1st Edition

All Change at Work? British Employment Relations 1980-98, Portrayed by the Workplace Industrial Relations Survey Series

By Alex Bryson, John Forth, Neil Millward Copyright 2000
    308 Pages
    by Routledge

    308 Pages
    by Routledge

    This book is the latest publication reporting the results of a series of workplace surveys conducted by the Department of Trade and Industry, the Economic and Social Research Council, the Advisory Conciliation and Arbitration Service and the Policy Studies Institute. It addresses such contemporary employee relations issues as:

    * Have new configurations of labour-management practices become embedded in the British economy?
    * Did the dramatic decline in trade union representation in the 1980s continue throughout the 1990s, leaving more employees without a voice?
    * Are the vestiges of union organisation at the workplace a hollow shell?

    The focus of this book is on change, captured by gathering together the enormous bank of data from all four of the large-scale and highly respected surveys, and plotting trends from 1980 to the present. In addition, a special panel of workplaces, surveyed in both 1990 and 1998, reveals the complex processes of change. Comprehensive in scope, the results are statistically reliable and reveal the nature and extent of change in all bar the smallest British workplaces. A key text for anyone interested in employment and the changing world of work, whether as student, researcher, teacher, analyst, adviser or practitioner.

    1. Introduction, The essential features of the WIRS design, Elements of the survey employed in this volume, The changing landscape, 1980-98, The nature of our analysis and contents of the book 2. The dynamic context of workplace employment relations. Industry and Ownership, Size of Workforce, Location within larger organizations, Internationalization, Age and relocation, Changes in technology, Changes in the composition of the workforce, Summary and conclusions 3. The Management of employee relations. Who manages employee relations, The emergence of a profession, The gender issue: women managing employee relations, A changing role for employee relations managers, The status and influence of employee relations managers, Conclusions 4. Have employess lost their voice? Union presence, Union membership density, Trade Union recognition, Other channels for collective employee voice, Direct Communication methods, An overall view of employee voice, Conclusions 5. Union recognition: a 'hollow shell'? Workplace union density, The nature of union

    Biography

    Alex Bryson, John Forth, Neil Millward

    'This is one of the most comprehensive, data-archive based, accounts of workplace change available' -- Malcom Warner, Journal of General Management

    'Very clearly writen, this summation of the findings of severalkey official workplace surveys is excellent value'-- Malcom Warner, Journal of General Management