The Evolution of the Modern British Workplace Alex Bryson (NIESR) Manchester Industrial Relations Society 3 rd December2009 ESRC Grant RES-000-23-1603.

Slides:



Advertisements
Similar presentations
© 2002 McGraw-Hill Ryerson Ltd.Chapter 14-1 Chapter Fourteen Unions Growth and Incidence Created by: Erica Morrill, M.Ed Fanshawe College.
Advertisements

Trade Unions, Collective Bargaining & Equality at Work Edmund Heery.
Partnership Working The evidence base. Partnership working What is partnership working? Principles of partnership working Benefits? Success factors? Challenges?
Self-employed Evidence base Purpose This slide-pack aims to provide a broad evidence-base on self- employment in the UK. Drawn predominantly from.
Conference on Irish Economic Policy Union membership and the union wage Premium in Ireland Frank Walsh School of Economics University College Dublin
Teleconference 2 1.Guest speakers in May 2.Policy Brief Project The Employer and Health Insurance.
Unit 4 Area of Study 1.  To achieve an optimum working relationship between employees and management  To focus on using specific strategies to retain,
1 Low-paid, non-unionised workers with Problems at Work ESRC Project, ‘The Unorganised Worker, Routes to Support, Views on Representation’ Cardiff School.
Human Resources Management T.7. Employment Relations D. Borisova.
Do Labor Unions Increase the Wages of Workers?. Union Membership Trend Since the mid-1950s, union membership has declined. It declined slowly as a share.
McGraw-Hill © 2005 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved Union Role in Wage and Salary Administration Chapter 15.
Working in the Voluntary Sector Thoria Mohamed May 2012.
McGraw-Hill/Irwin Copyright © 2008 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. Milkovich/Newman: Compensation, Ninth Edition Chapter 15 Union.
Union Role in Wage and Salary Administration
McGraw-Hill © 2005 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved Union Role in Wage and Salary Administration Chapter 15.
CHAPTER SIX TRADE UNIONISM. Objectives of this chapter Explore the definition and purpose of trade unions Explore why people choose to join/not join trade.
Effective Employer -Employee Relations
CCMA Dispute Resolution Conference John Taylor Acas Chief Executive.
The Learning Workplace Presentation March 2004 Lucy Fallon-Byrne, Director.
Copyright © 2008 Pearson Addison-Wesley. All rights reserved. Chapter 14 Labor Markets.
Labour Market Inequality in India and Brazil: Comparing Labour Market Institutions in India and Brazil Taniya Chakrabarty 18th December 2014.
Strategy for Human Resource Management Lecture 29 HRM
To Accompany “Economics: Private and Public Choice 13th ed.” James Gwartney, Richard Stroup, Russell Sobel, & David Macpherson Slides authored and animated.
Labor Unions. Ideals Underlying Unions n Getting greater return for those who actually produce goods and services n Reduce the inequality of the distribution.
Recent trends and economic impact of emigration from Latvia OECD/MFA Conference Riga, December 17, 2012 Mihails Hazans University of Latvia Institute for.
Unemployment ● Causes of Unemployment ● The Phillips Curve ● Natural Rate of Unemployment ● Okun's Law.
Chapter 30: Union and Labor Market Monopoly Power
Employment, unemployment and economic activity Coventry working age population by disability status Source: Annual Population Survey, Office for National.
Torrington, Hall & Taylor, Human Resource Management 6e, © Pearson Education Limited 2005 Part 5 Employee relations.
Industrial Relations Central and Eastern Europe MGT 4330.
2015 Labor Day Report: Annual Report on the State of Montana’s Economy Barbara Wagner Chief Economist Labor Arbitration Conference October 8, 2015 Fairmont,
Labor Relations Chapter 12. Labor Relations Chapter 12.
FLEXIBLE LABOUR MARKET WOMEN’S VOICES & TRADE UNIONS Trade Union Skillnet.
Education, Training and Establishment Survival William Collier, Francis Green & Young-Bae Kim.
Pay surveys Ulrika Johansson, 13 maj 2011 Case Officer, Swedish Equality Ombudsman
