1 Introduction
The fruits of labour?
Gregor Gall
Since 1995, the point at which the influence of the Labour Partyâs commitment once in office to legislate for a statutory means to gain union recognition began to take effect on the industrial relations climate in Britain (Gall 2004b), over 2,800 new recognition agreements have been signed (Table 1.2). These agreements cover around 1,200,000 workers and involve many large and well-known employers (Table 1.2). This represents a major development within trade unionism and the compass of industrial relations in Britain, broadly speaking being the outcome of the interaction of the introduction of union organising efforts and the statutory recognition provisions of the Employment Relations Act 1999 (ERA). For trade unionism, this advance is a potentially vital defence against decline, both in terms of offsetting current decline and providing a bridgehead for taking further corrective action. The collection Union Organizing: campaigning for trade recognition (Gall 2003a) contained a number of overviews and case studies of the processes by which unions attempted to gain, and gained, union recognition. With many of the tranche of new agreements now several years old, it is now appropriate to begin examining the results and outcomes of these agreements. This point has recognised by union leaders such as Derek Simpson and Tony Woodley, respectively Amicus and TGWU general secretaries (in A. Murray 2003: 124 and Tribune 27 June 2003) and some academics (e.g. Gall 2003d: 243, 2003f, 2004c; Markowitz 2000: 130). There are a number of salient areas for investigation here. Among the most obvious are the substantive outcomes of recognition and collective bargaining vis-Ă -vis terms and conditions of employment; employersâ behaviour and strategy in responding to the challenge posed by union recognition; the nature and processes of the bargaining/unionâmanagement relationship; and the building of workplace union presence (membership, organisation, activity) and its relation with national trade unionism. For our purposes here, these broadly concern union resources, union processes and union outcomes (Willman and Kelly 2004: 4â5).
Consequently, this collection has two main themes. The first is an examination of the fates and fortunes of the new recognition agreements as outcomes in themselves. They warrant examination for, since 1995, some 16 per cent of union members are now covered by recognition where they were previously not. Analysis of new agreements will help the process of assessing (a) the resultant state of the union movement as it attempts to rejuvenate itself, (b) the behaviour of previously non-union employers in dealing with trade unionism when managerial practice has been dominated by non-unionism, and (c) the extent to which democracy and collective participation now exist in the workplace. For trade unionists, a vital issue is whether, having gained recognition, trade unions are now delivering upon the promises and prospects of recognition. Workers and union members do not prize recognition in itself as an institutional ârightâ but rather view it in terms of what benefits it may bring. For unions, the potential to retain the relatively recently recruited members (under the new recognition agreements) and to recruit others in the future, primarily but not exclusively outside in-fill recruitment, will depend upon how effective unions are - or are seen to be - in realising the benefits of union membership. Therefore, the collection will provide the first assessment of these and other related issues. In a sense, much of the future of the union movement can be viewed through the prism of these new agreements. The second theme is an examination of the new recognition agreements as a quasi-distinct development within contemporary trade unionism. It can be contended that the processes and dynamics of workplace trade unionism under new recognition agreements are discrete from those comprising, and taking place within, long-standing workplace trade unionism under long-standing recognition agreements. For example, workplace unionism under the new recognition agreements may be more youthful, vibrant and challenging (to management and national union) than that under long-standing recognition agreements, the former arguably being free of inertia, bureaucratisation and conservatism.
Conceptually and theoretically, this collection seeks to develop our understanding of the relationship between workplace and national unionisms and of mobilisation theory as a result of analysing the above two themes. Although the focus of the collection largely concerns Britain, the issues are also germane to other countries. In terms of declining membership, organising approaches, statutory recognition provisions and limited legal and public policy support for collective bargaining thereafter, and what may be termed the âAnglo-Saxonâ model of trade unionism, the countries of Australia, Canada and the USA have been chosen to help develop some points of departure for contextualisation and comparative analysis. Of course, there are also potentially useful dissimilarities between the countries, such as different dominant state and employer policies towards trade unionism, varying union strength and differences in union approaches to utilising statutory recognition provisions. In regard of the latter, for example, in Canada the overwhelming majority of recognition is derived through statutory means. In Britain, the overwhelming majority of recognition is through voluntary means, and lying somewhere in between is the situation in the USA. These chapters, then, are capable of providing foundations for insights into the situation in Britain as well as illuminating the more generic issues.1
Substantive content
The new recognition agreements present opportunities and challenges, some of which are new, some of which are existing, for the union movement. To begin understanding these issues, consideration of a number of related aspects is necessary. These are:
- The process by which recognition was gained, involving (a) the degree of member involvement and mobilisation, (b) the degree of national union control and influence, and (c) the role of state bodies such as the Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service (ACAS) and the Central Arbitration Committee (CAC), where each is considered with a view to its respective influence on post-recognition outcomes.
