Management Research News: Volume 16 Issue 5/6
Table of contents
Professional, Participative and Managerial Unionism: An Interpretation of Change in Trade Unions
Edmund Heery, John KellyThis paper offers an interpretation of the changing servicing relationship between trade unions and their members in postwar Britain. Its central claim is that union servicing has…
The Decentralisation of Industrial Politics? The Role of Regional Context in the Reshaping of Trade Unionism within British Engineering
Ron Martin, Peter Sunley, Jane WillsSince the end of the 1970s, the restructuring of the economic landscape and the drive by governments throughout Europe to deregulate markets, reduce institutional rigidities, and…
Trade Union Incorporation: Past, Present and Future — a longitudinal case study of GKN
D. McCabe, J. BlackIn the early 1980's in the context of a deep recession a number of commentators talked of major changes which heralded the demise of trade unionism (Brown, 1984), (Massey and…
Towards a New Unionism? The Deal, The Company, The Union and The Member
Jonathan Morris, Barry Wilkinson, Max MundayThe past two decades have witnessed several notable changes in the employee relations climate in the UK. Most obviously, there has been the dramatic decline in union membership…
The Effect of Different Levels of Legislative Support on the Pattern and Structure of Unionism in Australia and Britain
William Brown, Paul Marginson, Keith WhitfieldThe closely comparable workplace industrial relations surveys of 1990 allow a unique opportunity to analyse the effect of two very different systems of legislative support on the…
What will the merger of the engineers' and electricians' union mean for British industrial relations?
Gregor GallAfter several years of negotiations, the Amalgamated Engineering Union and the Electrical Electronic and Plumbing Trade Union agreed the terms for balloting on merging with each…
Unions on the Brink? Some Evidence on the Union Recruitment of Managerial and Professional Workers
Colin Whitson, Jeremy WaddingtonUnions face a series of common problems which have been expressed in declining union membership, the growth of non‐union employment, and a decline of influence and power inside…
Opposition to Unions in the Non‐Union Sector in Britain
P.B. Beaumont, R.I.D. HarrisAs the overall level of union membership and density has fallen in Britain throughout the 1980s (and into the 1990s), researchers have begun to pay more attention to the non‐union…
Professional Unions in the National Health Service: membership trends and issues
Frank Burchill, Roger SelfertOne criticism of the Donovan Report was that it paid little attention to the public sector. This paper is concerned with one part of the public sector, the National Health Service…
Divided we fall: trade unons and their members in the 1990s
Harriet BradleyThe last two decades have been difficult times for trade unions, faced with declining membership, adverse public opinion and erosion of their powers through restrictive government…
Can Management Cope with the Non‐Union Firm?
I.J. BeardwellThe issue of the non‐union firm has come to the fore in Britain principally because it has been seen as an exempler of one strand of the “New Industrial Relations” (Beardwell…
Trade Union Organisation and the Privatisation of Local Authority White Collar Services
Al RainnieIn the face of legislation that will force local government to privatise (most authorities prefer the term ‘externalise’) varying proportions of white collar services, many…
Trade Union Mergers: Causes & Consequences
R. UndyFirstly, the method and scope of research is outlined, secondly, distinctions are made between merging unions, thirdly, the reasons for merging and the kinds of advantages sought…
For An End To ‘Splendid’ Isolation: The Need for a Euro‐Wide Trade Union Strategy
Roger WelchThis paper will draw on empirical research undertaken by myself concerned with: (a) the impact of legislative controls on the conduct of industrial disputes; (b) the forms of…
From collaborative corporatists to loathsome liberals: the case of the National Graphical Association, the national newspaper industry and the ‘national interest’, 1890–1990
Michael BromleyWhen the dispute between Rupert Murdoch's News International (NI), publisher of the Times, Sunday Times, News of the World and Sun newspapers, and the major print unions erupted…
Influencing Strategic Decisions: Worker Directors in UK Bus Companies
Andrew Pendleton, Andrew Robinson, Nicholas WilsonThis paper examines the role and effectiveness of worker director schemes in six employee‐owned bus companies. This form of industrial democracy, which is aimed at giving workers…
British Trade Unions in Decline: What Has Happened to Trade Union Recognition in British Establishments
Richard Disney, Amanda Gosling, Stephen MachinDe‐unionization has been one of the most significant features of the British labour market in the 1980s. All conventional measures of union presence and power vividly demonstrate…
Attitudes to Work and Trade Unions Among Financial Services Employees
Jean HartleyWhile considerable research has been conducted into the reasons for union growth and decline at aggregate level, much less attention until recently has been paid to explaining…
Change in the Teacher Unions
Mike Ironside, Roger Seifert, Jackie SinclairThis paper discusses the development of workplace bargaining and trade union activity in schools in four English LEAs. It is based on a two year programme of research into…
Structure and Identity: Internal Union Restructuring in Comparative Perspective
Gregor MurrayThis paper focuses on change in union structures and the challenges posed by current socio‐economic transformations for the emergence of appropriate representative structures.
