			Home About us Contact

Workplace Level (workplace + level)

Distribution by Scientific Domains

Business, Economics, Finance and Accounting	75%

Selected Abstracts

Advancing Gender Equality: The Role of Women-Only Trade Union Education

GENDER, WORK & ORGANISATION, Issue 1 2002
Anne-Marie Greene
The need to improve the level of membership and the number of women activists has been a central feature of overall ,renewal' strategies of many British trade unions. Within this, equality education has been a key part of policy-making. This research draws on detailed case studies of two trade unions and focuses on their women-only education courses. We suggest that a greater understanding of the contribution of different types of trade union education to the advance of equality is a key factor in the ability of unions to maintain a central role at workplace level, within the context of an increasingly diverse labour market. [source]

Embedding employee involvement and participation at work

HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT JOURNAL, Issue 3 2006
Annette Cox
Most quantitative studies analysing the nature and impact of employee involvement and participation (EIP) have used data that differentiate between its absence and presence. However, the application of EIP practices varies substantially, and impact may depend on how embedded EIP is at workplace level. Developing the concept of ,embeddedness' as a combination of measures of the breadth and depth of EIP practices, we use WERS98 to examine the impact of EIP on employee perceptions. Our results show support for propositions that greater breadth and depth of EIP practices are associated with higher levels of organisational commitment and job satisfaction. [source]

Employee participation and union voice in the National Health Service

HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT JOURNAL, Issue 2 2004
Stephen Bach
This article examines the role of trade unions in the health service at workplace level under the Labour government's modernisation agenda, and focuses on the shifting balance between forms of direct and indirect participation drawing on case studies of three acute hospital trusts. There has been a strong growth in forms of direct communication within the case study trusts and some increase in direct participation among professional groups. Despite this ,dualism' in employment relations, however, the target culture of the NHS has precluded the development of effective voice mechanisms. The policy implications for trade unions and the implications for the implementation of NHS pay modernisation are considered. [source]

Collectivism versus individualism in Dutch employment relations

HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT JOURNAL, Issue 1 2004
Jan De Leede
From a very centralistic and collectivistic tradition after World War Two, Dutch employment relations now show a trend towards radical decentralisation and individualisation. What might be the consequences of this trend for labour relations? Do developments still fit within a movement towards ,organised decentralisation' or will the existing system of labour relations be hollowed out and destroyed? And what will be the consequences for ER management at company level? We present empirical data on how companies deal with their decentralised and individualised employment relations. It appears that, in the main areas such as labour contracts, working time arrangements, reward systems and development plans, decentralisation and individualisation are taking place. It has also become clear that management as well as workers support this and that a new form of negotiation between them is developing at workplace level, resulting in what we call ,third contracts' that are additional to the initial labour contract and the collective agreement. Our results also highlight the pragmatic way in which companies deal with these decentralised and individualised employment relations, which, nevertheless, remain linked to the national and collective levels of bargaining. Within the multilevel system of Dutch employment relations a new balance between collectivism and individualism is emerging. [source]

Interest formation in greenfield union organising campaigns

INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS JOURNAL, Issue 5 2007
Melanie Simms
ABSTRACT This article examines the processes by which unions come to express the interests of workers during organising campaigns. Evidence from five longitudinal cases shows the central importance of officials and organisers. Three key reasons for this are explored: the need for expert knowledge in organising campaigns, the fact that officials and organisers are well placed to identify and to construct common interests among a diversity of interest groups, and the fact that the training they receive explicitly encourages this role. Furthermore, it is argued that this helps explain some of the difficulties observed in organising campaigns specifically; the limitations of campaigns that primarily focus at workplace level, and the relatively narrow definition of collective interests that this approach encourages. [source]

An Analysis of Workplace Representatives, Union Power and Democracy in Australia

BRITISH JOURNAL OF INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS, Issue 4 2009
David Peetz
The purpose of this article is to illuminate the views and experiences of workplace representatives in Australia in the context of falling union density, and to analyse factors that are most strongly associated with subjective union power at the workplace level, as perceived by delegates. The analysis relies on a large random survey of workplace delegates in eight significant Australian unions. The article describes the situation broadly facing delegates as shown by the survey and analyses a set of factors associated with the power of workers as perceived by delegates. We find that higher levels of reported activism among delegates are strongly associated with greater subjective union power. We also find that self-reported delegate confidence is also strongly associated with perceptions of higher union power, as is delegate's clarity about their roles. The data also show a strong association between perceptions of democracy within the union and union power. Support for delegates from the union office and organizers is also associated with higher levels of union power at the local level. The analysis provides some support for union renewal strategies associated with the ,organizing model' as applied in Australia and some other Anglo-Saxon countries that aim to increase the activism of workplace delegates through education, the provision of support for workplace delegates and more democratic union structures. [source]

Workplace Risk, Establishment Size and Union Density

BRITISH JOURNAL OF INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS, Issue 3 2004
Paul Fenn
The health and safety risk faced by individual employees can be treated as an unobservable latent variable which manifests itself at workplace level through reported counts of work-related injuries and illnesses over a given interval. This paper presents results from count data regressions using data from the 1998 Workplace Employee Relations Survey. The findings strongly support the view that employees in larger establishments have a lower probability of being injured or falling ill. In addition, establishments with a higher proportion of unionized employees, and with health and safety committees, were associated with higher numbers of reported injuries and illnesses. [source]

Sickness absence and workplace levels of satisfaction with psychosocial work conditions at public service workplaces

AMERICAN JOURNAL OF INDUSTRIAL MEDICINE, Issue 2 2009
Torsten Munch-Hansen MSc
Abstract Background The objective of this study was to examine the impact of psychosocial work conditions on sickness absence while addressing methodological weaknesses in earlier studies. Methods The participants were 13,437 employees from 698 public service workplace units in Aarhus County, Denmark. Satisfaction with psychosocial work conditions was rated on a scale from 0 (low) to 10 (high). Individual ratings were aggregated to workplace scores. Analysis of variance was used to compare the average number of days of yearly sickness absence in three groups with different levels of satisfaction with psychosocial work conditions. Results Sickness absence was 30.8% lower in the most satisfied group (11.7 days/year (CI 95%: 10.2; 13.1)) than in the least satisfied group (16.9 days/year (CI 95%: 15.3; 18.6)) adjusted for the covariates included. Conclusions Satisfaction with psychosocial work conditions has a strong and independent impact on sickness absence. Am. J. Ind. Med. 52:153,161, 2009. © 2008 Wiley-Liss, Inc. [source]