- The complexion of the recognition agreement itself (e.g. traditional, partnership, âsweetheartâ, single-union), again in terms of influencing post-recognition outcomes.
- The bargaining outcomes themselves, such as recognition agreements as partnership agreements leading to mutual gains, de facto enterprise unionism or union marginalisation, or, by contrast, traditional agreements leading to strong bargaining relationships and industrial conflict. From this, the bargaining relationship can be judged to be one based on either âintegrativeâ or âdistributiveâ bargaining (Walton and McKersie 1965; Chamberlain and Kuhn 1965).
- The possible differential impact on bargaining processes and outcomes as a result of recognition being secured through the statutory procedure as opposed to voluntarily.
- Whether unions have been able to create the âself-organisedâ organised (sic) workplace within the remit of the espoused âorganising cultureâ or whether the more historically dominant âservicingâ relationship between members and union lay officials/full-time officers (FTOs) continues to exert more influence. Specifically, this aspect concerns whether, with an increasing number of recognition agreements but not a net and immediate increase in income from new members, unions are able to offer sufficient resources to help establish the âorganisedâ workplace.
- Whether, and to what extent, tension or compatibility exists between the workplace union and the national union over bargaining agenda and modus operandi where the workplace unionism is relatively new and fresh but the national union is older and more experienced.
- The determinants of improvements, reductions and stagnation in workersâ pay and conditions in relation to the results of collective bargaining, union strength, employer choice, employer resource and the prevailing state of labour and product markets. To put it simply and for the unions, what is the âunion mark-upâ or âpremiumâ? ⢠Whether, and to what extent, the union has been able to achieve âemployee voiceâ, justice and fairness in the workplace.
In addition to examining these outcomes in themselves, another way by which to make an assessment would be to compare these outcomes to those from older, existing recognition agreements. However, the data required to carry out this task is not readily available. It may be that some such data emerges from WERS5, for some of the workplaces used may comprise those with new recognition agreements. We do, however, know that on one calculation the âunion mark-upâ or union wage premium has declined significantly in recent years from 13 per cent in 1994 to 3 per cent in 2001 (Bryson and Gomez 2002: 61). This should serve to temper the extent of any expectations of the likely gains under the new recognition agreements, both in terms of wages and, probably, for wider remuneration and other conditions of employment.
What defines and characterises new recognition agreements?
This section discusses the implications for a workplace union of its move from the situation of campaigning for, and gaining, recognition to one of providing representation and conducting bargaining. The employerâs agreeing to recognition is thus a cusp that represents a significant transition. (For the sake of simplicity at this point and throughout this section, it is reasonably assumed that little or no de facto representation or bargaining took place prior to recognition and that employer resistance after recognition is negligible. Consequently, we can envisage a simon-pure categorisation and change of function.) In doing so, and in examining the outcomes of the new recognition agreements, it is imperative to have a sense of what comprises and defines a new agreement (where recognition has never or has not recently existed). Thus, a ânewâ agreement can be defined as one that is between 0 and three years old. This allows for the first series of annual negotiations over wages and conditions, the implementation of new grievance procedures, the union facing employer demands for the first (post-recognition) time for changes in work organisation (task or temporal) and so on, as well as the process of the settling-down of relations between employer and union. The danger in defining a new agreement much beyond three years is that this would gradually lose the colourations that could be characterised as ânewâ and, conversely, increasingly contain the colourations typifying more-long-standing agreements.
In considering the engagement of the workplace union (aided or led by the external union, whether local, regional or national) in these activities, the conceptual framework must be able to take account of the specificity of the dynamics and forces comprising, and acting upon, new recognition agreements. One way in which this may be done is to interrogate the issues on the heuristic premise that the new recognition agreements are founded upon new workplace unionism which has a marked te...
