Turning full circle? Changing industrial relations in the magazine industry in Britain

2007 ◽  
Vol 36 (1) ◽  
pp. 91-108
Author(s):  
Gregor Gall
Keyword(s):  
Collective Bargaining ◽  
Trade Unions ◽  
Industrial Relations ◽  
Full Time ◽  
National Union ◽  
Content Type ◽  
The Face ◽  
Union Renewal ◽  
Magazine Industry ◽  
The Uk

PurposeThe purpose of this article is to examine the processes and outcomes under which employers in the magazine industry in the UK ended the collective bargaining agreements for journalists with the National Union of Journalists (NUJ) and instituted a unilateral‐based regime in the employment relationship.Design/methodology/approachThe research data were generated primarily via interviews with lay office holders and full‐time paid officials of the NUJ.FindingsThe journalists' union maintained a presence despite employer hostility and has been able to use this as a basis to regain collective bargaining agreements. Nonetheless, the relative weakness of the NUJ has meant that it has been unable to date to force the magazine employers into conducting genuine collective bargaining. This represents a case of impeded but not dissipated “union renewal”, suggesting the union renewal could be termed as being of a “stunted” nature.Research limitations/implicationsThe findings of the research should be taken as being preliminary given that the NUJ has only recently regained union recognition and begun conducting collective bargaining again. A longer timescale will allow more definitive judgements to be made.Practical implicationsThe paper indicates the significant challenges that trade unions face to reassert themselves in the workplace in the face of employer ambivalence and hostility despite regaining formal union recognition rights.Originality/valueThis paper provides empirical evidence of how trade unions are progressing after regaining union recognition.

scholarly journals Young and unionised in the UK? Insights from the public sector

2015 ◽  
Vol 37 (3) ◽  
pp. 314-328 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andy Hodder
Keyword(s):  
Trade Unions ◽  
Quantitative Research ◽  
Full Time ◽  
Young Workers ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Content Type ◽  
The Public ◽  
Primary Documents ◽  
The Uk

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to analyse the relationship between trade unions and young workers in the UK using the Young Members’ Network of the Public and Commercial Services (PCS) union as a case study. Design/methodology/approach – Findings are based on semi-structured interviews with 20 full-time officials and 39 lay officials of all ages, the collection and analysis of primary documents and observations at a range of union meetings. Findings – It is argued that PCS has developed a strong network of young activists and is leading the way in terms of engaging with and representing young workers. However, its success in the future may be limited due to changes to the external environment in which the union is trying to organise. Research limitations/implications – The research highlights the role of an under researched area of trade union membership. To provide additional insights, further research is needed into the practice of other unions. Originality/value – This paper provides significant qualitative analysis into this issue which complements the existing quantitative research in this area.

Learning to count: a challenge facing trade unions in their educational role

2011 ◽  
Vol 31 (5/6) ◽  
pp. 287-301 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bill Lee ◽  
Catherine Cassell
Keyword(s):  
Trade Unions ◽  
Structured Interview ◽  
Learning Opportunities ◽  
Full Time ◽  
Accounting Systems ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Educational Role ◽  
Template Analysis ◽  
Extensive Information ◽  
The Uk

PurposeThe purposes of this paper are to explain how the need arose for trade unions to develop accounting systems to monitor learning outcomes and to illuminate how trade unions rose to that challenge.Design/methodology/approachA semi‐structured interview study of the full‐time educational officers of a number of the UK trade unions produced transcripts that were analysed using template analysis and were supplemented by collection of documentary evidence from the trade unions and interviews and documents from related organizations.FindingsTrade unions are starting to compile extensive information about the learning opportunities that they are facilitating.Practical implicationsInformation produced by the trade union's accounting systems highlights the value of the government's investment in the union learning fund (ULF).Originality/valueThis is the only study to address the systems of monitoring developed by trade unions in response to the receipt of funds from the ULF in the UK.

scholarly journals The industrial relations chameleon: collective bargaining in the facility management business

2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Alejandro Godino ◽  
Oscar Molina
Keyword(s):  
Collective Bargaining ◽  
Integrated Management ◽  
Management Strategies ◽  
Industrial Relations ◽  
Facility Management ◽  
Institutional Setting ◽  
Case Study Methodology ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Employment Conditions ◽  
The Uk

