The Viability of Trade Union Organization: A Bargaining Unit Analysis

The paper develops a model of trade union behaviour based on the concept of the viable bargaining unit. Viability rests on five conditions: membership level, service level, membership participation, employer recognition, and facilities. Unions are seen as portfolios of viable and inviable bargaining units. Six propositions are derived, concerning union scale, growth, the impact of statutory recognition provisions, the emergence of conglomerate unions, governance structures, and relations with employers. Employer dependence is central, and a simple game‐theoretic approach is used to discuss employer co‐operation. Viability at the union level is achieved by portfolio diversification and employer co‐operation.     

Twin Tracks—Employee Representation at Eurotunnel Revisited

The introduction of the European Directive on Information and Consultation and the recent implementation of the Information and Consultation of Employees (ICE) Regulations into United Kingdom (UK) law have increased the focus on workplace representation arrangements. This paper examines the interplay between nonunion and union representative arrangements at Eurotunnel (UK) and assesses their effectiveness in representing the needs of employees over a 5‐year period. Importantly, the paper also examines the opportunities and challenges of both nonunion representation (NER) and union voice arrangements. The findings show that the effectiveness of nonunion structures as bodies representing the interests of employees in filling the lack of representation is questionable. However, union recognition through an employer–union partnership agreement has also raised important issues regarding the effectiveness, impact, and legitimacy of unions at Eurotunnel. The main implication of this research is that the existence of a mechanism—union or nonunion—for communication between management and employees at the workplace may not be a sufficient condition for effective representation of employee interests. In addition, while trade unions may provide greater voice than nonunion arrangements (thus the reluctance of management to accept such voice arrangements), the strength of voice is dependent on the legitimacy and effectiveness of trade unions in representing employees’ interests at the workplace. And that in turn depends on the union being perceived by the workforce as both representative and able to act independently. If the union cannot, it will not meet the needs of either employees or management—and could run the risk of being supplanted under the provisions of the new EU Directive on Information and Consultation with tougher requirements for compliance in terms of procedures for consultation and information disclosure.     

Initial Responses to the Statutory Recognition Provisions of the Employment Relations Act 1999

We report how trade unions and employers initially reacted to the introduction of the statutory recognition procedure in the Employment Relations Act 1999 (ERA). Interview data indicate that the ERA and the drift of EU influence have acted to shift employer attitudes towards greater approval of unions and have accelerated the rate at which employers are redesigning their relationships with unions. Although they are restricting unions’ influence over traditional issues such as pay‐setting, employers are increasingly seeking their assistance in implementing organizational changes. We explore the impact of these developments on union activity and on collective representation more broadly.     

The Union of the Future: Super-Unions or Joint Ventures?

The article looks at effectiveness in union organization. Following Child et al. (1973), it describes the necessary conditions for both administrative and representative effectiveness. Administratively effective unions focus on an organizable job territory, control costs and avoid competition. Representative effectiveness is defined by the degree of employer dependence, the balance of services and the degree of centralization. We argue that the prevailing tendency for concentration through merger often damages representative effectiveness while yielding few administrative benefits. The article concludes by offering a framework for analysis of a range of co-operative relationships between unions which yield administrative benefits.     

Improving Working Conditions in Garment Supply Chains: The Role of Unions in Cambodia

Given the disappointing outcomes of private regulation of labour in global supply chains, worker organization is increasingly seen as the key to better working conditions. This article examines the extent to which unions impact different dimensions of labour standard compliance in Cambodia's garment export sector, where unions have grown considerably. Based on unique factory‐level data and field‐based interviews, this study shows that union presence improves factories’ compliance with wage, hours, and leave standards, although the impact is much less significant for health and safety. Moreover, having multiple unions in the workplace does not appear to improve labour conditions.     

Collective Bargaining, Macroeconomic Performance, and the Sectoral Composition of Trade Unions

Strong exposed-sector unions and weak public-sector unions are seen as having beneficial effects on macroeconomic performance. Although these effects must work through the bargaining structure, the interaction with union composition is unclarified. This paper argues that the interaction effect qualitatively differs with the bargaining type. The findings show that the performance of pattern bargaining significantly increases with growing exposed-sector union strength whereas uncoordinated bargaining and centrally coordinated bargaining do not interact with union composition.     

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.     

Justice for Janitors in Los Angeles: Lessons from Three Rounds of Negotiations

We examine an important recent organizing success of the US labour movement: the 'Justice for Janitors' campaign in Los Angeles. This campaign has spanned a complete business cycle and shows the union's capacity for growth over time. It illustrates the potential for unions to overcome pro–employer bias of labour laws, as well as their efficacy in appealing to the wider public. It exposes the importance of building coalitions, as well as the value of union analysis of legal, industrial, and political conditions. Our analysis suggests conditions under which unions might survive and thrive in the service sector in the twenty–first century.     

Do Unions Help or Hinder Women in Training? Apprenticeship Programs in the United States

Trade unions are frequently criticized for excluding women from skilled crafts by denying them training. This article examines this argument by eestimatin the retention and attrition probabilities of men and women in the joint union‐management and the unilateral employer‐sponsored apprenticeship programs. While men, on average, have higher retention and lower attrition rates than women, joint sponsorship raises women's graduation probability above (and lowers their quit probability below) those of men or women apprentices in unilateral programs.     

Unions and Investment in British Manufacturing Industry

This paper is concerned with the impact of unions on the investment rate in British industry. On the basis of an analysis of some 72 industries in the manufacturing sector, we find that, ceteris paribus, firms that recognize manual unions and have an average level of union density invest some 23 per cent less than firms that do not recognize unions. However, once we allow for union effects on wages and productivity, this overall effect is reduced to between 4 and 13 per cent, depending on the degree of competition in the product market.     

