Sian Moore, Ozlem Onaran, Alexander Guschanski, Bethania Antunes and Graham Symon
The purpose of this paper is twofold: first, to reassert the persistent association of the decline in collective bargaining with the increase in income inequality, the fall in the…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is twofold: first, to reassert the persistent association of the decline in collective bargaining with the increase in income inequality, the fall in the share of wages in national income and deterioration in macroeconomic performance in the UK; and second, to present case studies affirming concrete outcomes of organisational collective bargaining for workers, in terms of pay, job quality, working hours and work-life balance.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper is based upon two methodological approaches. First, econometric analyses using industry-level and firm-level data for advanced and emerging economies testing the relationship between declining union density, collective bargaining coverage and the fall in the share of wages in national income. Second, it reports on ten in-depth case studies of collective bargaining each based upon analysis of collective bargaining agreements plus in-depth interviews with the actors party to them: in total, 16 trade union officers, 16 members and 11 employer representatives.
Findings
There is robust evidence of the effects of different measures of bargaining power on the labour share including union density, welfare state retrenchment, minimum wages and female employment. The case studies appear to address a legacy of deregulated industrial relations. A number demonstrate the reinvigoration of collective bargaining at the organisational and sectoral level, addressing the two-tier workforce and contractual differentiation, alongside the consequences of government pay policies for equality.
Research limitations/implications
The case studies represent a purposive sample and therefore findings are not generalisable; researchers are encouraged to test the suggested propositions further.
Practical implications
The paper proposes that tackling income inequality requires a restructuring of the institutional framework in which bargaining takes place and a level playing field where the bargaining power of labour is more in balance with that of capital. Collective bargaining addresses a number of the issues raised by the Taylor Review of Modern Working Practices as essential for “good work”, yet is at odds with the review’s assumptions and remedies. The case studies reiterate the importance of the development of strong workplace representation and bargaining at workplace level, which advocates for non-members and provides a basis for union recruitment, organisation and wider employee engagement.
Originality/value
The paper indicates that there may be limits to employer commitment to deregulated employment relations. The emergence of new or reinvigorated collective agreements may represent a concession by employers that a “free”, individualised, deinstitutionalised, precarious approach to industrial relations, based on wage suppression and work intensification, is not in their interests in the long run.
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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.
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The paper sets out to ask whether the existence of a statutory model of collective bargaining has influenced the scope and depth of bargaining following voluntary trade union…
Abstract
Purpose
The paper sets out to ask whether the existence of a statutory model of collective bargaining has influenced the scope and depth of bargaining following voluntary trade union recognition.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper is largely based on a telephone survey of 101 employer representatives, commissioned by the Department of Trade and Industry (2000). The survey was based on a sample of 213 voluntary trade union recognition agreements concluded between 1998 and 2002. The paper also draws on a textual analysis of 213 voluntary recognition agreements and refers to nine in‐depth case studies.
Findings
In this paper the research found evidence of dynamic relationships following recognition and in the majority of cases there has been collective bargaining on the core issues of pay, hours and holiday. There was less likely to have been negotiation over the non‐core issues of pensions, equal opportunities and training. There are clear differences between employers' reports of the nature of discussions with the union and what was set out in the written recognition agreements. The fact that a proportion of voluntary agreements have been formally limited to the core issues suggests the influence of the law in shaping both the scope and depth of voluntary recognition (and subsequent practice).
Research limitations/implications
The analysis in this paper is based on employer perceptions of the bargaining process; clearly bargaining also reflects union aspirations. Further case studies based on workplace bargaining would illustrate this dynamic process.
Originality/value
The paper offers the first analysis of bargaining following voluntary recognition and assessment of the impact of the Employment Relations Act 1999.
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The purpose of this paper is to look back on 150 years of the Trades Union Congress (TUC) and reflect on the recent challenges to organised labour.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to look back on 150 years of the Trades Union Congress (TUC) and reflect on the recent challenges to organised labour.
Design/methodology/approach
Places unions in their current context and discusses how they have responded to the challenge of declining membership.
Findings
With declining membership levels and the lack of a “silver bullet” solution, unions continue to face many challenges, although there is some light at the end of the organising tunnel.
Originality/value
This paper introduces the special issue which reflects on 150 years of the TUC.