Campaigning for employment rights Hannah Reed Senior Employment Rights Officer.
Labour Markets, Wages and Industrial Relations Labour Markets, Wages and Industrial Relations.
Transforming New Zealand employment relations: The role played by employer strategies, behaviours and attitudes Erling Rasmussen, Barry Foster & Deidre.
Macroeconomic Performance AS Economics Unit 2. Aims and Objectives Aim: To understand measures of unemployment and inflation as measures of macroeconomic.
 CB is a process of negotiations between employers and a group of employees aimed at reaching agreements  Typical issues covered in a labor contract.
Employment Relations Ian Mejia Redfield College 2009.
1 ©The Work Foundation The Changing Economy and the Future of Organised Labour: What role for workplace reps? David Coats, Associate Director – Policy.
New unionism in telecoms Aims of session To look at structural changes in the sector in Europe since the 1980s taking British Telecom as an example To.
Tertiary Education Systems and Labour Markets Report prepared for the OECD Stephen Machin* and Sandra McNally** 1 December 2006 *Centre for Economic Performance,
The Widening Income Dispersion in Hong Kong: 1986 – 2006 LUI Hon-Kwong Dept of Marketing & International Business Lingnan University (March 14, 2008)
2015 Labor Day Report: Annual Report on the State of Montana’s Economy Barbara Wagner Chief Economist Labor Arbitration Conference October 8, 2015 Fairmont,
IGCSE Business Studies Trade Unions. Learning Outcomes.
FROM EMPLOYEE REPRESENTATION TO PROBLEM-SOLVING - MAINSTREAMING OHS MANAGEMENT BJARKE REFSLUND, PETER HASLE AND RIKKE SEIM CENTER FOR INDUSTRIAL PRODUCTION,
The UK Voluntary Sector Workforce Almanac 2011 Please feel free to use and share these slides. Please cite Skills-Third Sector/ NCVO/ TSRC as the source.
Public Sector Issues Chapter 11 © 2012 Nelson Education Ltd.
Resolving disputes at work Hannah Reed Senior Employment Rights Officer.
1 How Did Employee Ownership Firms Weather The Last Two Recessions? Employee Ownership and Employment Stability in the US : by Fidan Ana Kurtulus.
MGMT 329 MANAGEMENT AND INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS. MANAGEMENT’S GROWING ROLE IN IR Single greatest change in IR field Reflects long-term shift in workplace.
Trade Unions in the Scandinavian countries, roles and structures -In the Danish/Scandinavian Labour Market -And in Danish/Scandinavian Societies.
Steen/Noe et al., © 2013 McGraw-Hill Ryerson Role of unions and labour relations Unions Organizations formed for the purpose of representing their members’
WERS and other things: Recent developments in industrial and employment relations Stephanie Freeth and Andrew Rowlinson, Department for Business, Innovation.
Retaining and Growing Membership Alex Bryson (NIESR) Unions 21 GS Meeting 9 th December2009.
Industrial Relations This is the term used to describe the relations between the management of a firm and its employers.
Employee Participation
Do Labor Unions Increase the Wages of Workers?
An Introduction to The Process of Collective Bargaining
MANAGEMENT AND INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS
Employee Participation
Union Role in Wage and Salary Administration
Labour Market – The Economics of Trade Unions
… and are there lessons for Canada? Professor Len Shackleton
Trade Union renewal – lessons from the UK
“Recent Developments in Bargaining Structure and Outcomes in Korea”
Global & Asian Wage Trends: Implications for Wage Policy & Union agenda Data Source: Malte Luebker, Senior Regional Wage Specialist, ILO Regional Office.
Project DIRECT Final Summary
Presentation transcript:

The Evolution of the Modern British Workplace Alex Bryson (NIESR) Manchester Industrial Relations Society 3 rd December2009 ESRC Grant RES

Overview Mapping union demise in Britain since 1980? – What appear to be the causes? Compositional change The role of markets What has taken its place? – Non-union voice – High involvement management/HRM What are the consequences: do trade unions still have an impact on working conditions in Britain?

