Joining UNISON: does the reform of a union organising strategy change how members perceive their recruitment?

Drawing on survey evidence collected between 2001 and 2012, this article examines whether changes in the organising approach of UNISON were reflected in changes in the routes of entry of new members into the union. The article shows that shifts in UNISON policy were marginal to the pattern of entry into the union. The implications of these findings for the concept and implementation of organising are subsequently reviewed.     

Does workplace industrial action increase trade union membership? An exchange relationship approach to union joining and leaving behaviour

This paper investigates the impact of industrial action at the workplace on union membership behaviour, in the form of joining (by non-members) and leaving (by members). It examines the issue from the perspective of exchange relationship theory. It is hypothesised that industrial action deepens the collective social and ideological aspects of exchange relationships and loosens the weaker individualist economic aspects, causing more workers to join than to leave a union. The data set comprises survey responses of random samples of individual workers continuously employed in the same workplace and collected at two points in time. Logistic regression is employed to analyse the data. The results demonstrate that workplace industrial action is associated with union joining but has no significant effect on members' leaving behaviour. Implications for union organising are discussed.     

Mobilising resources for union learning: a strategy for revitalisation?

This article examines attempts by UNISON to embed a culture of learning within the workplace. The analysis, which is rooted in resource‐based mobilisation theory, shows how UNISON was able to draw on the Union Learning Fund to create new resources in the form of project workers. These project workers subsequently played a vital role in building support for learning at regional and branch levels. The article also examines ways in which UNISON activists were able to progress the learning agenda through proactive engagement with ‘opportunity structures’.     

The end of the Ghent system as trade union recruitment machinery?

During the past 15 years, membership rates in many unions have been declining in Denmark, Finland and Sweden. Reasons for this decline may be similar to what has happened in other countries—occupational change and neoliberal ideology and policies—but in the three Ghent countries, changes in the unemployment insurance system may also have affected trade union membership losses. The major part of the decline has taken place in a period of low unemployment, which may have reduced the employee incentive to take unemployment insurance, but will increasing unemployment rates mean more trade union members? At least for the LO‐ and SAK‐affiliated trade unions, it seems that trade union independent unemployment funds may be alternatives for workers who take unemployment insurance.     

Lessons from management–union partnership in teacher performance appraisal in the New South Wales public education system

Performance appraisal is frequently seen as one of the hallmarks of the ‘new managerialism’ in public sector human resource management. It is also commonly represented as a device for individualizing the employment relationship. Yet even appraisal offers scope for employee voice/participation, both individually and collectively, and for varying degrees of management–union cooperation. This study examines an unlikely case of management–union partnership in performance appraisal – that applied since 2000 to teachers in Australia's largest public schooling bureaucracy, the NSW Department of Education and Training, whose teachers have a long history of union solidarity and industrial militancy. The experiment can be seen as a union retreat from confrontationism, a concession to managerialism, and a resignation to the dominance of individualism over collectivism. However, we argue that it has also widened the scope for both union and employee voice at workplace level.     

To merge or not to merge? The impact of union merger decisions on workers' representation in Germany

Union mergers have been widely studied in a variety of countries; however, little is known about their impact on union effectiveness. This article draws on in‐depth interviews with officials and works councillors from four German unions, as well as on a representative survey of German works councils, to analyse how a union's merger status shapes its effectiveness in three spheres of activity: political lobbying, collective bargaining and establishment‐level interest representation. We compare two cases of merger with two cases of continued organisational independence, finding that merger outcomes for individual unions vary considerably across our three union functions.     

Should managerial delegation contracts be made before or after union wage setting? A game‐theoretic analysis

This paper analyzes a multiple‐stage game in which, at the final stage, two (managerial) firms compete over quantities in the product market. Prior to this stage, firm‐specific unions set the workers' wages, while the owners of both firms hire managers and provide them with incentive contracts. Owners can freely decide to arrange the managerial contract before or after the (non‐managerial) wage determination stage. Hence, the endogenous choice of the incentive contract stage is derived. The possibility of multiple equilibria arises, where both owners choose managerial contracts before or after unions' wage setting, crucially depending on unions' preferences. Such results also prove to be true for a remarkable degree of asymmetry in preferences over wages vis‐à‐vis employment across unions.     

Labor union negotiations: stepping stones or stumbling blocks for a responsible downsizing strategy? Empirical tests in Taiwan

Firms have used organizational downsizing strategies for years. But organizational downsizing not only cannot surely improves firm performance, but also harms thousands of employees and their families. A number of scholars investigating organizational change suggest that ‘a responsible downsizing strategy’ can mitigate or solve this issue. As the major stakeholder in downsizing, labor unions naturally negotiate with firms to protect employee rights and benefits. Their negotiation, therefore, may either enhance or mitigate the effect of responsible downsizing strategy on firm performance. This study used a sample of 154 downsized local firms and multinational corporations in Taiwan to examine the research construct, and invited focus groups to have a further validated explanation. The findings show that labor union negotiation may act as either stepping stones or stumbling blocks. The results indicate that firms employing labor union negotiation experience higher downsizing performance than non-unionized firms do. However, labor union interventions can also become stumbling blocks. Labor union negotiation neutralize the positive effect of employee-caring practices on downsizing performance, leading to a decline in downsizing performance when firms increase employee participation and justice consideration in the downsizing process. The research findings provide implications for further scholarly research and management practices in terms of organization change, stakeholder management and labor–management relationship.     

