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.     

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’.     

Social Partnership and Local Development in Ireland: The Limits to Deliberation

The Irish model of social partnership is considered distinctive as it is based on the principles of deliberative democracy more than adversarial bargaining. The deliberative features of the model are considered to be threefold. First, the negotiations to conclude national social agreements are not confined to the government, trade unions and employers, but also include a wide range of civil associations. Second, agreements are not simply concerned with wage determination, but cover a wide range of matters designed to promote social inclusion. Third, there is an effort to avoid agreements being overly centralized by promoting programmes at the local, territorial level. This paper examines the validity of this argument by assessing efforts to forge a local dimension to the social partnership model. The conclusions suggest that while the model has improved the delivery of public services, it is premature to claim that Irish social partnership represents a new model of labour market governance based on deliberative democracy.     

Do Unions Benefit from Working in Partnership with Employers? Evidence from Ireland

Advocates and critics of voluntary workplace partnership have presented a series of theoretical arguments as to the potential consequences for unions working under partnership arrangements. A survey of Irish employees’ views is used to assess these competing claims. The study is timely on two counts: first, empirical investigations of the effects of partnership on union influence and members’ commitment to unions are rare; and, second, it is 11 years since employers, unions, and government in Ireland first signed a national framework agreement to promote the diffusion of partnership as a means for the handling of workplace change. The evidence provides support for the arguments as advanced by advocates.     

A Trade Union View of WIRS3

WIRS3 paints a picture of a lessening of support for unionism among employees, yet an optimistic view is taken of the potential for a positive response from organized labour in the 1990s. The European model of social partnership between unions and employers is seen as the way forward for Britain in the context of a changing political and economic situation.     

Social Partnership or a ‘Complete Sellout’? Russian Trade Unions’ Responses to Conflict

In 1990 the former communist trade unions in Russia adopted a programme of social partnership, the aim of which was to defend their members’ interests during transition while also maintaining social peace. But critics of social partnership within the union movement argue that it amounts to little more than an excuse for inaction. To examine whether social partnership represents a departure from the collaborationist habits of the Soviet past, I examine 33 case studies of conflict at enterprise level conducted between 1999 and 2000. This analysis reveals considerable continuity with Soviet practice.     

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.     

Measuring Employment Security in Europe Using Surveys of Employers

Using results from surveys in which employers were questioned about their freedom to shed staff, we develop a measure of employment security in Europe. We seek to identify which institutional factors are correlated with the responses of employers and find that they appear to reflect the strength of legal restrictions and trade unions and the prevalence of atypical employment. Our results are used to compile an index of employment security that has both a temporal and a cross‐country dimension.     

Inclusion or Dualization? The Political Economy of Employment Relations in Italian and Greek Telecommunications

Recent literature argues that trade unions in restructuring service industries have responded to the challenges of the post‐industrial era by accepting different forms of labour market dualization. This article examines two case studies from Italy and Greece, in which unions adopted divergent responses to intensified market pressures unleashed by the liberalization of national telecommunications markets. In the Italian case, collective bargaining was successfully centralized, resulting in the inclusion of traditional labour market ‘outsiders’. In contrast, bargaining centralization failed in Greek telecommunications, leading to intensified dualization. These different paths of institutional change are explained as resulting from differences in ideological cleavages among unions and distinct legacies in employers’ associations.     

Tweeting and Retweeting for Fight for $15: Unions as Dinosaur Opinion Leaders?

Advocacy campaigns are central to unions’ efforts to impact labour rights beyond unionized workplaces. Social media and on-the-ground campaign dynamics are intimately related. Thus, if unions can become leaders on social media, they could have more impact on campaign framing and mobilizing. Drawing on primary data and applying a sequential mixed method, we analyse unions’ ability to emerge as opinion leaders in Twitter dialogues on the Fight for $15 (FF$15) campaign. We track FF$15-related activities of Twitter profiles over seven months and compare union actions to those of others along three dimensions: level of activity, prevalence of tweeting versus retweeting and endorsement within FF$15 community and in the Twitter universe. Regression results show unions prefer advancing their own ideas over supporting those of others, and their messages are more endorsed than others’ messages in the Twitter universe. In-depth interviews and a focus group reveal that while their actions are slow and conservative, unions can count on internal support and institutional reputation to gain leadership. The article concludes by noting the implications of the findings for unions’ strategies to become opinion leaders on social media.     

Annual Review Article 1990

This personal annual review examines recent events, particularly in the trade unions but also among employers, in the context of the changed environment of the last decade. It finds that unions have emerged both strengthened and weakened from their experiences, but that they have some reasons for optimism. Employers' policies remain uncertain, mixing change and stability, but perhaps some new patterns towards union recognition are emerging. Neither unions nor employers have been able to match actions to their grander designs. The latest piece of labour legislation — the Employment Act 1990 — has the potential greatly to alter both the particular and the general.     

