International Review: Industrial Relations in Britain under New Labour, 1997-2010: A Post Mortem

2011 ◽  
Vol 53 (3) ◽  
pp. 402-413 ◽  
Author(s):  
William Brown
Keyword(s):  
Collective Bargaining ◽  
Minimum Wage ◽  
Trade Union ◽  
Trade Unions ◽  
Industrial Relations ◽  
New Labour ◽  
International Review ◽  
Post Mortem ◽  
Social Partnership ◽  
Economic Context

A revival of trade unions was widely expected when Blair’s New Labour government took over from the Conservatives in Britain in 1997. This did not occur and collective bargaining continued to retreat. This article discusses the implications of the changing economic context for the government’s legal innovations, notably, statutory trade union recognition and a minimum wage, and describes the consequences for industrial relations. It concludes that New Labour’s legacy may lie in its nurturing of the institutions of social partnership and the use of conciliation.

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.

scholarly journals AN ANALYSIS OF THE GOOD FAITH BARGAINING PRACTICE IN THE TRADE UNION RECOGNITION PROCESS: REFORM OF THE MALAYSIAN TRADE UNION LEGAL FRAMEWORK

2019 ◽  
Vol 27 (2) ◽  
pp. 501-524
Author(s):  
Siti Suraya Abd Razak ◽  
Nik Ahmad Kamal Nik Mahmod
Keyword(s):  
New Zealand ◽  
Collective Bargaining ◽  
Trade Union ◽  
Trade Unions ◽  
Industrial Relations ◽  
Legal Framework ◽  
Good Faith ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Recognition Process ◽  
Primary Focus

The trade union recognition process is a pre-requisite to the collective bargaining action of a trade union. The recognition is important to ascertain the competency of a trade union and the acceptance by the workers to represent them in the collective bargaining action with the employer. However, the ambiguities in the existing legislations on the trade union recognition process in Malaysia and the anti-union practices of the employer are currently depriving the workers of their rights to negotiate for better working conditions. The primary focus of the present work is to identify the weaknesses of the recognition legal framework and the anti-union practices of employers in the recognition process of trade unions. Secondly, is to critically analyse the good faith bargaining practice in other countries and its significance to the recognition process in Malaysia. To explore the anti-union tactics perpetrated by employers, semi-structured interviews have been conducted to analyse the trade unions’ experience in their recognition claims. This research employed a qualitative approach as the instrument to study the good faith bargaining practices in the Australian and New Zealand labour law framework. The findings reveal that the good faith bargaining practices in Australia and New Zealand have improved the odds for trade unions to represent the workers in negotiating collective agreements. The study finally concludes that in order to reform the recognition process of trade unions in Malaysia, the good faith bargaining practice should be implemented in the nation’s industrial relations law framework.

scholarly journals Trade Union Regime Formation Under the Conditions of Globalization in the Transport Sector: Attempts at Transnational Trade Union Regulation of Flag-of-Convenience Shipping

1998 ◽  
Vol 43 (3) ◽  
pp. 369-402 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sigrid Koch-Baumgarten
Keyword(s):  
Collective Bargaining ◽  
Trade Union ◽  
Trade Unions ◽  
Industrial Relations ◽  
Transport Sector ◽  
International Governance ◽  
Transport Industry ◽  
Flag Of Convenience ◽  
Transnational Trade ◽  
National Trade

The article deals with an outstanding example of transnational trade union cooperation in the transport industry. It analyses the attempts of trade unions organized in the International Transportworkers' Federation (ITF) to establish a system of multinational industrial relations and collective bargaining in the flags-of-convenience shipping, which integrated national trade unions and their politics in international problematic interdependencies. Although based on egoistic national special interests and without formal restrictions on national sovereignty the cooperation leads to an international regime. It regulates the rights to organize and represent crews on ships of convenience in industrial relations, it lays down minimum standards for working conditions and incomes, and procedures for the multinational decision-making process and management of conflicts. The trade unions succeeded in regulating about 29 per cent of flags-of-convenience shipping and in establishing a multinational control of national collective bargaining, which is integrated in a system of international governance in the trade union sphere of activities. It is based on an imbalance of power between trade union organizations of industrialized and developing countries within the ITF and on specific conditions in transport industry, and therefore not transferable to other industries.

Organizing Workers in “Hybrid Systems”: Comparing Trade Union Strategies in Four Countries — Austria, Germany, Israel and the Netherlands

2016 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Guy Mundlak
Keyword(s):  
General Practice ◽  
Best Practices ◽  
Trade Union ◽  
Trade Unions ◽  
Industrial Relations ◽  
The State ◽  
Social Partnership ◽  
Collective Agreements ◽  
High Level ◽  
Centralized System

The freedom and right to associate carries distinct meanings in different systems of industrial relations, giving rise to distinct institutions. Where bargaining is based on grassroots association, rates of membership in trade unions and coverage of collective agreements are low. Where bargaining is actively endorsed by the state, high rates of membership are matched by considerable coverage. Over the last two decades, some countries, four of which are studied here, have gone through a process that I designate as hybridization, in which a gap emerges between a rapidly declining rate of membership and persistent relatively high level of coverage. The Article accounts for the growing gap between coverage and membership and its implications. On the basis of extensive interviews with trade union officials, organizers, works councils’ members, Labor Chamber representatives, academics and journalists in the four countries, the Article further seeks to document and explain new organizing practices at two levels. First, why do unions seek to organize, despite persistent power accorded to collective agreements by the state? Second, which strategies are used for current recruitment and organizing practices? The discussion highlights the ongoing tension that is folded in the meeting of institutions that are aimed at sustaining the centralized system of bargaining and social partnership, with the dynamics that are characteristic of raising membership levels. Some best practices that seek to address this tension are identified, but are also characterized as difficult to emulate and extend as a general practice

scholarly journals Trade Unions in the Comfort Zone: Liberal Authority in Yeltsin’s Russia.