A Critical Assessment of the High-Performance Paradigm

This paper assesses research on the effects of high‐performance systems on employer, worker and union outcomes. It concludes that, compared with what has long been thought of as good management practice, claims that these systems yield superior performance outcomes may be unwarranted, and their implications for both workers and unions are at best uncertain. Conventional explanations for these findings are found to be insufficient. Alternative explanations involving the nature of the employment relation are proposed, and the need for an alternative paradigm, which promotes legal and institutional reforms, is established.     

Trade Unions,Union Learning Representatives and Employer‐Provided Training in Britain

This article provides an empirical assessment of the relationship between trade union recognition, union density, union learning representatives (ULRs) and employer‐provided training in British workplaces using linked employer–employee data from the 2004 Workplace Employment Relations Survey. The results suggest that the relationship between union recognition and training is, at best, weak. We find no consistent relationship between union density and training or between the presence of ULRs and training. We do, however, find some evidence of greater equality in the distribution of training in ULR workplaces than in other workplaces.     

Annual Review Article 1989

This Annual Review Article 1989 considers the rising trend in inflation and earnings and indicates that in a wide variety of industries there was a marked upturn in union bargaining activity and industrial conflict. The Review considers some significant changes in employer preferences for particular unions in new or revised bargaining structures, and concludes with an examination of the debate concerning the 'juridification' of collective bargaining in the context of a possible return to 'adversarial' as opposed to 'new' industrial relations.     

Trade Unions and Work‐life Balance: Changing Times in France and the UK?

The mixed empirical findings to date have indicated that some, but not all, unions in industrialized countries are actively involved in campaigning and bargaining around work–life balance (WLB) issues, as part of a modernization agenda linked to feminization and to 'positive flexibility'. This article seeks to identify factors that might encourage or inhibit trade unions from involvement in WLB issues, within a cross-national comparative perspective focusing on two countries (France and the UK) that have contrasting working time regimes and approaches to WLB. It draws on original research carried out in two sectors — insurance and social work — in these two countries. The article links the emergence of union WLB programmes and bargaining agendas to gender-equality concerns within the union and to the gender composition of the sector, as well as to the working time regime, including the mode of action, partnership being a significant corollary of WLB campaigning in the UK. We find support for the modernization thesis in the UK, particularly in the public sector, but within severe constraints defined by employer initiative.     

The Microeconomic Impacts of Employee Representatives: Evidence from Membership Thresholds

Employee representatives in firms are a potentially key but not yet studied source of the impact of unions and works councils. Their actions can shape multiple drivers of firm performance, including collective bargaining, strikes, and training. This article examines the impact of union representative mandates by exploiting legal membership thresholds present in many countries. In the case of Portugal, which we examine here, while firms employing up to forty‐nine union members are required to have one union representative; this increases to two (three) union reps for firms with fifty to ninety‐nine (100–199) union members. Drawing on matched employer–employee data on the unionized sector and regression discontinuity methods, we find that a one percentage point increase in the legal union representative/members ratio leads to an increase in firm performance of at least 7 percent. This result generally holds across multiple dimensions of firm performance and appears to be driven by increased training. However, we find no effects of union representatives on firm‐level wages, given the predominance of sectoral collective bargaining.     

Do Unions Affect Employer Compliance with the Law? New Zealand Evidence for Age Discrimination

Over the last thirty years, collective rights to organize into unions, bargain collectively and strike have been weakened in both New Zealand and the UK. At the same time, individual rights to due process and to protection from discriminatory or unjust management decisions have been strengthened, leading some to conclude that collective and individual rights are unrelated, incompatible or mutually exclusive. On the contrary, we use evidence of employer compliance with anti‐age provisions in the New Zealand Human Rights Act to show that the two sets of rights can be highly complementary: the presence of unions strengthens individual protection from discriminatory treatment.     

Peak Union Campaigning: Fighting for Rights at Work in Australia

Many peak unions are in crisis, their traditional reliance on economic or political exchange with employers and the state undermined through falling union membership and the collapse of national bargaining systems. New methods, chiefly as agents of mobilization, and new sources of power, including community organizations, are often advanced as solutions. In Australia, where trade unions faced a fundamental and immediate threat from a national government after an election in 2004, the ‘Your Rights at Work’ campaign signalled a shift in peak union strategy. Although this campaign unseated the government in 2007, its legacy is unclear: reviving the power of peak unions and conceptualizing the means to do so remain difficult.     

Interest Arbitrators and Their Decision Behavior

We analyze the salary portions of a multi-state sample of police interest arbitration awards to determine what decision criteria (e.g., pay comparability, ability to pay, inflation) arbitrators' mention most frequently. Using the results, we construct measures of these criteria and assess their influence on awarded salaries. We find that arbitrated salaries are related to several of the measures and also to the employer and union salary offers. The parties' offers are also influenced by our measures, indicating that unions and employers attempt to strategically position their offers before the arbitrator.     

Retooling militancy: Labour revitalization and fixed-duration strikes

Despite decades of decline in strike rates, recent scholarship has examined how unions and labour organizations are retooling the strike to confront increasing employer power. This study focuses on a militant labour union and the emergence of an understudied type of strike – the fixed-duration strike – as a source of labour revitalization. Drawing from qualitative data gathered on fixed-duration strikes organized by a union of registered nurses in the United States, I investigate the strategic adaptation of labour militancy and how these strikes overcome the limitations of traditional, indefinite work stoppages. I find that fixed-duration strikes protect the economic interests of nurses and advance their role as patient care advocates, while still imposing financial and reputational costs on employers. These findings suggest that the strategic adaptation of militant tactics, such as the strike, help labour organizations achieve revitalization outcomes like contract victories and enhanced membership activism.     

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.