Is this workplace bullying? How ideas about conflict shape conflict management strategies

The adoption of specific conflict management strategies has usually been linked to various factors, such as litigation avoidance, union substitution and the pursuit of strategic benefits. This study advances the hypothesis that actors’ different frames of reference impact how workplace conflicts are interpreted and managed by unions and employers. Drawing on original data from the Brazilian banking sector, this article shows that companies and unions have different interpretations of workplace bullying. Unions understand workplace bullying as an organizational or sectoral problem inherent to labour relations in the banking sector. In contrast, employers see workplace bullying as a problem caused by individual managers. These different understandings of the same type of conflict are shaped by each actor's frame of reference and influence their responses to workplace bullying. With a pluralist or critical frame of reference, unions favour conflict management tools that try to promote structural changes in the sector. With a unitarist frame of reference, employers try to transform individual behaviour or simply remove individual managers from the workplace. Therefore, organizations with a unitarist frame interpret and respond to conflicts in notably different ways from organizations holding a pluralist or critical frame of reference.     

Do Broad‐based Employee Ownership,Profit Sharing and Stock Options Help the Best Firms Do Even Better?

This article analyses the linkages among group incentive methods of compensation (broad‐based employee ownership, profit sharing and stock options), labour practices, worker assessments of workplace culture, turnover and firm performance in firms that applied to the ‘100 Best Companies to Work For in America’ competition from 2005 to 2007. Although employers with good labour practices self‐select into the 100 Best Companies firms sample, which should bias the analysis against finding strong associations among modes of compensation, labour policies and outcomes, we find that employees in the firms that use group incentive pay more extensively participate more in decisions, have greater information sharing, trust supervisors more and report a more positive workplace culture than in other companies. The combination of group incentive pay with policies that empower employees and create a positive workplace culture reduces voluntary turnover and increases employee intent to stay and raises return on equity.     

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.     

Advocates, Critics and Union Involvement in Workplace Partnership: Irish Airports

The Irish Airports Authority and its unions have developed a radical partnership initiative which seeks to involve staff and unions in operational and strategic decision–making. The initiative allows for an empirical assessment of arguments regarding the effects of partnership on union organization and strength, and on members' commitment to unions. Drawing on research conducted over a four–year period, we argue that partnership was of considerable benefit to workers and unions, but that new tensions and challenges have arisen. On balance, the evidence provides modest support for the theoretical arguments of advocates of partnership.     

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.     

There is power in a union? Union members' preferences and the conditional effect of labour unions on left parties in different welfare state programmes

This article studies the effect of labour unions on policy-making in six different parts of the welfare state (passive and active labour market policy, employment protection, old-age pensions, health care and education) in OECD countries after 1980 with a two-level strategy: At the micro-level, we investigate union members’ preferences. Ordered logit regression analyses indicate that union members favour generous social policies more strongly than non-members. Moreover, this effect is stronger for programmes closely related to the labour market than for programmes without a strong labour market link. At the macro-level, we investigate the conditional effect of unions on left parties expecting the former to push the left towards more generous labour market-related (but not towards less-labour market-related) programmes. Regression analyses essentially provide evidence for such a relationship. Overall, unions have been powerful in promoting their members’ social policy preferences via left parties in government but their power is recently vanishing.     

Inter‐Firm Training Co‐ordination in Britain

This paper examines employer co‐operation in the provision of training. Such collective action has a long history in Britain, but has varied over time in extent and strength. It exists in a strong form in the German‐speaking countries, where employers’ organizations and chambers of commerce are a fundamental part of the training system. On the basis of new data, we argue that this form of training is important in the UK and has a positive effect on the quantity and quality of training. Case studies are presented on several examples of collective action — a local chamber of commerce, an industry‐wide employers’ organization, a group training association, a network of firms in a large company’s supply chain and a local consortium of big employers. Although such forms of organization have much to commend them, in the UK coverage is uneven and stability is fragile.     

The Relaunch of the Trades Union Congress

Despite the institutional bias in British industrial relations research, one of the oldest institutions, the Trades Union Congress (TUC), has been neglected by researchers. This article seeks to rectify this deficiency through an analysis of the formal relaunch of the TUC since 1994 under its new General Secretary, John Monks. It reviews the internal reforms and innovations in policy that comprise the relaunch and identifies two competing visions of the union future that lie at its centre. In the first of these, the TUC's role is to act as an authoritative social partner in relations with government and employers, while in the second its function is to promote, co-ordinate and support organizing activity by its member unions. Each of these perspectives on the TUC's role is informed by experience overseas in continental Europe in the one case and in Australia and the United States in the other. The article concludes that social partnership and the 'organizing model' are not easily reconciled and that, despite the relaunch, the TUC has yet to make a key strategic choice: whether to follow the European or the North American route as it enters the twenty-first century.     

Workers of the Internet unite? Online freelancer organisation among remote gig economy workers in six Asian and African countries

This article presents findings regarding collective organisation among online freelancers in middle‐income countries. Drawing on research in Southeast Asia and Sub‐Saharan Africa, we find that the specific nature of the online freelancing labour process gives rise to a distinctive form of organisation, in which social media groups play a central role in structuring communication and unions are absent. Previous research is limited to either conventional freelancers or ‘microworkers’ who do relatively low‐skilled tasks via online labour platforms. This study uses 107 interviews and a survey of 658 freelancers who obtain work via a variety of online platforms to highlight that Internet‐based communities play a vital role in their work experiences. Internet‐based communities enable workers to support each other and share information. This, in turn, increases their security and protection. However, these communities are fragmented by nationality, occupation and platform.