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Employee Representation (employee + representation)

Distribution by Scientific Domains
Business, Economics, Finance and Accounting100%

Selected Abstracts

Representation at Suncorp , what do the employees want?

HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT JOURNAL, Issue 3 2006
Paul J. Gollan
It is apparent from existing research that little is known about the effectiveness of non-union employee representation (NER) voice arrangements in Australian firms. This article examines both the non-union Suncorp-Metway Employee Council (SMEC) and union voice arrangements at an Australian financial services firm, Suncorp, and assesses their effectiveness in representing the needs of employees. This study is unique because it is one of the few examples of dual representation channels at a single firm. Overall the findings suggest that the effectiveness of union and NER arrangements is dependent on the union and NER voice channels being perceived by the workforce as both representative and able to act effectively or independently. However, while trade unions may provide greater voice than non-union arrangements, the strength of voice is dependent on the legitimacy and effectiveness of trade unions in representing employees' interests at the workplace. The findings also suggest that the marginalisation strategy used by the union in excluding SMEC from its industrial campaigns, coupled with employees' perception of a lack of effective union voice, could impact negatively on the influence that unions may have on management decision-making. This could also be perceived by employees as an inappropriate response by the union to management substitution strategies. As a consequence, any changes to industrial relations policy or trade union strategies regarding NER should be considered in the light of these findings. [source]

Why No Shop Committees in America: A Narrative History

INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS, Issue 3 2001
David Brody
This article explores the origins of the prohibition against shop committees in modern labor law. It identifies World War I as the crystallizing moment and argues that shop committees might have become a permanent feature of American industrial relations at that time but for a series of contingent events arising in particular from the great steel strike of 1919. Historians have missed this linkage, the article concludes, because in the intervening 1920s, employee representation became disassociated from industrial democracy, with the notable exception of the railroads, where blatantly antiunion use of employee representation prompted the judicial condemnation of employer domination of labor organizations that provided the doctrinal foundation for Section 8a(2) of the National Labor Relations Act. [source]

21st-century models of employee representation: structures, processes and outcomes

INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS JOURNAL, Issue 4 2007
Andy Charlwood
ABSTRACT The 2004 Workplace Employment Relations Survey allows further exploration of the fate or workplace-based forms of employee representation charted by earlier surveys. We describe the occurrence and diversity of representational forms, union, non-union and ,hybrid', and the structural characteristics of workplaces where they are found. We go on to analyse a number of structural and processual differences and differences in outcomes. In particular, we try to estimate the effects of different forms for outcomes such as wage dispersion, procedural ,fairness' and productivity. The data show that ,hybrid' systems of union and non-union representation are associated with the best outcomes, therefore, notwithstanding the continuing decline in the diffusion of the ,traditional' union-based model of workplace representation, union presence is still a prerequisite for effective representation, while ,pure' non-union forms serve neither employee nor employer interests. [source]

Exploring the dynamics of industrial relations in US multinationals: evidence from the Republic of Ireland

INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS JOURNAL, Issue 3 2005
Patrick Gunnigle
ABSTRACT While previous work has identified a shift in the host business system which facilitates multinational corporations in their quest to introduce non-union approaches, little or no qualitative data have been brought to bear on this issue. This article presents case-based evidence on the dynamics of this trend in Ireland, focusing specifically on management approaches to collective employee representation as well as providing an exposition of the patterns of trade union recognition and avoidance in evidence. [source]

Prospects for union growth in the UK voluntary sector: the impact of the Employment Relations Act 1999

INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS JOURNAL, Issue 3 2000
Ian Cunningham
The article argues that despite the imminent introduction of the Employment Relations Act 1999, unions face a difficult environment in which to achieve recognition deals in the voluntary sector. However, it also highlights how some large charities are re-evaluating their position on employee representation in response to government legislation and that unions can use these developments to encourage further growth. [source]

Dominance Effects from Local Competitors: Setting Institutional Parameters for Employment Relations in Multinational Subsidiaries; a Case from the Spanish Supermarket Sector

BRITISH JOURNAL OF INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS, Issue 4 2009
Tony Royle
Dominance effects are normally associated with multinational corporations (MNCs). However, we argue that a strong local competitor can create ,dominance effects' setting the institutional parameters for employment relations in multinational subsidiaries. Moreover such an effect can be persistent. In this case the Spanish-owned El Corte Inglés (ECI) used its power and influence to establish an employer's federation and two ,yellow unions'. These yellow unions infiltrated the French-owned MNC Carrefour and most of the Spanish supermarket sector by the early 1980s and continue to dominate collective bargaining rounds and works council elections, marginalizing the main independent trade unions. This has resulted in poor pay and working conditions and a lack of effective employee representation across most of the Spanish supermarket sector. The fact that Carrefour established an international framework agreement to observe union rights in 2001 has as yet not changed this situation. [source]

Updating the Determinants of Firm Performance: Estimation using the 1998 UK Workplace Employee Relations Survey

BRITISH JOURNAL OF INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS, Issue 3 2001
John T. Addison
We examine the determinants of establishment performance in the UK, using cross-sectional data from the 1998 Workplace Employee Relations Survey to replicate research by Fernie and Metcalf (1995) who used data from the 1990 Workplace Employee Relations Survey; specifically, we test whether employee representation, contingent pay and efforts to boost employee participation affect a set of economic and industrial relations outcome indicators in the manner they suggest. We also re-estimate the influential WERS90-based study of Machin and Stewart (1996) on the links between union status and financial performance. In both cases we report very different results. [source]