Investigates employee participation in different national settings and the relationship between participation and a nation's industrial relations system. Includes a discussion of the convergence of labour relations systems impelled by Community law and looks at employee participation and technological change. Covers the period from the 1950s to 1993.
As issues of employee involvement and participation once more evoke considerable controversy, this textbook provides an accessible overview of the main strands, perspectives and debates in current thinking and practice. It adopts a comparative international approach, addressing developments in the United Kingdom and mainland Europe, the United States and elsewhere. The authors identify two main strands of evolution: one driven by managerial interests in enhancing and controlling employee commitment and performance; the other deriving from employees' attempts to influence high-level organizational decision-making. In particular, they examine and analyze: the background of key concepts, issues and philosophies underpinning these different strands; the range of current employee involvement methods, from the individualistic and management-led to more regulated collective approaches; and the rationales and responses of employees, unions and employers to the various initiatives. Throughout the book the authors evaluate the contrasting philosophies and practices in the context of the rapidly evolving organizational and economic landscapes of advanced industrialized countries. Relevant factors include declines in manufacturing industries, deregulation of labour markets, intensifying international competition and the ever-increasing globalization of enterprise.
Employee participation encompasses the range of mechanisms used to involve the workforce in decisions at all levels of the organization - whether direct or indirect - conducted with employees or through their representatives. In its various guises, the topic of employee participation has been a recurring theme in industrial relations and human resource management. One of the problems in trying to develop any analysis of participation is that there is potentially limited overlap between these different disciplinary traditions, and scholars from diverse traditions may know relatively little of the research that has been done elsewhere. Accordingly in this book, a number of the more significant disciplinary areas are analysed in greater depth in order to ensure that readers gain a better appreciation of what participation means from these quite different contextual perspectives. Not only is there a range of different traditions contributing to the research and literature on the subject, there is also an extremely diverse sets of practices that congregate under the banner of participation. The handbook discusses various arguments and schools of thought about employee participation, analyzes the range of forms that participation can take in practice, and examines the way in which it meets objectives that are set for it, either by employers, trade unions, individual workers, or, indeed, the state. In doing so, the Handbook brings together leading scholars from around the world who present and discuss fundamental theories and approaches to participation in organization as well as their connection to broader political forces. These selections address the changing contexts of employee participation, different cultural/ institutional models, old/'new' economy models, shifting social and political patterns, and the correspondence between industrial and political democracy and participation.
Employee participation and voice (EPV) concern power and influence. Traditionally, EPV has encompassed worker attempts to wrest control from employers through radical societal transformation or to share control through collective regulation by trade unions. This book offers a controversial alternative arguing that, in recent years, participation has shifted direction. In Employee Voice and Participation, the author contends that participation has moved away from employee attempts to secure autonomy and influence over organisational affairs, to one in which management ideas and initiatives have taken centre stage. This shift has been bolstered in the UK and USA by economic policies that treat regulation as an obstacle to competitive performance. Through an examination of the development of ideas and practice surrounding employee voice and participation, this volume tracks the story from the earliest attempts at securing worker control, through to the rise of trade unions, and today’s managerial efforts to contain union influence. It also explores the negative consequences of these changes and, though the outlook is pessimistic, considers possible approaches to address the growing power imbalance between employers and workers. Employee Voice and Participation will be an excellent supplementary text for advanced students of employment relations and Human Resource Management (HRM). It will also be a valuable read for researchers, policy makers, trade unions and HRM professionals.
The eighteen essays in this volume concentrate on the issues surrounding workers' participation, the area of industrial relations uppermost in Marco Biagi's thinking at the time of his assassination in March 2002. The trend toward ever greater employee involvement in managerial decisionmaking has been growing in Europe for over a decade, to a significant extent as a result of Biagi's work. From the start, he clearly discerned that the key to quality of work was worker participation. This book stands not merely as a homage, but as evidence that Biagi's assassination will not affect the progress he was making. In what amounts to an integrated series of recommendations for further European legislation on workers' participation in industrial relations, the authors analyse and evaluate the following: experience gained from implementation of the European Works Council Directive and the European Company Statute Directive; implications of the new Directive on Information/Consultation in National Undertakings and of the European Forum on the Financial Participation of Workers; and experience in a variety of national contexts, including those of Japan, Italy, France, Belgium, the United Kingdom, Germany, Russia, Poland, and Slovenia. In the final analysis, employee involvement--when it is a genuine commitment on the part of all stakeholders--is seen as a sharing of cultural values that successfully reconciles efficiency and social justice. Those who believe this is a goal worth achieving, for reasons both economic and social, will recognize in this book an immensely valuable contribution.
This study examines the diverse industrial employee relations within both the British and French gas industries, and seeks to set these relationships against the backdrop of what is perceived as the Europeanization of industrial relations.
A sustainable European workforce has become increasingly relevant in our present day and age. Flexibility and job insecurity are omnipresent; organizational workforces are displaying growing diversity with respect to age, gender, ethnicity and family status; and Europe's welfare states are delegating more and more responsibility for the well-being of workers to employers. Now more so than ever, organizations need to consider investing in workers to improve their performance and level of satisfaction. These investments can take many forms, including flexible work arrangements, training plans, child-related policies and health programs. The crucial question is how to make this happen. Why do some organizations invest more and others less in their employees? Why do some employees make use of these investments and while others do not? Why do such investments sometimes improve employee performance and satisfaction and sometimes not? This book addresses precisely these questions. The book contributes a new, large-scale survey of 259 organizations, 869 work units, and 11,011 employees in six diverse economic sectors in the Bulgaria, Finland, Germany, Hungary, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Sweden and UK to study the causes and consequences of organizational investments. This book appeals to undergraduate and postgraduate students, researchers and lecturers in the fields of Sociology, Business and Management, and Organizational Studies. It will also be useful for practitioners of Human Resource Management and others interested in workforce sustainability.
What role will the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights play in the future for labour law in the European Union Member States? How could it affect industrial relations in these states? These are crucial questions to which a group of eminent European labour law professors and researchers seek to offer some answers in their new book European Labour Law and the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights. To recall the story behind the Charter: in December 2000, this text was not enshrined as an integral part of the new EU Nice treaty, but was merely "proclaimed", to the disappointment of many, so that its legal status remained ambiguous. The draft future Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe is clearer, insofar as it incorporates the Charter as its Part II, thereby giving it a binding character - but nobody knows whether, or when, this Treaty-Constitution will actually see the light of day and, if it does, in what shape. Yet now, as the discussions about a future EU constitution are regaining momentum, the European Court of Justice has also had its word on the role of the Charter. It has declared that "the principal aim of the Charter is to reaffirm rights" which are legally binding due to their provenance from other sources recognised by EU law (Case 540/03, European Parliament v. Council, decided 27 June 2006). The thus strengthened Charter includes core labour law and industrial relations provisions, covering matters such as freedom of association, collective bargaining and collective action, information and consultation within the undertaking, fair and just working conditions and protection in the event of unjustified dismissal. The book European Labour Law and the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights is a detailed commentary on the provisions of the Charter which guarantee these and other fundamental rights that are binding upon the EU institutions and the Member States. The commentary throws light on the potential of the EU Charter to shape the future labour law of Europe, an understanding of which is important for labour lawyers and industrial relations professionals, as well as for academics and policy makers in the Member States and in the EU institutions.
