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The purpose of this paper is to examine the effectiveness of worker representation and consultation on occupational health and safety in the UK in a context in which, following the 1977 Safety Representatives and Safety Committees (SRSC) Regulations 1977, recognised trade unions have the right to appoint health and safety representatives who have rights to representation and consultation and to access the training and facilities needed to support these activities.

The chemical industry is the chosen site for this enquiry, because, it offers some of the most propitious conditions in which to examine the operation of what has been the preferred model in UK health and safety regulation, namely those in which there are recognised trade unions and where there are likely to be systems and structures of industrial relations in place combined with arrangements for OHS management. Five establishments are examined.

The research suggests joint arrangements make for better safety outcomes and that there is a relation between management consultation on general issues and those of health and safety. Overall, though, management capacity and commitment pose considerable constraints to employee representation on health and safety. The SRSC regulations apply in all five cases but worker representation operated below the level to be expected from the regulations.

A stronger legislative steer on worker consultation and representation in respect of workplace health and safety is required.

Demonstrates that, even in an apparently propitious environment, legal requirements are not being implemented, and that management commitment and support are vital.

Informed by social representation theory, the study aims to explore how marketing workers represent their activities on social media.

A naturalistic data set of 17,553 messages posted on Twitter by advertising workers was collected. A sample of over 1,000 unique messages from this data set, incorporating all external links and images, was analysed inductively using structured thematic analysis.

Advertising workers represent marketing work as a series of fun yet constrained activities involving relationships with clients and colleagues. They engage in cognitive polyphasia by evaluating these productive differences in both a positive and negative light.

The study marks a novel use of social representation theory and innovative social media analysis. Further research should explore these relations in greater depth by considering the networks that marketing workers create on social media and establish how, when and why marketing workers turn to social media in their everyday activities.

Marketing workers choose to represent aspects of their work to one another, using social media. Marketing managers should support such activities and consider social media as a way to understand the lives and experiences of marketing workers.

Marketing researchers have embraced digital media as a route to understanding consumers. This study demonstrates the value of analysing digital media to develop an understanding of marketing work. It sheds new light on the ways marketing workers create social relationships and enables marketing managers to understand and observe the social aspects of effective marketing.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the extent to which negative age-based metastereotypes mediate the relationship between the representation of older workers and two forms of stereotype threat in the workplace: own-reputation and group-reputation. Adopting a social identity perspective, this paper also explores whether age diversity beliefs moderate the relationship between negative age-based metastereotypes and stereotype threats.

A cross-sectional design was adopted with bootstrapped mediation and moderation analyses. The data were collected from 567 older workers working in 15 manufacturing companies.

The analyses provide support for partial mediation and for a moderation effect of age diversity beliefs in the relationship between negative age-based metastereotypes and own-reputation threat. The results hold while controlling for age, objective organizational age diversity, and organizational tenure.

The limitations of this study include its cross-sectional nature and the need for further work regarding older workers’ metastereotypes about middle-aged workers.

For stereotype threat interventions to be effective they must identify beforehand the target and the source of the threat. Moreover, interventions should aim for the development of a sense of identity on the organization as it may pave the way for members of different age groups to build bonds and for intergenerational boundaries to be blurred.

This paper contributes to the literature by showing the importance of negative age-based metastereotypes in workplace age dynamics. It also provides further support for a multi-threat approach to the experience of age-based stereotype threats in the workplace.

In light of the low‐union density and a huge representation gap in the US representation system. The purpose of this paper is to examine the effectiveness of the system under majority rule and to provide some empirical evidence on how much union membership would increase in the USA if a policy of non‐exclusive representation, as adopted in New Zealand, are to be implemented.

The sample for the study consists of 227 New Zealand organizations, employing over 180,000 workers. Logistic regression is used for the analysis with the dichotomous dependent variable indicating whether there is majority union support.

If the USA allowed and supported minority unionism, union membership could increase by 30 percent or more. Workers in smaller, private‐sector organizations outside healthcare, education, and manufacturing are most disadvantaged by the majority‐rule system.

Given that many workers' needs for representation have not been addressed by the current US majority rule system, consideration of minority representation to enhance representation effectiveness and understanding its implications are of critical importance, especially for a democratic society.

The paper offers empirical data on the implications of a change of the US representation system and proposes three options for incorporating minority representation.

This book is a policy proposal aimed at the democratic left. It is concerned with gradual but radical reform of the socio‐economic system. An integrated policy of industrial and economic democracy, which centres around the establishment of a new sector of employee‐controlled enterprises, is presented. The proposal would retain the mix‐ed economy, but transform it into a much better “mixture”, with increased employee‐power in all sectors. While there is much of enduring value in our liberal western way of life, gross inequalities of wealth and power persist in our society.

The paper contributes to the discussion on works councils and teamwork in the German auto industry. General Motors’ Opel plant in Germany has been chosen to study works councils’ participation in the process of introducing teamwork, and the effects of teamwork on workers’ representation on the shopfloor. The paper discusses the “dual structure” of works councils and union representatives, and will examine their role during the introduction of teamwork and relationship to their elected team spokespersons. The two key findings are: first, both levels of workers’ representation have contributed to the successful introduction of workplace changes and second, team spokespersons can be seen as a third level of workers’ representation.

