The purpose of this paper is to build on the insights of mobilisation theory to examine the interplay of structure and agency dynamics in strike activity. It proposes to do so by…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to build on the insights of mobilisation theory to examine the interplay of structure and agency dynamics in strike activity. It proposes to do so by investigating the 2007 36‐hour strike undertaken by 2,300 engineering and infrastructure workers employed by the private consortium Metronet on the London Underground, focusing attention on the relationship between workers’ militancy, trade union leadership and left‐wing politics within a highly distinctive and union favourable “opportunity structure” context.
Design/methodology/approach
Semi‐structured in‐depth interviews were conducted with 24 RMT union informants within Metronet and the London Underground (including union members, reps, branch and regional officers); analysis was made of documentary industrial relations and trade union material; and personal fieldwork observation.
Findings
Although favourable specific contextual and contingent factors served as both provocations and resources for strike action, notably in enhancing workers’ bargaining position and lending feasibility to a strike mobilisation approach, the role of trade union leadership and left‐wing politics at every level of the union in collectivising workers’ experiences and aspirations in forms which directly encouraged combativity was also crucial.
Research limitations/implications
The specificity of the case study limits the degree of generalisation that can be made to other industries. Researchers are encouraged to test the proposed analytical approach further.
Originality/value
The paper provides case‐study empirical evidence into an important arena of employment in the UK, contributes to our understanding of the multi‐dimensional causes of strike activity; and adds an important political dimension to the analysis of collective mobilisation often neglected in both industrial relations and social movement literature.
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The purpose of this paper is to provide a brief and partial overview of some of the issues and authors that have dominated British industrial relations research since 1965. It is…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to provide a brief and partial overview of some of the issues and authors that have dominated British industrial relations research since 1965. It is cast in terms of that year being the astronomical Big Bang from which all else was created. It traces a spectacular growth in academic interest and departments throughout the 1970s and 1980s, and then comments on the petering out of the tradition and its very existence (Darlington, 2009; Smith, 2011).
Design/methodology/approach
There are no methods other than a biased look through the literature.
Findings
These show a liberal oppression of the Marxist interpretation of class struggle through trade unions, collective bargaining, strikes, and public policy. At first through the Cold War and later, less well because many Marxists survived and thrived in industrial relations departments until after 2000, through closing courses and choking off demand. This essay exposes the hypocrisy surrounding notions of academic freedom, and throws light on the determination of those in the labour movement and their academic allies to push forward wage controls and stunted bargaining regimes, alongside restrictions on strikes, in the name of moderation and the middle ground.
Originality/value
An attempt to correct the history as written by the pro tem victors.
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– The purpose of this paper is to provide an overview of the changing strike activity in the UK over the last 50 years.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to provide an overview of the changing strike activity in the UK over the last 50 years.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper draws on a wide literature on UK strikes and an extensive trawl of newspaper sources. It is divided into four main sections. The first two summarise, in turn, the changing amount and locus of strike activity between 1964 and 2014. The third discusses the changing relationship and balance between official and unofficial strikes. The last covers the role of the courts and legislation on strikes, highlighting some key moments in this turbulent history.
Findings
The period 1964-2014 can be divided into three sub-periods: high-strike activity until 1979; a transition period of “coercive pacification” in the 1980s; and unprecedentedly low-strike activity since the early 1990s. Unions were more combative against the legislative changes of the 1980s than they are normally given credit for.
Research limitations/implications
Given its broad scope, this paper cannot claim to be comprehensive.
Originality/value
This is a rare study of the changing nature of UK strikes over such a long time period.
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Whilst 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…
Abstract
Whilst 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 which is having major implications for workplace management‐labour relations and trade union organisation. Meanwhile, the future prospect of privatisation poses further immense challenges. This paper has the objective of contributing to an understanding of the restructuring of work and industrial relations which has been taking place within the Royal Mail — the letters arms of the Post Office — over the last few years, focusing in particular on the relationship between management organisation and strategies and the dynamics of workplace trade unionism.
While remaining in the public sector, the British Post Office hasundergone massive changes in terms of its general orientation andstructure over the last decade, with major…
Abstract
While remaining in the public sector, the British Post Office has undergone massive changes in terms of its general orientation and structure over the last decade, with major implications for workplace management‐labour relations and shopfloor trade union organization. The most recent phase of restructuring within the core Royal Mail section of the Post Office has been accompanied by an assertive managerial strategy aimed at tackling the strong workplace union levels of control and autonomy that have developed in many city‐based sorting offices. Provides evidence from empirical case study research into one of the largest and most union‐militant Royal Mail sorting offices in the country based in central Liverpool. After outlining the strengths and weaknesses of workplace unionism during the mid‐1980s to the late 1980s, focuses on how the Liverpool UCW leadership have attempted to respond to Royal Mail′s 1992 restructuring initiative and HRM practices. Suggests that, notwithstanding new and complex dilemmas, workplace unionism within the Royal Mail remains relatively resilient.
