The Changing Institutional Face of British Employment Relations
The Changing Institutional Face of British Employment Relations

Author: Linda Dickens

Publisher: Kluwer Law International B.V.

Published: 2006-01-01

Total Pages: 174

ISBN-13: 9041125418

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Employment protection in Britain, once seen as resting on collective bargaining supported by public policy, has increasingly come to be framed in terms of individual legal rights, enforceable before judicial forums such as employment tribunals. This dramatic shift towards juridification of the individual employment relationship has not only contributed towards significant changes to the institutional `landscape of employment relations in Britain, but also carries important implications for the future of employment law and regulation in `the home of collective bargaining. This comprehensive evaluation of current institutional reality and trends prepared to mark the 30th anniversary of the Advisory Conciliation and Arbitration Service (Acas) provides a unique look inside the key institutions of British employment relations. Each contributor leading academics and senior practitioners, all closely associated with particular institutions locates their institution in terms of purpose, origins, and context, discusses its structure, governance and composition, and assesses its operation, considering current challenges and future direction. In the course of examining issues relating to institutional choice and roles, the presentations offer contemporary views on the impact of decentralisation and the shrinking of collective bargaining, decline in trade union membership and strength, and the political effects of increasing global competition. The influence of EU social policy initiatives upon British legislative policy is identified, while attention is drawn to the consequences of an increased feminisation of the workforce, along with an increasing incidence of `non-standard workers and continuing service sector growth. Set alongside the evidence of decline in manufacturing, restructuring of the public sector, and the growth of the SME sector, this volume demonstrates the remarkable pressures for change which have impacted upon the institutions of British employment relations over the past thirty years. These essays offer an especially valuable mix of expert independent discussion along with personal insights gained from direct involvement in the operation of the key bodies. As a much-needed overview and basis for evaluation of the current institutional map of British employment relations, as well as a contemporary consideration of lessons to be drawn from the changing institutional face of employment relations in Britain, this book will be of inestimable value to policy-makers and practitioners in the field, as well as to students, academics, and more generally interested observers of the British experience.

All Change at Work?
All Change at Work?

Author: Alex Bryson

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2002-09-11

Total Pages: 438

ISBN-13: 1134625138

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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.

Challenges of European Employment Relations
Challenges of European Employment Relations

Author: Roger Blanpain

Publisher: Kluwer Law International B.V.

Published: 2008-08-29

Total Pages: 284

ISBN-13: 904114529X

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Has European economic and market integration curtailed the autonomy of national industrial relations actors and institutions? Or has it reinforced their roles in securing much-needed economic adjustment? This important book offers a deeply-informed comparative perspective on these questions, drawing on empirical research on changing conditions within and beyond the EU. The book builds on papers presented at the 8th European Regional Congress of the International Industrial Relations Association, held in the UK in September 2007. The authors are leading academic authorities from Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Germany, The Netherlands, Norway, Spain, and the United Kingdom. With detailed attention to such pervasive factors as the consequences of EU enlargement, the shift from manufacturing to services, changes in the gender composition and demographic profile of the labour force, and the growing influence of multinational companies, the authors address such issues as the following: • response of national employment regulatory traditions to globalization, privatization, outsourcing and budgetary pressures; emergence of new forms of competitive advantage for both employers and employees; impact of EU-mandated information and consultation mechanisms; possibility of international union action and transnational solidarity; ‘flexicurity’ and the changing demographics of the labour force; gender democracy in trade unions; trade union mergers; statutory minimum conditions as an alternative to collective bargaining; regulation or culture change to promote equality; treatment of posted and migrant workers within increasingly transnational labour markets; growth in variable pay systems; and possible rebirth of vocational training systems and apprenticeships. Offering in-depth comparative insights into the way in which national and international systems of employment relations are evolving rapidly in the face of cross-cutting pressures for change, this book illuminates a vastly complex state of affairs. In practical terms, its many insights into how current trends affect specific working conditions open the way to new initiatives in developing and maintaining a just and equitable employment relations regime for Europe and beyond.

The Evolution of the Modern Workplace
The Evolution of the Modern Workplace

Author: William Brown

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2009-08-27

Total Pages: 428

ISBN-13: 1139479687

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The last thirty years have seen the world of work transformed in Britain. Manufacturing and nationalized industries contracted and private services expanded. Employment became more diverse. Trade union membership collapsed. Collective bargaining disappeared from much of the private sector, as did strikes. This was accompanied by the rise of human resource management and new employment practices. The law, once largely absent, increasingly became a dominant influence. The experience of work has become more pressured. The Evolution of the Modern Workplace provides an authoritative account and analysis of these changes and their consequences. Its main source is the five Workplace Employment Relations Surveys that were conducted at roughly five-year intervals between 1980 and 2004. Drawing on this unique source of data, a team of internationally renowned scholars show how the world of the workplace has changed, and why it has changed, for both workers and employers.