PurposeThe paper aims to analyze collective bargaining in the facility management business of these six countries to explore similarities and differences between them. The analysis serves to test the differential impact of the national institutional setting on the protection provided by collective agreements to facility management workers.Design/methodology/approachThe paper adopts a case study methodology to approach a facility management multinational company providing services in six European countries (France, Italy, The Netherlands, Poland, Spain and the UK) that represent different industrial relations systems with variance in key dimensions of collective bargaining, including its structure, coverage and extension of agreements.FindingsThe extension of the facility management business model has not always adopted a high-road strategy aimed at enhancing the quality and efficiency through the integrated management and delivery of services, which is expected to positively impact employment conditions. Rather, it has, in many cases, been a deliberate, low-road attempt to undercut working standards, taking advantage of the multiple services provided by the company in a context of growing de-centralization in collective bargaining. The results point to an important role of industrial relations institutions in shaping facility management strategies and outcomes.Originality/valueSimilar to other forms of outsourcing, facility management leads to fragmented employment relations. However, the concentration of outsourced workers under the same supplier organization introduces opportunities to ensure the protection of workers, depending on the adoption of a high- or low-road competitive strategy. This paper provides for the first time comparative evidence about industrial relations in facility management businesses, a largely under-researched area.

Industrial relations in France

2018 ◽  
Vol 40 (4) ◽  
pp. 617-633 ◽  
Author(s):  
Udo Rehfeldt
Keyword(s):  
Collective Bargaining ◽  
Trade Unions ◽  
Design Methodology ◽  
Industrial Relations ◽  
Peak Level ◽  
Turn Of The Century ◽  
Social Regulation ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Strong State

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to present the actors, institutions and changing rules of the French system of industrial relations (IR). It questions whether the traditional view of the French model as “state-centric” is still adequate. Design/methodology/approach Based on institutionalist IR theories of social regulation and neocorporatism, the paper analyses the evolution of the French IR system from a “State-centric” model to the development of collective bargaining, both at the sector and company level, as well as of tripartite concertation. Findings Initially based on adversarial relations between trade unions and employers, compensated by strong state interventionism, the French IR system has experienced a series of reforms, adopted under the pressure of the unions in the 1980s and mostly under the pressure of the employers’ organisations since the turn of the century. These reforms boosted collective bargaining at the workplace level and tripartite concertation at the peak level. The paper analyses the limits of both developments and explains why a reversal of the hierarchy of norms was imposed in 2016 by law without prior concertation. Originality/value The paper presents an original explanation of the change of the initial French IR model, stressing the importance of power relations and the role of IR experts in the different reform moments.

scholarly journals The UK living wage

2017 ◽  
Vol 39 (6) ◽  
pp. 790-799 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul John Sellers
Keyword(s):  
Collective Bargaining ◽  
Trade Union ◽  
Trade Unions ◽  
Design Methodology ◽  
Social Implications ◽  
Living Wage ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Moral Basis ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Practical Implications

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore the value that UK trade unions now place on the living wage. Design/methodology/approach The author is the TUC’s Pay Policy Officer and examines the issue from a practitioner’s perspective. Findings The living wage now has a well-established place within the hierarchy of pay demands adopted by UK trade unions. This continues a tradition of unions supporting norms and regulations as an adjunct to collective bargaining. However, support had to be achieved through a process of negotiation with the broader UK living wage campaign. Practical implications The paper concludes that there are good prospects for the living wage, and thus for the continued trade union support. Social implications The living wage standard is seen as having a strong moral basis, which often helps to win agreement with good employers. This results in a steady stream of workers out of in-work poverty. The credit for such pay increases is often shared between employers and trade unions. Originality/value The paper is written by a practitioner with inside knowledge and experience of the entire course of the living wage campaign in the UK and how it has been adopted and integrated by trade unions.

Legal Expertise: A Critical Resource for Trade Unionists? Insights into the Confédération Française Démocratique du Travail

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cécile Guillaume
Keyword(s):  
Qualitative Research ◽  
Collective Bargaining ◽  
Trade Union ◽  
Trade Unions ◽  
Industrial Relations ◽  
Institutional Power ◽  
Collective Redress ◽  
Critical Resource ◽  
The Law ◽  
Legal Expertise

Abstract Based on in-depth qualitative research conducted in one of the major French trade unions (the CFDT), this article explores to what extent and under what conditions trade unions adopt different legal practices to further their members’ interests. In particular, it investigates how ‘legal framing’ has taken an increasingly pervasive place in trade union work, in increasingly decentralised industrial relations contexts, such as France. This article therefore argues that the use of the law has become a multifaceted and embedded repertoire of action for the CFDT in its attempt to consolidate its institutional power through various strategies, including collective redress and the use of legal expertise in collective bargaining and representation work.

