Employee Relations AC219

Week 1: Employee Relations: History, Context, Analysis Adrian Murton; Tom Vine

Timetabling

Lectures: Seminars:

1 2 Mondays, LTB06 From Week 2 4 5 Mondays 9 10 Wednesdays 12 1 Thursdays

Structure

Introduction to course Timetabling and assessment Content: Employee Relations: History, Context, Analysis

What is/are Employee Relations?

Follows on from AC114 Introduction to Management; looks at organization, leadership and control from employer and employee perspectives How we are managed, how we would like to be managed, how and why conflicts arise and how these can be resolved at work

Traditional and new(er) concerns

Traditional focus on actors - managers, employees, government, unions Until recently looked at men, unions, manufacturing, manual work Today, increasing interest in new actors customers, families, other interest groups and in service sector, women and complexity of employment arrangements Widening focus has broadened scope of employee relations concerns

Why are Employee Relations worth studying?

For many people work is central in terms of time, money, identity, status, social relations Most of us experience work as employees we have an employment relationship between ourselves and those who employ us, and an employment status However many different interests at work (stakeholders) owners, shareholders, managers, employees, customers all exert pressure on employment relationship

Why are Employee Relations worth studying?

For employers the labour question a central one Need labour to produce output Need to ensure labour does what employers want Need for control of labour costs and activities - and need for welfare Tension control v commitment

The Employment Relationship in Employee Relations

It follows that the employment relationship is a central feature of work but it is dynamic and often contested terrain It is also complex has many dimensions and levels economic, legal, social, psychological and political Shaped by historical experiences Employment relationship now seen as core to the study of employee relations Many employment relationships, many employee relations

The Employment Relationship

Parties to Relationship

Operation Level Process Style Structure Formal rules Informal understandings Employment Relationship

Substance Individual: reward, job, career Collective: joint agreements

Source: Kessler and Undy 1997

AC 219 Employee Relations

Assessment

Assessment: Basics

Two pieces of coursework no exam Coursework 1 choice of questions One question invites you to make a comparison between Britain and one other country in terms of employee relations Other question focuses on changes in British employee relations since 1980s Max 2,000 words. Deadline for submission Monday 15th December

Assessment

Coursework Two Choice of questions One from Three distributed in Lecture 6 Trade unions; Employee involvement or Role of legislation 2,000 2,500 word essay Deadline for submission 13th January 2009

Useful Materials

Blyton, P., Turnbull, P, (2004), The Dynamics of Employee Relations (3rd Ed.) Basingstoke, Palgrave MacMillan Journals: British Journal of Industrial Relations; Industrial Relations Journal; Work, Employment & Society; Employee Relations Websites: www.cipd.co.uk, www.tuc.org.uk www.cbi.org.uk, www.berr.gov.uk, www.ilo.org, www.eurofound.europa.eu/eiro

Employee Relations
History, Context, Analysis

Employee Relations: Content, History, Analysis

Industrial Relations, Employee Relations and Employment Relations IR traditionally concerned with the institutions of job regulation (Flanders and Clegg 1954) and the generation of employment rules Led to a focus on trade unions and collective bargaining CB fulcrum of industrial relations Not unique to Britain see US, and Western Europe High point of traditional IR in Britain 1970s collectivist, concern with reform of collective bargaining 55% of the workforce were trade union members, 75% covered by collective agreements

Historical Perspectives

Event-driven
Government change Technological change Demographic change Management change Changes in ownership and organisation Unique events and conditions - linear

Structure-driven
Economic trends Political trends Changes to social institutions

Regular, patterned, repetitive - circular

Historical Perspectives

In practice history reveals patterns of both change and continuity Change may be abrupt but may still be affected by path-dependency Short-term and long-term change Significance in employee relations for how history is experienced, how it shapes the present often casts a long shadow History in culture stories, rituals, rules Employee relations today the outcome of past struggles defeats, victories Importance of history in custom & practice

Traditional Concerns of IR

Theoretical origins of industrial relations/employee relations focused on order and stability within a developed system Influence of US writers, particularly Dunlop (1958) Such a system in Britain and other western economies based on collective bargaining seen as democratic and most effective form of regulation Copied by many other countries Outputs of the system earnings, productivity and minimising of conflict

The Industrial Relations System

Dunlop pioneering work in 1950s developed from social systems thinking of Talcott Parsons IR system a sub-set of economic system and largely self-contained and self-regulating Focus was national systems, so different countries developed own systems guided by governments Criticisms that concern with stability and order ignored very real conflicts that could arise within systems

John Dunlop and an Industrial Relations System

CONTEXTS ACTORS PROCESSES OUTCOMES Economic Social Legal Political Techno Logical Employers Managers Trade Unions Employees Customers* Shareholders* Managerial Reg Pay and Collective Bargaining Legal Reg. C&P Conditions Inc Productivity Conflict Less Conflict

Feedback Shared Ideology

Challenges to the system - crisis and re-regulation

Post 1979 Thatcherism Public policy lack of support for old adversarial IR system, trade unions, failure of collective bargaining Moves to regulate IR through legal means restrictive labour law to curb the power of trade unions Re-establishment of managerial prerogative Re-regulation of industrial relations against a backdrop of high unemployment and weakened TU bargaining power

Is talk of a system still useful?

Can we still talk about national systems? Often more diversity within as between countries (Marchington 1995) Argued that if we can still talk about a system it is now organisation-based see work of Purcell (1989) Greater diversity in employee relations as managers have sought to re-regulate employment and employment relationships

Changing Focus Managerial agenda

Today management-employee relations in Britain more about involvement, engagement, participation and partnership rather than collective bargaining and conflict resolution Employee involvement and high performance work systems (see DTI 2003), employee engagement (CIPD 2006) The role of management choice in shaping employee relations and employee relations strategy

Employment Relations and HRM

HRM and the individualisation of employment relations Focus on the individual worker and relationship with management Mainstream HRM concern with involvement and commitment and relationship to business performance (Guest et al. 2000) Business-model of HR dominant But concern over the costs of both business model and of de-regulation and individualisation and how the employment relationship is regulated New Labour Also concerns that limited evidence for more involved and engaged workers

And Now.

Increased concern with both individual and collective aspects of employment Re-focusing on how the employment relationship is regulated see work of Work Foundation (Coats, Edwards 2006) and of EU flexicurity agenda. See also Sisson (2005) Theoretically, this marks a return to a focus on power and authority relations in employment