Trade Unions and Organisational Innovation
Paul Thompson, Terry Wallace, Roland Ahlstrand, Per SederbladThe capacity of trade unions to renew themselves clearly depends on a variety of political and organisational factors. British trade unionism has long been seen as defensive…
Transcendental Mediators? Revisiting International Trade Union Theory Post‐Maastricht
Harvie RamsayThe developments associated with the European Commission's ‘1992 project’ may be seen both as an opportunity for and a challenge to labour movement abilities to organise and…
Union survival: A comparative approach to union culture and job regulation in Britain, France and Germany
Steve Jefferys, David Lyddon, Michel le BerreThe paper has three main sections. The first summarises both the evidence for union decline or stagnation (such as decreasing union density, falling numbers of workplace…
Trade Unions in a Europe of the Regions: The UK in Comparative Perspective
Malcolm Burns, Richard Minns, John Tomaney, Eckhard VossWhatever the outcome of the Maastricht ratification process, the process of European integration is creating new challenges for trade unions. The increased mobility afforded to…
Union policies towards the Youth Training Scheme
Paul RyanThe years 1982–89 saw extensive controversy over YTS within the UK trade union movement over the desirability of the regulatory strategy advocated by the TUC. The TUC advocated…
Trade Union Recruitment Strategies: A National & Local Level Assessment
Peter Bain, Bob Mason, Ed SnapeThe issue of union recruitment strategies remains complex and contentious in the present harsh politico‐economic climate. Any assessment of recruitment potential is linked to some…
The Unions of the Future and the Future of Unions
Paul Willman, Tim MorrisMembership decline, marginalization of union influence in a range of businesses and loss of political influence have raised major questions about the survival of the union…
Has the Retreat of Trade Unionism Quickened in the Recession
T. DesJonqueres, P. GreggThe decline of Trade Unionism in the UK in the 1980s has been well documented. Union density down from 53% in 1979 to 38% in 1980. The proportion of private sector plants with…
Trade Unions and Networking in a Context of Organisational Change
Miguel Martinez Lucio, Syd WesternInformal relations between trade unionists that circumvent the narow ambit of their organisations and constituent political parties is nothing new. Yet, since the 1960s, we have…
Management style and employee attitudes in the non‐union firm: a no‐go area for unions?
Ian McLoughlin, Stephen GourlayIt is widely recognised that if unions are ultimately to stem the trend in membership decline then they must move beyond what Willman (1989) terms ‘market share’ unionism, whereby…
Unions on the Brink: the case of construction
Jan Druker, Geoff WhiteAlthough the history of trade unionism in the building trades extends back over 200 years, with building unions being among the first “new model” craft unions, the construction…
The UK's Private Security Industry: A Study of Trade Union Issues
Peter MoranThe UK's private security industry is an employer of substantial magnitude. APEX (1991) claim 30,000 members in this industry. Calculations of trade union penetration in this…
Compulsory Competition and Trade Union Practice in Local Government
Trevor CollingThe public sector has been subject to dramatic and determined reform partly fuelled by the explicit objective of breaking union powerbases. Yet public sector unions have been…
Undermining the Union: The National Union of Mineworkers since 1985
Jonathan Winterton, Ruth WintertonIn 1972, the NUM defeated Edward Heath's public‐sector incomes policy, and two years later contributed to his Government's downfall. The miners' militancy, which exploited the…
Managerial Restructuring and Workplace Trade Unionism in the Royal Mail
Ralph DarlingtonWhilst remaining in the public sector the Post Office has undergone massive changes in terms of its general orientation and structure over the last decade, the latest phase of…
Single Union/No Strike Deals at Japanese Transplants in the UK: The Implications for Trade Union Decline Based on Case Study Evidence
David GrantThis paper will provide a detailed account of what happened at two Japanese manufacturing transplants where single union/no strike deals (here on referred to as New Style…
Trade Union Representation: The UK and Ireland in the European Context
Chris Brewster, Patrick Gunnigle, Mike MorleyThis paper uses evidence from a major survey of employers (of more than 200 employees) with around 5000 respondents in 14 European countries to compare trade union representation…
A New Collectivism or Trade Union Marginalisation?: The Role of Trade Unions in the Introduction of New Work Structures
John F. GearyThis paper looks at three different companies — one from brewing, one from automative components and another from the aerospace industry — which in recent years had made…
A Trade Union Reaction? Position and Manoeuvre in the Persistence of Organisation in the Chemical Process Industry
Alan TuckmanIn war it would sometimes happen that a fierce artillery attack seemed to have destroyed the enemy's entire defensive system, whereas in fact it had only destroyed the outer…
Union Responses to the Introduction of Personal Contracts
Val Rowland, Izabela RobinsonA recent Court of Appeal ruling has highlighted the pitfalls of personal contract arrangements. It has indicated the need for employers to be careful to preserve individual…
Union Membership after Thatcher: Evidence from the National Child Development Study
Francis Green, Jean SoperAt the start of the 1990s trade unions were reeling from a decade of Thatcherism, in which their density amongst employees had been whittled down to 35% by 1990. Several…