Badigannavar, V. and Kelly, John (2011) Partnership and organizing: an empirical assessment of two contrasting approaches to union revitalization in the UK. Economic and Industrial Democracy 32 (1), pp. 5-27. ISSN 0143-831X.
Abstract
The Trades Union Congress (TUC) in Britain has been advocating two contrasting approaches to union revitalization namely: ‘labour–management partnership’ and ‘union organizing’. Using a case study of a public services union this article examines empirically the prospects of union revival offered by these two contrasting approaches. Public services with relatively high union density should offer better prospects for union revival through partnership. However, the authors’ findings indicate that even in public services, partnership was not associated with management’s support for union recruitment, better facility time provisions for union representatives, lower worker grievances or union membership gains. Rank-and-file organizing, on the other hand, was associated with lower worker grievances, greater worker satisfaction with the union, higher worker involvement in union activities and union membership gains. Overall, the findings question the ‘mutual gains’ assertions of partnership advocates and lend support to the critics of partnership who propose an alternative organizing approach to union revitalization.
Metadata
| Item Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Keyword(s) / Subject(s): | industrial relations, labour—management cooperation, partnership, union organizing |
| School: | Birkbeck Faculties and Schools > Faculty of Business and Law > Birkbeck Business School |
| Research Centres and Institutes: | Birkbeck Centre for British Political Life |
| Depositing User: | Administrator |
| Date Deposited: | 26 Jan 2011 10:09 |
| Last Modified: | 02 Aug 2023 16:51 |
| URI: | https://eprints.bbk.ac.uk/id/eprint/2041 |
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