Equality bargaining a review Edmund Heery Cardiff Business School
Origins Trevor Colling & Linda Dickens: Equality Bargaining – Why Not? EOC (1989) Definition Inclusion of issues of particular concern to women Equality awareness in handling bargaining agenda Equality dimension to negotiation of change Relative absence (& discriminatory clauses) Conservatism & parochialism of bargaining Absence of bargainers attuned to equality
Subsequent research Equality bargaining revisited Colling & Dickens (1999) Increased equality bargaining Reasons Crisis: union business case Opportunity: European law; New Labour Pressure: feminization of union membership, activism & governance
Subsequent research Gender democracy Anne McBride (2001) Limited influence of equality structures over bargaining Bifurcation of bargaining & democratic channels within union governance Sword of Justice David Metcalf (2005) Measurement of union wage effects Higher wage effects for women, part-timers & minorities Persistence of gap despite declining bargaining power
Cardiff Study Equality bargaining: where, who, why? Objectives Measure bargaining on equal pay Identify bargainers, contexts & influences Survey (2002) 585 union officers (42%) 19 unions Negotiation on 15 items in last 3 years
Cardiff study Findings Modest incidence Access to information on gender pay rates (45%) Introduction of equal value JE (42%) Training in equal pay for lay reps (42%) Revision of existing JE scheme (37%) Written equal pay policy (34%) Regrading of women-dominated jobs (32%) Written equal pay audit/review (29%)
Cardiff study Findings Bargaining context Public administration (not health or education) Personal service & part-time workers (not women) Centralized bargaining Influenced by ublic policy & employment law Bargainer characteristics Younger but also experienced Committed & trained but not female Influenced by specialist officers & committees
Equality bargaining & equality law Voluntarist tradition (mid-C20 th ) Bifurcated (and gendered) system of job regulation Collective bargaining Primary means of setting wages & conditions for organized workers Male-dominated: members, bargainers, agenda Protective employment law Restrictions on hours; minimum wages Targeted at hard to organize groups Women disproportionately covered.
Equality bargaining & equality law Post-voluntarist system (C21st) Hybrid form of job regulation Partial integration of individual statute law & collective bargaining Pattern bargaining Diffusion of strategic cases through bargaining Statutes as bargaining platforms Exceeding minima through collective agreements Statutes as bargaining levers Threat of legal action/non-compliance
Cardiff study Union representation of part-time workers Survey of trade unions 2001 Findings Use of bargaining Audit of agreements (18%); commitment to pro rating (52%); training for bargainers (29%); tailored agreements (36%) Use of legal/political action Test case (25%); specialist legal advice (23%); response to government consultation (21%); lobbying UK (25%); lobbying EU (11%) Positive association High correlation between bargaining & legal scales (.75), controlling for union size
Conclusion Equality bargaining Unions respond to opportunities in their environment but push factors internal to unions help generate action Equality law Emergence of hybrid form of reprsentation in which bargaining supplements legal action & vice versa