‘What problems you got?’: managerialisation and union organising in the voluntary sector

This article explores how government public service modernisation policies have impacted on management practices and employment conditions in voluntary sector welfare organisations and the problems unions have encountered in responding to such impacts in the context of public service modernisation. The study finds that employees encounter problems developing workplace union organisation and unions face problems developing a coherent strategy on support for the sector and for resisting public sector reform, which hinders trade union resistance. The implications of this may be important in strengthening managerial control over the public service labour process.     

Endogenous scope of bargaining in a union–oligopoly model: when will firms and unions bargain over employment?

The scope of firm–union bargaining is shown to be endogenously determined in a union–oligopoly model with decentralized negotiations. If the unions' power is sufficiently high, all bargaining units choose to negotiate over wages alone, i.e., universal right-to-manage bargaining emerges in equilibrium. Otherwise, wage/employment bargaining and right-to-manage bargaining coexist in the same industry. In equilibrium, some firm–union pairs will always choose to bargain over employment as well, since the firms become Stackelberg leaders in the market by committing to a particular output during the negotiations. The firms and their unions both benefit from the additional Stackelberg rents, provided that the unions' power is small enough. Our analysis suggests that there is not necessarily a negative relationship between unions' power and sectoral employment rates.     

How do industrial relations climate and union instrumentality enhance employee performance? The mediating effects of perceived job security and trust in management

In this study, we examine the effects of two key variables associated with union effectiveness on the job performance of employees, and the mechanisms that explain such effects. More specifically, we investigate whether employees' perceptions that their union has a constructive relationship with management (industrial relations climate) and is able to act as an agent for their concerns (union instrumentality) promotes their job performance by enhancing their perceived job security and trust in management. Drawing on three waves of data from 303 employees and their immediate supervisors within 17 private enterprises in China, we find employees' perceptions of union effectiveness influence their job performance by enhancing both their perceived job security and trust in management. These findings are consistent with social exchange theory and conservation of resources theory. This article contributes to the literature by improving our understanding of how unions influence employees' work performance and by explaining how employees' perceptions of the industrial relations climate and union instrumentality influence their job performance. It also sheds light on the important issue of the effectiveness of unions in China, a country where the centrality of the Chinese Communist Party is often considered to have reduced the instrumentality of unions.     

Private equity, ‘union recognition’ and value extraction at the Automobile Association: The GMB as an emergency service?

This article evaluates union recognition and ‘value extraction’ in a private equity buy‐out. The article reviews private equity, investor value and ownership interests, details union recognition at the Automobile Association (AA) before and after its acquisition by private equity, and reviews the GMB's wider campaign of opposition to private equity ownership.     

Global team members’ performance and the roles of cross-cultural training,cultural intelligence,and contact intensity: the case of global teams in IT offshoring sector

Abstract

This study investigates an unexplored form of global team prevalent in the Information Technology (IT) offshoring sector where IT service providers work alongside with client representatives in a global team context. Guided by theories of intelligence and intergroup contact, this study investigates global team members’ individual-level task performance. Specifically, this study examines the development of global team members’ cultural intelligence (CQ) following cross-cultural training. This study also determines the effects of improved CQ on individual-level task performance and examines the moderating role of contact intensity on the relationship between improved CQ and individual-level task performance. Data on the development of CQ, participation in cross-cultural training, and contact intensity were collected from 225 global team members while data on task performance were obtained from each of the global team members’ supervisors. The results of the statistical analyses reveal that: (i) CQ improved following participation in cross-cultural training sessions; (ii) improved CQ is positively and significantly related to individual-level task performance; and (iii) contact intensity moderates the relationship between improved CQ and individual-level task performance. These findings have a number of theoretical and practical implications for international organizations such as those in the IT offshoring sector.     

Why in rugby union does “Toulouse” mean “to win”? Estimation of a production function of sports results (2011–2016)

The objective of this article is to understand more fully the determinants of sports performance. To do this, we estimate a production function of sports results that explains the results of the Toulouse rugby union team's matches expressed as the gap in points between it and its opponents. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first time that a production function has been estimated in rugby union. In addition, it is one of the few production functions specified at the match level. The study confirms the relevance of some variables already identified in the literature, such as home advantage, ranking, the role of the referee, and in‐match statistics. It also shows the influence of new variables, such as weather conditions and the relative strength of fielded teams measured by comparing the teams selected on match day to the ideal teams defined at the beginning of the season.