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Andrea Wigfield, Katy Wright, Elizabeth Burtney and Diane Buddery
The purpose of this paper is to look at the implications of the increasing use of Assisted Living Technology in the social care sector and to assess the implications for the…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to look at the implications of the increasing use of Assisted Living Technology in the social care sector and to assess the implications for the workforce in terms of job roles, skills, knowledge, training, and support.
Design/methodology/approach
A mixed methods approach was used, through a quantitative electronic survey of staff working in social care (as well as some health care) organisations in England, and three qualitative case studies of local authorities.
Findings
The research shows that the organisations involved in delivering Assisted Living Technology, the types of Assisted Living Technology being introduced, and the way in which it is being delivered, have implications for job roles and the skills and knowledge needed by staff. The associated training and workforce development similarly varies across the social care sector; it is ad hoc, disparate, and provided primarily by individual employers or by suppliers and manufacturers.
Research limitations/implications
There is a need for a standardised Assisted Living Technology workforce development approach which can be used across the social care sector.
Practical implications
The varied nature of Assisted Living Technology providers and delivery models presents a challenge to the development and implementation of a standardised programme of workforce development.
Originality/value
This paper presents the results of new empirical research arising from a quantitative and qualitative study of the workforce development implications of Assisted Living Technology in the English social care sector.
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Bridget Blodgett and Andrea Tapia
This paper aims to define and articulate the concept of digital protestainment, to address how technologies have enabled boundaries to become more permeable, and in which this…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to define and articulate the concept of digital protestainment, to address how technologies have enabled boundaries to become more permeable, and in which this permeability leads to the engendering of new cultures.
Design/methodology/approach
Two case studies, within Second Life and EVE Online, are examined to see how digital protestainment, through the lens of cultural borderlands, creates a hybridized culture. Recorded interviews and textual analysis of web sites are used to illustrate the concepts of play, work, and blended activities.
Findings
Within virtual environments the process of hybridization is not only increased in size, scope, form, and function. The borderlands process draws in cultural elements through a complex interchange between the online and the offline, in which hybridized cultural bits are carried out into other spaces.
Research limitations/implications
The success of the cases does not represent all digital protest examples and so this study is limited in its ability to generalize to the population of virtual protests. This study limits the realm of digital protestainment to virtual worlds but the concept could be applied to any form of virtual community.
Practical implications
Companies that host these worlds will need to become aware not only of what their audience is but also how that audience will mobilize and the likely outcomes of their mobilization. Virtual worlds offer organizational leaders a new resource for training, support, and recruitment.
Originality/value
The theoretical concept of cultural borderlands is expanded to the digital environment and introduced as a potentially new and useful tool to internet researchers.
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The aim of this paper is to present qualitative research with higher education games design students to explore situated understandings of work and the negotiation of “work” and…
Abstract
Purpose
The aim of this paper is to present qualitative research with higher education games design students to explore situated understandings of work and the negotiation of “work” and “non‐work” boundaries.
Design/methodology/approach
Situated understandings of work are examined through interviews and focus groups with games design students in the UK and contextualised with interviews with games industry professionals and attendance at industry careers events. The theoretical approach of “occupational devotion” is used to explore work practices and motivations, and “technological action” is then used to draw out the significance of relations with games technologies in this negotiation.
Findings
The main finding concerns the continued significance of a fixed field of “work” for students intending to progress from education into “work”. The importance of “work” was identified in how students positioned themselves (occupational devotion) and engaged with games technologies (technological action). This is contrasted with the emphasis on co‐creative relations and broadbrush assertions of blurring boundaries between work and non‐work.
Research limitations/implications
A larger sample of students that ranged across different digital gaming disciplines within higher education (programming; art) would add breadth and further perspectives. Further research would connect student perceptions of the games industry, from attending events such as careers fairs, and the industry promotional discourses and representational strategies. A longitudinal study would be valuable for tracing changes in recruitment strategies and industry and education intersections.
Practical implications
The paper provides insights into how higher education students engage with the games industry and articulates their personal development and employability attributes.
Originality/value
This paper makes a case for research with students as a means to explore boundaries of “work” and “non‐work”. It questions the blurring of “work” and “non‐work”, and provides conceptual pointers, combined with empirical research, that indicate the continued purchase of fixed notions of “work” for workers‐in‐the‐making. This is relevant for scholarly research into the sociology of work, higher education pedagogy, and industry‐education relations.