The aims and methods of the education and training of shop stewards: a case study

The author's research indicates that management's objectives in releasing shop stewards for courses and the shop stewards' objectives may be quite different. Views on how far courses should be “education” and how far “training”, and the best structure for courses, also emerged from this study.     

Employee participation: some problems for some shop stewards

It is often felt that shop stewards experience a variety of problems through their role in systems of employee participation. Here the authors report on research which illustrates the stewards' fears and concerns, and show that these may vary from one workplace to another.     

Research note: the influence of job grade differences in white-collar shop steward committees

Paul Blyton reports a study of patterns of behaviour from observation of sixteen white-collar shop steward committee meetings. The results show that the stewards' position in the work hierarchy influences the extent and form of their contribution within the meetings: those from senior work positions were more active than their lower grade counterparts.     

Privatisation and industrial relations in British shipbuilding

The causes of the 1993 strike by 1300 workers at Yarrow Shipbuilders are examined. A managerial offensive, which included a restructuring of the labour process, was instigated by the Thatcher government's privatisation of the shipbuilding industry. Drawing on shop stewards' committee minute books, particular emphasis is given to the trade union response to management's confrontationalist approach.     

JOB SATISFACTION AND LABOUR TURNOVER AMONGST WOMEN WORKERS

Two hundred and ninety female shop floor workers and sixty-five female shop floor ex-workers of a large electrical/electronic engineering company were given a multiple choice questionnaire and unstructured interview. Thirty per cent of the total sample expressed general dissatisfaction with their job. An analysis of their responses indicated the over-riding importance of the work itself as a determinant of job satisfaction and dissatisfaction. An analysis of reasons for leaving the company indicated that ‘voluntary’ labour turnover resulted mainly from dissatisfaction with the work. No evidence was gained to support Herzberg's principle of duality, although the practical implications from the study are very similar to those evident in the motivation/hygiene theory.     

Developing a smartphone app to enhance Oxfam's supply chain visibility

This paper reports on the development of a smartphone app designed to give drivers and managers in a charity organisation greater visibility of transport, donation bank and shop stock in time and space. Trials of the app with samples of drivers and shop managers across three counties in the UK showed that users' understanding of vehicle activity and how time was utilised in the business was enhanced. The app also informed their decision-making, aided some collaboration and helped in their understanding of donation bank and shop performance, with one region altering their collection schedules. The quality of 3G signal was an issue in certain areas which impeded performance and the rules by which the messaging platform should be used in such a tool need careful consideration.     

The role of the museum shop in extending the visitor experience

• The aim of the research is to assess the role of the museum shop in extending the learning experience in the museum. The research is situated in the theoretical framework of museum experiences and learning. It acknowledges environmental influences on learning, and of consumption sites that synthesise leisure and consumption and create memorable sensory experiences that engage customers.
• The exploratory approach uses mixed methods to examine visitors' knowledge and experience of museums and their shops. The first phase of the research was undertaken with in-depth interviews to scope the experience of museum shops and their contribution to learning. The second phase was undertaken with visitors to the Imperial War Museum (IMW) in London through a convenience sample which elicited 150 responses to a semi-structured questionnaire. The research demonstrates the significance of the museum shop as a destination for museum visitors, and its role in creating experiences that can supplement the museum's educational priorities and a return to the everyday world of familiar objects.

Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Labor relations at the shop floor level

The tenacious myth that a free economy and free society impoverish working people undergirds modern government interference in labor markets and legal privilege for adversarial labor unions. Managers are concerned about harmony and productivity at the shop floor level. The opposite characteristics of conflict, disco-ordination and inefficiency are anathema. Most of the union difficulties managers must cope with at the shop floor level stem from a fundamental source, namely the philosophy of collectivism. This paper analyzes the fable of labor's disadvantage, wage determination under personal and impersonal conditions, public policy toward labor contracts and the role of businessmen in making labor markets operate more efficiently.     

Order review/release in the absence of adherence to formal scheduling policies

In many plants, the performance of shop floor workers is measured by accounting-based productivity criteria. Such systems encourage workers to maximize their individual performance, often at the expense of total shop performance. One such company, Union Switch & Signal, a manufacturer of railroad equipment, has decided to increase finished goods inventory in an effort to counteract poor due date performance. Management at Union Switch & Signal feel that workers not following priorities contribute significantly to this poor performance. It has been suggested that the controlled release of jobs into the shop, i.e., Order Review/Release (ORR), may provide the operations manager a vehicle for enforcing job priorities when formal dispatching rules are not strictly followed by workers. In this study, two ORR methodologies are studied in regards to their ability to offset the dysfunctional behavior by workers who seek to maximize their own individual productivity. This type of behavior was captured by simulating the phenomenon of `cherry picking'. Cherry picking occurs when a job is selected for processing based not on its formal priority but on the difference in standard allowable processing time and actual processing time. Results suggest that at least one ORR methodology is able to reduce the difference in resulting labor productivity while improving overall shop performance.     

The challenge from below: an analysis of the role of the shop steward in industrial relations

An analysis of the shop steward's position in industry makes it clear that his task is complicated by the different roles demanded of him by management, his union, the rank and file, and not least, his own conception of his role.     

