institutional differences in the organization of the training system, employers and labour between the two countries. These institutional differences are, however, diminishing as arrangements for training and industrial relations in Australia are increasingly fashioned in the likeness of the United Kingdom.     

Changing Patterns of Industrial Relations in Taiwan

This article examines changing patterns of industrial relations (IR) in Taiwan. Although trade unions have become more autonomous since the lifting of martial law in the mid-1980s, trends such as the privatization of state-owned enterprises, industrial restructuring, flexible employment practices, and importation of foreign workers hinder union development. The millennium may represent a turning point for workers and their organizations because the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) replaced the Kuomintang (KMT) as the ruling party. This may further union independence and power because the DPP tends to be a more pro-labor party. However, balancing the interests of workers and employers will still be a challenge for the DPP, particularly given employer opposition to many of the DPP's labor policies.     

Industrial Relations Climate,Employee Voice and Managerial Attitudes to Unions: An Australian Study

This article examines how employee voice arrangements and managerial attitudes to unions shape employees' perceptions of the industrial relations climate, using data from the 2007 Australian Worker Representation and Participation Survey (AWRPS) of 1,022 employees. Controlling for a range of personal, job and workplace characteristics, regression analyses demonstrate that employees' perceptions of the industrial relations climate are more likely to be favourable if they have access to direct‐only voice arrangements. Where management is perceived by employees to oppose unions (in unionized workplaces), the industrial relations climate is more likely to be reported as poor. These findings have theoretical implications, and significant practical implications for employers, employees, unions and the government.     

Labor Law,Economics, and Industrial Democracy: A Reconciliation.

This article analyzes the competing economic and industrial democracy/ voice views of unionism. It points out that the economic arguments vis-àvis unionism and the costs of union rent seeking depend on competitive markets. If markets vary in their competitive characteristics, however, and employers also have an incentive to rent-seek, then decentralized, NLRA-type unionism with minimal government interference in establishing bargaining outcomes may serve to restore competitive wages. The article concludes by evaluating some proposals to amend the NLRA in the context of this “symmetry of motives” framework.     

中国制造业集中及其国际化比较

本文采用第三次全国工业普查521个制造行业近60万个企业的系统数据，深入考察了中国制造业的市场集中状况，行业特征及其国际比较，分析结果表明，中国绝大多数制造业行业的集中度都非常低，产业组织结构高度分散，因此，如何按照分类指导、区域对待的原则，实行分类调控和引导，以有效提高制造业特别是规模效益显著行业的集中度，将是当前产业组织政策亟待解决的一个重要课题。     

Large Employers and Apprenticeship Training in Britain

We consider the link between apprenticeship and large employers in Britain, in terms of the contribution of apprenticeship to intermediate skills and the contribution of large employers to the Advanced Apprenticeship (AA) programme. Evidence is taken from interviews with managers in 28 organizations. We find that apprenticeship functions to only a limited extent outside AA, and then primarily because of the ineligibility of particular categories of trainee. The use that employers make of apprenticeship varies considerably, in association with its cost‐effectiveness relative to recruitment and upgrade training within human resource management strategy, and with employers’ evaluations of the technical content of AA qualifications. The prospects for increased sponsorship of apprenticeship by large organizations are curbed by the greater appeal of recruitment and upgrade training in various contexts.