The article focuses on the role that ‘confidential information’ plays in relation to the work of board-level worker representatives, and their interaction with other worker participation mechanisms. Thus, the purpose of the paper is to explore the implications of confidentiality of board-level information for effective worker participation. The main argument is that if board-level worker representatives are excessively constrained by confidentiality provisions, their capacity to work effectively is brought into question.

A qualitative research was undertaken on a sample of 12 public limited companies in Slovenia. In each company, three interviews were conducted: with the CEO or board member, with a board-level worker representative and with a works councilor, who was not a board-level worker representative (36 interviews in total). Each of these interviewees has a particular role, and interest, in handling confidential information. Thus, a method of triangulation by groups was employed. The interviews were conducted at the company premises during October and November 2017. The results were analysed by the content analysis method.

This research confirms that in the majority of companies, nearly all of the material and information discussed by the board is deemed to be ‘confidential’. Consequently, communication between board-level worker representatives and the works council is rendered difficult, if not impossible. The results indicate an urgent need to redefine the concept of confidentiality and to reinforce the level of communication between management boards and works councils.

The research is limited to one country, which, by no means, is fatal, as international comparisons, although of greater breadth, often lose some depth of analysis (especially, for example, where there are differences in legal contexts). Although the issues discussed in the paper are of relevance to all those with an interest in worker participation mechanisms, they cannot be generalised mostly due to national specificities.

The question of confidentiality as between the board, board-level worker representatives, works councils, trade unions and other form of worker representation, despite its importance, has been raised quite rarely in research. In this research, three groups of stakeholders (CEO/board member, board-level workers representative and works council members) have been covered, with the aim to extend the understanding of how confidentiality obligations impact relationships between these.

This work deals with social representations of gender equality in the workplace. Little academic work deals with the way workers define gender equality. My research also deals with the implications of this definition in terms of policy implementation.

This work is based on a mixed-method approach. A quantitative study based on an online survey conducted in 2015 at a French company is mobilized to identify and measure the main representations of gender equality among the workers. Then, a qualitative study is used to explore these representations in depth and to examine how they influence the implementation of policy on gender equality.

This work shows that for French workers, equal pay and equal access to responsibilities are the most important dimensions of gender equality, while gender diversity and work-life balance seem less important. The representation of gender equality varies according to gender, professional field and managerial status. These variations help to understand the difficulty of implementing such policy.

Managerially, these results would strongly indicate that companies in France, but also in other developed countries, should consider carrying out awareness campaigns aimed at employees in order to promote a common culture and definition of gender equality. Indeed, the coexistence of various representations of gender equality partly explains the insufficient implementation—and thus the poor performance and general effectiveness of gender equality policies, both in theoretical and practical terms. Companies should also consider introducing awareness campaigns that specifically target men, who grant less importance to gender equality than women.

This study deals with social representations of gender equality in France, a subject which has been largely neglected or overlooked in existing fields of gender research. The international literature on gender equality shows that variations in representations of gender equality constitute a major subject for research and policies about gender, whatever the country. However, this topic still remains inadequately addressed. This research aims to strengthen such research literature dedicated to the issue of gender equality.

The purpose of this paper is to analyse the distribution and the contextual conditions of statutory and non‐statutory forms of employee representation in Germany (works councils and non‐statutory employee representation (NSRs) respectively). It aims to contribute to the debate by proposing a theoretical model which improves our understanding of why works councils and NSRs exist in companies and by presenting an empirical analysis of the explanatory factors based on representative data.

Based on a representative survey of 3,254 German private‐sector companies, descriptive statistics and regression models are calculated in order to identify the contextual conditions which promote or prevent the establishment of the different forms of employee representation.

The data show that the distribution of works councils and NSRs differs considerably between industries. Works councils are more likely to be found in large and relatively old traditional‐sector companies with a high union density, while NSRs have a stronghold in (new) service sectors and smaller companies. NSRs are also more likely to be found in companies where management has a positive attitude towards employee involvement.

Although case studies indicate that there is a huge variety of NSRs, this study could only use a relatively broad category. Future survey research should analyse the various types of NSRs and works councils.

Works councils are still the main form of employee representation and the German model of industrial relations appears to be stable in terms of firm‐level employee representation. However, with new service sectors becoming increasingly important (due to socio‐economic development), this model may be in jeopardy.

This paper extends previous research on the distribution and contextual conditions of works councils by providing a comprehensive analysis of works councils and NSRs, based on a representative survey that includes a variety of variables which have strong effects, but have not previously been examined in other studies.

The question of health and safety at work is a central issue for trade unions. In Britain it is an area of concern where there were important legislative initiatives in the 1970s and 1980s, although surprisingly this has received relatively little attention in the debates about trade unionism. This neglect results in an aspect of union activity about which little is known. Explores through a detailed longitudinal study of a middle‐range engineering firm, from the late 1970s into the 1990s, the ways in which trade unions organize and act on health and safety questions. Argues that it is almost “routine” that workers face dangers and hazards at work, a central feature of the work and employment experience of most workers. However, this is often difficult to deal with as individual issues, or as matters which are subject to collective consideration. On the one hand, workers often appear to accept the dangers and hazards they face. On the other hand, managements are preoccupied with questions relating to production and finance, rather than the day‐to‐day problems faced by workers. This tension suggests that the future wellbeing of workers in unionized workplaces lies not so much with legislative provisions and rights at work, but in education and the organizing ability of workplace unions, raising and addressing what often seem like individualistic problems in collective ways.