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The purpose of this paper is to reflect on some of the problems and issues emerging from the changing role of the state in the UK’s industrial relations since 1964 – the year the…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to reflect on some of the problems and issues emerging from the changing role of the state in the UK’s industrial relations since 1964 – the year the Labour Party was elected to power under Harold Wilson’s leadership. The paper argues that the UK has seen an uneven set of developments in terms of the role of the state in the industrial relations system. Increasingly progressive interventions on a range of subjects such as equality, health and safety and others have coincided with a greater commercialisation of the state and greater fragmentation.
Design/methodology/approach
This is based on a reflective review of various texts and a personal interest in the role of the political in the arena of employee relations. It references a range of texts on the subject of the state in the context of the UK’s employee relations system.
Findings
In political terms there has been an uneven and incoherent set of positions which have meant that there is a growing set of tensions and breakdown in the political consensus over worker rights. In addition, the agencies of the state and other state bodies entrusted with the development of a more socially driven view of industrial relations have been increasingly and steadily undermined and weakened by governments especially those on the right. The political context of industrial relations has become fractured and unable to sustain a coherent longer term view.
Originality/value
The paper tries to bring out the role of the political context and the way in has shaped the changing terrain of industrial relations and argues that the question of fragmentation is not solely visible in employee relations but in the broader political context.
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– The purpose of this paper is to review the state of knowledge on strikes and collective action.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to review the state of knowledge on strikes and collective action.
Design/methodology/approach
Review of theoretical and empirical literature, including comparative literature.
Findings
Both strike activity and other forms of collective action have declined in many advanced capitalist countries. There has been a rise in the number of strike ballots and in tribunal claims but these trends do not constitute a straightforward vindication of the displacement hypothesis. However there is evidence of an increase in general strikes in parts of Western Europe and of protest campaigns involving coalitions of unions and civil society organizations.
Originality/value
The paper tries to summarize the current state of knowledge and to map out directions for future research.
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The purpose of this paper is to offer a broad practitioner’s overview of recent trade union history in the UK, and to investigate organised labour’s prospects in the decades…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to offer a broad practitioner’s overview of recent trade union history in the UK, and to investigate organised labour’s prospects in the decades ahead.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper is based on a review of relevant literature and trade union documentation from the period 1964 to 2014.
Findings
This paper concludes that the past 50 years has been a period of change and turbulence for the movement, and suggests that this is likely to remain the case in the decades to come. Although external political and economic factors will have a significant bearing on unions’ prospects, the paper argues that unions remain powerful agents of change in their own right and that a revival of organised labour is not beyond question.
Originality/value
The paper is written with unique practitioner insight from the UK’s trade union centre.
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Sian Moore and Stephanie Tailby
The purpose of this paper is to explore what has happened to the notion and reality of equal pay over the past 50 years, a period in which women have become the majority of trade…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to explore what has happened to the notion and reality of equal pay over the past 50 years, a period in which women have become the majority of trade union members in the UK. It does so in the context of record employment levels based upon women’s increased labour market participation albeit reflecting their continued over-representation in part-time employment, locating the narrowed but persistent overall gender pay gap in the broader picture of pay inequality in the UK.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper considers voluntary and legal responses to inequality and the move away from voluntary solutions in the changed environment for unions. Following others it discusses the potential for collective bargaining to be harnessed to equality in work, a potential only partially realised by unions in a period in which their capacity to sustain collective bargaining was weakened. It looks at the introduction of a statutory route to collective bargaining in 2000, the National Minimum Wage from 1999 and at the Equality Act 2010 as legislative solutions to inequality and in terms of radical and liberal models of equality.
Findings
The paper suggests that fuller employment based upon women’s increased labour market activity have not delivered an upward pressure on wages and has underpinned rather than closed pay gaps and social divisions. Legal measures have been limited in the extent to which they have secured equal pay and wider social equality, whilst state support for collective solutions to equality has waned. Its replacement by a statutory minimum wage initially closed pay gaps, but appears to have run out of steam as employers accommodate minimum hourly rates through the reorganisation of working time.
Social implications
The paper suggests that statutory minima or even voluntary campaigns to lift hourly wage rates may cut across and even supersede wider existing collective bargaining agreements and as such they can reinforce the attack on collective bargaining structures, supporting arguments that this can reduce representation over pay, but also over a range of other issues at work (Ewing and Hendy, 2013), including equality.
Originality/value
There are then limitations on a liberal model which is confined to promoting equality at an organisational level in a public sector subject to wider market forces. The fragmentation of bargaining and representation that has resulted will continue if the proposed dismantling of public services goes ahead and its impact upon equality is already suggested in the widening of the gender pay gap in the public sector in 2015.