Simulation study of a closed-loop job shop

This study investigates the behavior of a job shop depicted as an integral component of a firm. A market places demands for the firm's products by dynamically evaluating the organization's quoted delivery times and actual delivery performance. The closed-loop model simulated in this study is described and the salient research results are reported. These experimental outcomes suggest that other conventional open-loop job shop studies tend to neglect important interactions with factors external to the shop itself.     

Shop stewards' organisation in Ford Halewood: from Beynon to today

This article revisits the Ford Halewood car plant on Merseyside to assess the extent of shop steward bureaucratisation since Huw Beynon's Working for Ford appeared twenty years ago. It suggests that, notwithstanding very substantial changes, there are important elements of continuity with the shop-floor union vitality of the past.     

Workplace bargaining and trade union power

Frans Leijnse argues that although workplace bargaining in Britain has made substantial inroads into management control on the shop floor, there has been a striking failure by the unions to protect members against unemployment and inflation. He explains this in terms of the trade unions' existing lack of the organisational means to transfer the power they have won from the shopfloor to higher levels.     

The influence of internal union factions on union renewal strategies: the case of the Finnish Paper Workers' Union

In 2008, the collective agreement of the Finnish paper industry was significantly rewritten. This case study analyses the influence of internal factions on the capability of the Finnish Paper Workers' Union to shift to a strategy of partnership. It is shown that resistance to change was especially strong with longer‐serving shop stewards, and the strong division into factions implies limits to the extent of partnership in the Finnish paper industry.     

A typology of shop stewards

The role of the shop steward in Australian industrial relations is probably as important as that of his British counterpart. In this article the author uses the three types of shop steward described by Miller and Form: management, union and employee oriented, to analyse a survey of 260 shop stewards in Western Australia.     

An empirical analysis of job shop dispatch rule selection

Job shop scheduling usually includes the process of selecting dispatch rules for loading shops with work. Traditionally, dispatch rules have been formed on the basis of processing time, operating time, or queueing order. A job shop scheduling model was developed to include external factors (such as due dates), internal factors (e.g., capacity), as well as influence factors (e.g., job status). Based on the model developed in this report a survey of industrial engineers, shop foremen, and production control supervisors was undertaken to determine what dispatch rules experienced job shop schedulers would select and if the selection process could be influenced by schedule conditions (status) or other organizational factors. Results suggest that schedulers may be influenced by other factors. This article suggests a model for further research with respect to job shop scheduling.     

The role of buyers justice in achieving socially sustainable global supply chains: A perspective of apparel suppliers and their workers

The absence of an effective public model (e.g., government regulations and law enforcement) in developing countries has driven clothing brands and retailers to rely on a private voluntary formal model (e.g., compliance and collaboration approaches) to manage suppliers' internal social issues (e.g., poor working conditions). However, this model has been recently criticised for falling short in addressing these issues as it overlooks their main root causes. In this study, we suggest that suppliers' internal social issues can be driven by buyers' unfair practices, and therefore, we propose and examine that buyers' justice can ensure suppliers' internal social performance. We further postulate and investigate that addressing these issues would result in advantages for buyers beyond traditional performance outcomes in the form of reduced supply operational risk. Based on a census of the 117 suppliers comprising the ready-made garment industry in a Middle Eastern country (Jordan), we received survey responses from 97 suppliers and their shop floor workers. The analysis revealed that only buyer’s distributive and procedural justice, but not interactional justice, are positively related to suppliers' internal social performance. We also found evidence that improving suppliers' internal social performance can diminish supply operational risk. This study contributes to the extant research by empirically investigating a new approach to handle the increase in suppliers' internal social issues in a developing country context. It also does by capturing suppliers' internal social performance from the workers' perspective and highlighting the role of improved suppliers' internal social performance on mitigating supply operational risk.     

National culture and its impact on the choice of managing director in international production: the case of foreign firms in Greece

The aim of this study is to determine whether attitudinal differences between British and Japanese managers observed in the workplace can be attributed to culture or to the employment system. The findings provided substantial support for attribution to the employment system. Cultural differences between British and Japanese managers were not as large as the cultural thesis claims. The stereotyped cultural characteristics of Japanese managers - high social orientation at work and unconditional priority of work over family - were observed only in limited groups such as managers on the shop floor or senior managers. Attitudinal differences in the workplace were not simply the consequence of cultural differences, but rather to be understood as rational behavioural responses. Both British and Japanese managers' attitudes were considered to be a rational response to their employment systems.     

Transfer of labour‐management partnership in multinational companies

There has been a growing interest in how multinational corporations transfer various management practices from one country to another. The positions vary from an extreme where all practices will become globally standardised; to claims that the local context will be a decisive factor. In this article, the research question is why an MNC would want to transfer the partnership practice and what the key elements to success might be. As pointed to, partnership is a part of the company's business system, the way they are used to operating. Also important is that the risk of failing in terms of technological issues was important, and thus commitment and cooperation are crucial. Success can be understood by their effort to reduce the institutional distance as much as possible, including the choice of location, hiring policy emphasis on education and training, the strategy of building strong connections to the senior shop steward.     

The charity shop: purpose and change

This paper attempts to provide a theoretical framework in which to explore and highlight elements of charity retail change and purpose. It uses first the Wheel of Retailing model as an heuristic device for identifying features of charity shop retail change, and secondly a continuum of usage with which to identify charity shop purpose. By matching the two models it identifies patterns of retail change and purpose at each stage of the cycle and the continuum. Copyright © 2000 Henry Stewart Publications