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Employee Relations

AC219

Week 1: Employee Relations: History,Context, Analysis

Adrian Murton; Tom Vine

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Timetabling

Lectures: 1 2 Mondays, LTB06

Seminars: From Week 2

4 5 Mondays

9 10 Wednesdays

12 1 Thursdays

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Structure

Introduction to course

Timetabling and assessment

Content: Employee Relations: History,

Context, Analysis

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What is/are Employee

Relations? Follows on from AC114 Introduction to

Management; looks at organization,

leadership and control from employerand employee perspectives

How we are managed, how we wouldlike to be managed, how and why

conflicts arise and how these can beresolved at work

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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

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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

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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

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The Employment Relationship

in Employee Relations It follows that the employment relationship is a

central feature of work but it is dynamic andoften contested terrain

It is also complex has many dimensions andlevels economic, legal, social, psychologicaland political

Shaped by historical experiences

Employment relationship now seen as core tothe study of employee relations

Many employment relationships, manyemployee relations

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The Employment

RelationshipParties toRelationship

Employment

Relationship

Structure

Formal rules

Informal

understandings

Substance

Individual:

reward, job,

career

Collective: joint

agreements

Operation

Level

Process

Style

Source: Kessler

and Undy 1997

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AC 219 Employee

Relations

Assessment

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Assessment: Basics

Two pieces of coursework no exam

Coursework 1 choice of questions

One question invites you to make a comparisonbetween Britain and one other country in terms ofemployee relations

Other question focuses on changes in Britishemployee relations since 1980s

Max 2,000 words. Deadline for submission Monday15th December

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Assessment

Coursework Two

Choice of questions One from Threedistributed in Lecture 6

Trade unions; Employee involvement or Role

of legislation

2,000 2,500 word essay Deadline for submission 13th January 2009

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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

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Employee Relations

History, Context, Analysis

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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 thegeneration 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

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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

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Historical Perspectives

In practice history reveals patterns of bothchange and continuity

Change may be abrupt but may still be

affected by path-dependency Short-term and long-term change

Significance in employee relations forhowhistory is experienced, how it shapes thepresent often casts a long shadow

History in culture stories, rituals, rules Employee relations today the outcome of past

struggles defeats, victories

Importance ofhistory in custom & practice

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Traditional Concerns of IR

Theoretical origins of industrial relations/employeerelations focused on order and stability within adeveloped system

Influence of US writers, particularly Dunlop (1958)

Such a system in Britain and other westerneconomies based on collective bargaining seen asdemocratic and most effective form of regulation

Copied by many other countries

Outputs of the system earnings, productivity andminimising of conflict

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The Industrial Relations System

Dunlop pioneering work in 1950s developed

from social systems thinking ofTalcott

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

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John Dunlop and an Industrial

RelationsS

ystemCONTEXTS ACTORS PROCESSES OUTCOMES

Economic Employers Managerial Reg Pay and

Social Managers Collective Conditions

Legal Trade Unions Bargaining Inc Productivity

Political Employees Legal Reg. Conflict

Techno Customers* C&P Less Conflict

Logical Shareholders*

Feedback

Shared Ideology

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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 ofhigh unemployment and weakened

TU bargaining power

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Is talk of a system still

useful? Can we still talk about national systems?

Often more diversity within as between

countries (March

ington 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 asmanagers have sought to re-regulate

employment and employment relationships

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Changing Focus Managerial

agenda Today management-employee relations inBritain more about involvement, engagement,participation and partnership rather than

collective bargaining and conflict resolution

Employee involvement and high performancework systems (see DTI 2003), employeeengagement (CIPD 2006)

The role of management choice in shapingemployee relations and employee relationsstrategy

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Employment Relations and HRM

HRM and the individualisation of employmentrelations

Focus on the individual worker and relationship withmanagement

Mainstream HRM concern with involvement andcommitment and relationship to business performance(Guest et al. 2000)

Business-model of HR dominant

But concern over the costs of both business model andof de-regulation and individualisation and how theemployment relationship is regulated New Labour

Also concerns that limited evidence for more involvedand engaged workers

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And Now.

Increased concern with both individual and

collective aspects of employment

Re-focusing onh

ow th

e employmentrelationship 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