Workplace Employment Relations Survey Nationally representative survey mapping employment relations in around 2,500 workplaces across Britain Conducted in 1980, 1984, 1990, 1998 and 2004 Data collected from: – Senior manager responsible for personnel issues – Most senior union and non-union representatives (where present) – Random sample of 25 employees (1998 and 2004 only) Includes workplaces with 25+ employees in the private and public sectors (10+ employees in 1998; 5+ in 2004) Representative of around 70% of all employment in Britain

Workplace Employment Relations Survey Recruitment and training Information provision and employee consultation Employee representation Payment systems and pay determination Grievance, disciplinary and dispute procedures Equal opportunities, work-life balance Workplace flexibility Workplace performance Wages and effort Employee attitudes to work

Union organisation Membership densityBargaining coverage Base: employees in workplaces with 25+ employees Source: WERS

Percentage of workplaces with 25+ employees recognizing unions, Manufacturing Private Services Public Sector All

Union organisation Base: workplaces with 25+ employees Source: Forth and Charlwood (2009) using WERS

Numbers of shop stewards Base: shop stewards of recognised trade unions in workplaces with 25+ employees Source: Forth and Charlwood (2009) using WERS

Changing activities of shop stewards Only small decline in provision of administrative support (office, telephone) Stability in % of workplaces that deduct union subscriptions Stability in incidence of full-time lay reps , and small increase But... Fall in number of issues subject to negotiation Growth of 'hollow shell' unionism Less involvement in collective disputes Greater role for individual casework Base: shop stewards of recognised trade unions in workplaces with 25+ employees Source: Forth and Charlwood (2009) using WERS

Workers’ perceptions of shop stewards In 1998/2004: – fewer than three-fifths of union members thought that the union(s) at their workplace were taken seriously by management – fewer than half thought unions made a difference to what it was like to work there But on-site shop stewards positively affect workers' perceptions of union effectiveness Base: union members in workplaces with 10+ employees Source: Forth and Charlwood (2009) using WERS

Year Actual union recognition rate Percentage point decline Rate with compositiona l change only Percentage point decline due to compositiona l change Percentage point decline due to within-group change (32%)-18.5 (68%) Effects of Compositional on Union Recognition Private Sector

What lay behind the collapse of collective bargaining? The change in industrial structure away from manufacturing? – Only 10% of the decline in incidence of CB in the private sector between can be attributed to change in workplace size and industrial composition The anti-union legislation and government action of the 1980s? – The decline was under way earlier: In 1998, 45% of 1940s w/ps had CB; 23% 1960s;12% 1980s In 2004, 32% of 1960s w/ps had CB; 13% of 1970s – A change of regime in 1997 did not slow the decline: Rate of contraction of CB much the same as

A more powerful explanation lies in the effects of increasing competition A period of increasingly international product market competition and ownership: – UK Mfg imports as % mfg domestic demand rose from 25% in 1980 to 62% in 2005 – Foreign ownership of LSE shares rose from 4% in 1981 to 40% in 2006 WERS firms were asked about their competition: – those ‘dominating’ their market were twice as likely to use CB as those with ‘many’ competitors – use of CB fell between 1984 and 2004 by: 35% where they ‘dominated’ 62% where up to five competitors 70% where six or more competitors

The impact on collective bargaining of change in relative profitability Coverage of CB in workplaces in industries experiencing relative change CB has been most resilient in sectors with consistently high profits Those with consistently low profits saw CB decline at about the average Those with relative improvement of profitability saw less decline in CB than those where relative profitability declined Profitability collapse was associated with CB collapse