Encyclopedia of Human Resource Management
Encyclopedia of Human Resource Management

Author: Stewart Johnstone

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

Published: 2023-02-14

Total Pages: 471

ISBN-13: 180037884X

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Thoroughly revised and updated to include contemporary terms that have gained importance such as furlough, unconscious bias, platform work, and Great Resignation, this second edition of the Encyclopedia of Human Resource Management is an authoritative and comprehensive reference resource comprising almost 400 entries on core HR areas and concepts.

Employment Law in Context
Employment Law in Context

Author: David Cabrelli

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2016

Total Pages: 969

ISBN-13: 0198748337

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A contextual, rigorous treatment of employment law, featuring a running case example to show exactly how the law works, and including extracts from key cases and source materials.

Regulating Employment Industrial Relations and Labour Law Intl Co
Regulating Employment Industrial Relations and Labour Law Intl Co

Author: Blanpain

Publisher: Kluwer Law International B.V.

Published: 2010-01-01

Total Pages: 226

ISBN-13: 904113199X

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The complexity of employment arrangements in various countries tends to make it difficult to understand them. Nevertheless, it is important to 'take stock' periodically, particularly from an internationally comparative perspective. This remarkable book is a giant step in that direction. It is especially valuable in the context of increasing globalisation. For each of nine key jurisdictions - the European Union, Germany, Sweden, United Kingdom, United States of America, Canada, New Zealand, Australia and Japan - experts present detailed information and analysis on key issues, shedding valuable light on trends in such specific areas of employment relations as the following: * atypical work and flexible work arrangements; * dispute settlement procedures such as negotiation, conciliation, mediation, arbitration and other forms of governmental or judicial intervention; * job security, anti-discrimination and gender equality; * recognition of unions and employers' associations and forms of employee representation; * how collective bargaining is regulated, whom the collective agreements cover and what they contain; * parental leave and childcare policy; * the capacity of individual agreements to override or not override collective agreements; * minimum wage levels; * overtime and shift work; and * paid leave entitlements. As a general framework, Part 1 offers an insightful summary of the underpinnings of current analysis of globalization, including discussion of the varieties of capitalism thesis, the divergence/convergence debate (with its models of bipolarization, clustering and hybridization), and elements of historical and political-economic path dependency in various cultures. The information gathered here furthers understanding of the increasing 'disconnect' between the prevailing institutional framework for employment relations and the sweeping changes that are taking place in the world of work. With this book's analysis, practitioners and policymakers will be able to overcome their dated assumptions and more effectively accommodate each others' interests in the face of the complex mix of continuity and change that they are confronting. The team of authors are experts in these countries. They are active in policy or legal analysis, business and/or scholarship.

Industrial Relations
Industrial Relations

Author: Trevor Colling

Publisher: John Wiley & Sons

Published: 2010-09-07

Total Pages: 455

ISBN-13: 1444323113

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This revised edition of Industrial Relations: Theory and Practice follows the approach established successfully in preceding volumes edited by Paul Edwards. The focus is on Britain after a decade of public policy which has once again altered the terrain on which employment relations develop. Government has attempted to balance flexibility with fairness, preserving light-touch regulation whilst introducing rights to minimum wages and to employee representation in the workplace. Yet this is an open economy, conditioned significantly by developing patterns of international trade and by European Union policy initiatives. This interaction of domestic and cross-national influences in analysis of changes in employment relations runs throughout the volume.

British Industrial Relations
British Industrial Relations

Author: Gill Palmer

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2024-10-21

Total Pages: 257

ISBN-13: 1040121543

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British Industrial Relations (1983) provides a comprehensive and balanced approach to British industrial relations, an often controversial subject with a variety of academic interpretations which achieved a large significance in national politics. The author draws on political and social theory to explain both the state of British industrial relations in the 1980s and the conflicting prescriptions for change. Trade unions and collective bargaining are placed in the context of the inevitable development of group negotiation within complex organisations. The often neglected importance of management strategy in the design of work and in the development of the British system is emphasised and different interpretations on the state’s role in industrial relations are fully explored. This book has a broad ranging approach, using the latest developments in political, labour process, trade union and organisation theories relevant to the understanding of industrial relations. British institutions are the main focus of study but illustrations from Japan, the USA and Germany are also used and the importance of an historical perspective is underlined.

The Equal Opportunities Revolution
The Equal Opportunities Revolution

Author: James Heartfield

Publisher: Watkins Media Limited

Published: 2017-05-16

Total Pages: 374

ISBN-13: 1910924830

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At the start of the 1980s no employer had heard of an "equal opportunities policy" - by the end three-quarters of all those in work were covered by one. This is the story of the "equal opportunities revolution" at work. It explains why bosses took equal opportunities on board just as they were tearing up union rights at work. It asks why greater rights led to greater inequality, and why advances in race and sex equality ran alongside social inequality. It shows how the equal opportunities revolution became the general model for workplace relations in the decades that followed, and how it did not challenge, but rather perfected the liberalisation of labour law. The right won the economic war, the left won the culture war - and this book explains how.