Company or Trade Union: Which Wins Workers' Allegiance? A Study of Commitment in the UK Electronics Industry

‘Partnership’ is a word that crops up with increasing frequency in government, trade union and management circles in the UK. For many it neatly embodies both the practice and sentiment of the so-called ‘third way’. In the workplace, a partnership approach to industrial relations has been offered as a neo-pluralist alternative to the unitarism of Human Resources Management. The Trades Union Congress (TUC) is an active proponent of partnership and the government has created a fund to support the development of partnership at the workplace. This article sketches some theoretical underpinning for the practice of partnership. To shed some light on the prospects for partnership it draws on recent UK experience and includes a case study of the development of a partnership between UNISON, the UK’s largest trade union, and Vertex Data Sciences, one of the fastest growing call centre operators in the UK.

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

Historical Studies in Industrial Relations ◽

10.3828/hsir.2021.42.4 ◽

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.

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Partnership and the Politics of Trade Union Policy Formation in the UK: The Case of the Manufacturing, Science and Finance Union

Unions in the 21st Century ◽

10.1057/9780230524583_14 ◽

2004 ◽

pp. 191-204 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Miguel Martínez Lucio ◽

Mark Stuart

Keyword(s):

Trade Union ◽

Policy Formation ◽

Union Policy ◽

The Uk ◽

Manufacturing Science

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Online Resources Chapter D: Industrial Action and Statutory Immunities

Employment Law in Context ◽

10.1093/he/9780198840312.003.0024 ◽

2020 ◽

pp. 846-846

Author(s):

David Cabrelli

Keyword(s):

Human Rights ◽

Trade Union ◽

European Convention ◽

Online Resources ◽

European Law ◽

Trade Disputes ◽

Industrial Action ◽

The Law ◽

The Uk

This chapter examines the law of trade disputes and industrial action in the UK, i.e. the law which regulates action taken by members of a trade union which imposes restrictions upon employers when collective relations between the employer and the workforce have broken down. The position is analysed in the context of the legality of industrial action in European law and under the European Convention on Human Rights....

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