Collective bargaining under the impact of privatisation – a natural experiment At sectoral level, CB had varied fortunes under privatisation: – Energy & water, CB still high – Trans and coms, CB slight fall – Other services, sharp fall Privatisation does not guarantee product market competition – Some are natural monopolies – Ofwat, Ofrail, Ofgen, Ofcom Privatised industries’ coverage of CB ends up closer to the old private sector’s

What has happened to ‘voice’ more generally? - the decline of union only voice Year Panel A: All Workplaces No voice Voice (all types) Panel B: Voice Workplaces Only 3. Union only Union and non-union Non-union only Voice, but nature not reported 2<1 2

Non-union representation Evidence patchy, but clearly no substantial expansion since 1980 – individual non-union reps in 10% of workplaces in 1980 rising to 14% in 2004 – Workplace consultative committees in 34% of workplaces in 1980, falling to 24% in 2004 However, the decline of union representation means that, among all workplaces with 5+ employees, the incidence of union and non-union representation is now similar Base: workplaces with 25+ employees Source: Forth and Charlwood (2009) using WERS

Human Resource Management Big rise in number of personnel specialists – esp. those with “human resources” in job title Increase in formal personnel qualifications and a rising proportion of women for those with HR roles However, personnel specialists more likely to be associated with traditional IR practices rather than those linked to HRM The incidence of HRM practices is positively associated with better performance Personnel specialists tend to be found where performance is poorer Is Increased Incidence of HR specialists due to response to legalistic needs rather than “better” people management?

High Involvement Management Diffusion of HIM has been uneven Few workplaces with strong HIM orientation HIM associated with lean production and TQM but not enriched jobs HIM does not substitute for unionism HIM is associated with higher productivity but lower well- being

Wages Wage premium from union bargaining identified in 1980, 1984 and 1990 (workplace data) General premium absent for union bargaining in 1998 and 2004 (employee data) But still a premium attached to ‘strong’ unionism – Where high coverage etc. Union membership premium has declined – Secular trend or indicative of counter-cyclical wage premium?

Unions and Other Workplace Economic Outcomes Association with: Employment growth: – Significant negative effects only for early 1980s Financial performance: – Significant negative effects only for early 1980s – Though negative association with active collective bargaining in 2004 Managers’ perception of ‘climate’: – Significant negative effects only for 1980s

Management-employee relations Base: all workplaces with 25+ employees Source: Dix, Forth and Sisson (2009) using WERS

Stoppages and Employment Tribunal Claims: Stoppage Days Employment Tribunal Claims Registered

Expressions of conflict, by ‘voice’ Any industrial action Any grievances ET claimsVoluntary resignations Relations between managers and employees % of workplaces Claims per 1,000 employee s Resignations per 100 employees % of employees rating ‘poor’ or ‘very poor’ Union voice only Union and non-union voice Non-union voice only No voice* All work- places Base: all workplaces with 5+ employees Source: Dix, Forth and Sisson (2009) using WERS

Management-employee relations WERS ordinal scale: how would you rate the relationship between management and employees generally at this workplace? Union negative effects absent after 1990 But time trend not statistically significant All Union Non-union Raw gap-.556 (4.63)** (6.32)** (4.39)** (2.06)** (4.58)** Regression- adjusted gap (2.70)** (3.87)** (1.87)* (0.04) (1.05) Base: all workplaces with 25+ employees Source: Blanchflower and Bryson (2009) using WERS

In summary... Substantial decline in prevalence of trade union representation Increasing weakness where unions remain present Non-union reps have not filled this representation gap Not Sisson’s ‘bleak house’ or Guest’s ‘black hole’ Voice persists but now direct non-union dominates Some growth in HIM though linked to lean production/TQM Union effects on workplace outcomes appear to be weakening

Further information Workplace Employment Relations Survey 2004 Survey documentation and background information at: Brown W, Bryson A, Forth J and Whitfield K (2009) The Evolution of the Modern Workplace, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Further details :