2009 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Norma Jo Baker
Keyword(s):  
Social Relations ◽  
Trade Union ◽  
Trade Unions ◽  
Social Institutions ◽  
Political Elite ◽  
Russian Society ◽  
Liberal Democracies ◽  
Social Partnership ◽  
New Era ◽  
Economic Relations

While much has been written on the failure of the Yeltsin presidency and the transformation of Russian society since 1991, little work has been done that illustrates the participation of established liberal democracies in supporting Yeltsin’s authoritarian, politically unresponsive ‘superpresidentialism,’ or linking this support to the authoritarian nature of the modern liberal democratic project itself. By examining Russian trade union culture and history, as well as international trade union representative involvement, this paper argues that the persistent neglect of unions in the 1990s to challenge social relations of production can be understood as paradigmatic of an authoritarian dynamic focused on the political elite rather than on their membership. With international support, the regime’s concern was with the dismantling of Soviet economic relations and social institutions. Working from the culture and history of Russian trade unions, the unions’ efforts to retain a place in the new era through a strategy of ‘social partnership,’ combined with the collapse of the social welfare system, reinforced a top-down inertia characteristic of the unions. The result, predictably, was an era marked by a politics of irresponsibility, a political ethic is not indicative of an inherent Russian authoritarianism, but that of the authoritarian nature of the liberal modernity itself.

scholarly journals Trade Union Practices in the EU and Latvia: Experience for Eastern Partnership Countries

2014 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 99-118
Author(s):  
Sergejs Stacenko ◽  
Biruta Sloka
Keyword(s):  
Public Sector ◽  
Trade Union ◽  
Trade Unions ◽  
Industrial Relations ◽  
Comparative Approach ◽  
Eastern Partnership ◽  
The Public ◽  
Social Dialogue ◽  
Eastern Partnership Countries ◽  
The Eu

AbstractThe article will show major dimensions in the experience of EU Member States that could be shared with the Eastern Partnership (EaP) countries. The framework of the study is the EU concept of trade unions in social dialogue and social partnership in the public sector. This study outlines the concept of social dialogue as a core element of industrial relations and will focus on industrial relations specifically in the public sector. The authors have elaborated the approach to industrial relations and social dialogue taking into account comparative approach to definitions provided by international institutions such as ILO and OECD, as well as institutions in the EU and Latvia. Latvia is also a case study for Eastern Partnership countries as these countries and their trade unions are in a transition period from socialist structures to structures that possess liberal economies. Trade unions in these countries are members of the International Trade Union Confederation. The major transformation that trade unions underwent from being part of the socialist system and becoming an independent institution since Latvia regained independence in 1991 has been studied. The paper discusses the current developments related to the position of Latvian Free Trade Union Federation in the system of decision-making process related to the public administration management. Finally, the prospective role of trade unions in the EU and in Latvia is analysed and possible revitalisation of trade union is discussed. This approach could be applied to the Eastern Partners of the EU.

scholarly journals The changing face of union action put to the test by neo-liberal reforms in France

Tempo Social ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 32 (1) ◽  
pp. 137-156
Author(s):  
Baptiste Giraud
Keyword(s):  
Collective Action ◽  
Collective Bargaining ◽  
Trade Union ◽  
Trade Unions ◽  
Political Influence ◽  
Union Action ◽  
The Relationship

This article reviews how French trade union are coping with the neo-liberal policies since the early 1980s. It shows their divergent reactions, and how these liberal reforms are implemented in a context of transformation of trade union action: the use of strikes is more difficult at the same time as the relationship between trade unions and collective bargaining is transformed in a logic of depoliticizing their strategies of action. These developments did not prevent a resurgence of strikes in the 2000s. It reveals the limits of the trade unions’ power of political influence, that implies the use of collective action. However, strikes have declined further in recent years, revealing the weakening of trade union mobilisation power.

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.

Purging the Trade Unions

2020 ◽  
pp. 343-373
Author(s):  
Ewing Mahoney
Keyword(s):  
Public Sector ◽  
Trade Union ◽  
Union Membership ◽  
Trade Unions ◽  
Industrial Relations ◽  
Legal Regulation ◽  
Service Trade ◽  
Public Sector Employment ◽  
Legal Foundations ◽  
Legal Position

This chapter looks at government attempts to ban trade unions, considering the steps that were taken in lieu of an outright ban on trade union membership. Consistently with other measures taken at the time under the cover of security, government intervention to deal with the alleged menace of Communist infiltration of the civil service trade unions did not take the form of legislation. The legal position reflected both the lack of legal regulation of industrial relations generally and the lack of legal regulation of public-sector employment in particular. In practice, governments rarely needed to reveal or justify the legal foundations for their actions. The benefit for government is that although security policies might well be announced and made public, there would be little accountability thereafter if operated unobtrusively.

13. Collective bargaining

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roseanne Russell
Keyword(s):  
Collective Bargaining ◽  
Trade Union ◽  
Trade Unions ◽  
Bargaining Power ◽  
Employment Relationship ◽  
Relationship Status ◽  
Key Issues ◽  
And Function ◽  
Additional Reading

The Q&A series offer the best preparation for tackling exam questions. Each book includes typical questions, bullet-pointed answer plans and suggested answers, author commentary and illustrative diagrams and flowcharts. This chapter presents sample exam questions about collective bargaining. Through a mixture of problem questions and essays, students are guided through some of the key issues on the topic of collective bargaining including inequalities of bargaining power in the employment relationship, status and function of trade unions, time off for trade union members, and rights to information. Students are also introduced to the current key debates in the area and provided with suggestions for additional reading for those who want to take things further.

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