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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