Reflecting on over a year of remote training, and where businesses must go from here

2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Nikolas Kairinos
Keyword(s):  
Employee Engagement ◽  
Business Leaders ◽  
Full Time ◽  
Remote Work ◽  
Learning And Development ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Remote Training ◽  
Training Schemes ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Full Time Employment

Purpose The study aims to explore how businesses across the UK have adapted to over a year of remote training, and where there is room for improvement as long-term hybrid working plans are put in place. The study also uncovers what digital tools businesses have relied on to deliver learning and development initiatives during remote working, and their effects on employee engagement and experience. Design/methodology/approach An independent body of research was commissioned among 750 UK business leaders and 1,235 UK adults in full-time employment. Findings The research found that while the majority of businesses were able to leverage digital solutions during extended periods of remote work, significant numbers found it difficult to train and develop employees remotely, with many employees dissatisfied with the outcomes. Originality/value The research offers some valuable insights for business leaders looking to improve their training schemes as workplaces settle into new patterns of working.

Representing Women: The Introduction, Context, and Implications of Reserved Seats for Women in the National Union of Public Employees

2021 ◽  
Vol 42 (1) ◽  
pp. 111-132
Author(s):  
R. H. (Bob) Fryer ◽  
Stephen Williams
Keyword(s):  
Trade Union ◽  
Full Time ◽  
Public Employees ◽  
National Union ◽  
Women's Participation ◽  
Economic Forces ◽  
Lay Members ◽  
The Uk ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Limited Change

This paper explores the impact of the decision by the National Union of Public Employees (NUPE) in 1975 to revise its constitution to include elected reserved seats for women on its executive and other bodies. The analysis is situated within the context of women’s employment and trade-union representation in the UK at the time. Reserved seats for women were part of a wider restructuring of NUPE intended to extend democracy, incorporate the emergent system of shop stewards formally into its structure and government, provide for more effective representation and mobilization of different sections of members, and increase the accountability of full-time officials to lay members and their representatives. The initiative was successful; and although women’s participation in NUPE did increase, this was uneven. This was not entirely unexpected given the limited change initiated in just one haltingly democratizing trade union and the wider social and economic forces that constrain women.

Reading Hugh Clegg’s ‘The Bullock Report and European Experience’ (1977) in Historical Context

2020 ◽  
Vol 41 (1) ◽  
pp. 189-196
Author(s):  
Peter Ackers
Keyword(s):  
Collective Bargaining ◽  
Free Trade ◽  
Trade Unions ◽  
Industrial Relations ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
Industrial Democracy ◽  
Institutional Practices ◽  
European Experience ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Practical Task

Hugh Clegg’s riposte to the 1977 Bullock Report on Industrial Democracy was one of seven papers published from a conference on the subject in April that year. His contribution has to be seen against his long-standing views (expressed, for example, in 1951 and 1960) on industrial democracy which he saw in practical terms as free trade unions conducting collective bargaining. On the Donovan Commission (1965-68), he supported the majority opposition to recommending even voluntary schemes for worker directors. In 1977 he regarded worker directors as irrelevant to the urgent, practical task of reforming British industrial relations. For Clegg, continental versions of industrial democracy worked where there was already a successful prior industrial relations system, developed through workplace and industry institutional practices over decades. One new, top-level initiative could not create that.

Towards a more inclusive labour market: lessons from Denmark

2020 ◽  
pp. 133-154
Author(s):  
David Etherington
Keyword(s):  
Collective Bargaining ◽  
Labour Market ◽  
Trade Unions ◽  
Welfare Policy ◽  
Job Rotation ◽  
Crucial Element ◽  
Active Labour Market Policies ◽  
Work Support ◽  
Active Labour ◽  
The Uk

The chapter argues that Denmark offers important lessons for developing a critique of austerity and neoliberalism in the UK. The Danish model of coordinated collective bargaining, social redistribution and key role for trade unions in welfare policy are important features of an inclusive labour market. Investment in childcare is a crucial element in the way welfare supports access to employment. Denmark has forged progressive active labour market policies such as job rotation where the trade unions play a key role in assisting unemployed into employment which offers training and in work support.

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