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Presents several labor research papers of the Royal Commission on Trade Unions and Employers' Associations in Great Britain. "The Role of Shop Stewards in British Industrial Relations"; "Disputes Procedures in British Industry"; "Industrial Sociology and Industrial Relations"; "Productivity Bargaining and Restrictive Labour Practices"; "Trade Union Structure and Government"; "Overtime Working in Britain."

This paper considers the relationship between union presence and labour productivity in a sample of British engineering firms. Rather than use a single indicator of union presence to determine union effects, several indicators of union presence are combined to form an index of union presence. Average union non-union effects on labour productivity estimated using this measure, or using a dummy variable indicating the presence of closed-shop arrangements, are found to be statistically insignificant. However, there is some variation around this average, and the union impact on value added per employee is found to depend significantly on firm size, the estimated effects being more negative in larger firms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The primary purposes of this paper are to investigate the hypothesis that differences in trade union wage coverage between industries are a significant source of variation in earnings between industries and to attempt to estimate any union--non-union earnings differential. The stimulus for this paper was the publication, in the New Earnings Survey (NES) for 1973, of a unique series of data which, inter alia, indicate the percentage of workers in each industry whose wages are subject to collective agreements of various kinds. Prior to the publication of the "collective agreement" (CA) data the only recently available data on the extent of trade union organization in the United Kingdom were the published data on aggregate trade union membership. At the industry group level of disaggregation these data must be allocated to industries in an ad hoc way. The result is that only limited reliance can be placed on them. Pencavel's (1974) recent study of the relative wage effects of trade unions, the only one for the United Kingdom, used such data and is therefore subject to the limitations of those data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the theory and practice of community unionism. It is now widely argued that if trade unions are to reach employees in small workplaces, those on part-time or temporary contracts, and women, black and ethnic minority workers, they need to sustain alliances beyond the walls of the workplace. Increasing the scale of political mobilization in this way can help secure trade union organization amongst new groups of workers while giving unions the power to raise questions of economic and social justice at a wider scale. After summarizing current developments in North America, the paper focuses on the situation in the UK in more detail. By highlighting the pioneering community unionism of the Iron and Steel Trades Confederation (ISTC) and Battersea and Wandsworth Trades Union Council (BWTUC), the paper explores the implications of community unionism for the future of trade unionism in the UK. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper exploits the Workplace Industrial Relations Survey from 1990 (WIRS3) to examine the determinants of workplace injuries for a sample of manufacturing establishments in the UK. A key focus of this paper is an assessment of the role played by union-appointed safety representatives and joint health and safety consultative committees in reducing the frequency of workplace accidents. We find that joint consultative committees, with all employee representatives appointed by unions, significantly reduce workplace injuries relative to those establishments where the management alone determine health and safety arrangements. However, an important role is also found for those joint consultative committees where no employee representatives are appointed by unions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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This article challenges the view, voiced especially by S. Ogilvie, that the ‘revisionist’ interpretation of the history of craft guilds is wide of the mark. The paper suggests that Ogilvie oversimplifies the revisionist position; ignores significant new work on European crafts; as a result underestimates the role of the guilds in England and the Low Countries; and incorrectly presents her own case study of the Württemberg worsted industry as typical of European industry in general. Rather than a return to what amounts to a generalized eighteenth-century debunking of the guilds, the paper pleads for more quantitative and regionally specified investigations of the economic contributions of craft guilds. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Workplace bullying is increasingly recognized as an important area of debate, particularly among researchers adopting a psychological perspective of work. This paper examines definitions of workplace bullying and explores less orthodox approaches within a British context. It focuses primarily on managers as perpetrators, and comments on the ‘bullying organization’, the relevance of human resource management and of gender. Context, the workplace balance of power, workers’ collective resistance and trade unions are then emphasized as significant factors and the potential for developing a contextualized, politicized and interdisciplinary approach to workplace bullying is suggested. Links with mobilization theory are explored, and the issue is also examined within the UK public sector environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers the extent to which union decline in Britain has been characterized by convergence or divergence in union membership rates for people with different personal and job characteristics. It compares individual union membership in 1975 and 2001 to identify some significant factors of convergence and divergence, which indicate temporal instability in the relationship between union membership and a number of its determinants. Identification of these factors of convergence and divergence should be useful to several parties, including industrial relations scholars and union organizers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we exploit the longitudinal element of the 1990 and 1998 Workplace Employee Relations Surveys for Britain to investigate the effect of unionism on establishment closings. Contrary to both recent U.S. research and long-standing British work, we find a strong positive association between two measures of unionism—union recognition for collective bargaining purposes and union coverage—and plant closings. This association is robust to the inclusion of highly detailed industry controls but is driven by plants that are pans of multiestablishment entities. No such relationship obtains in the case of single-plant enterprises. In explaining our findings, we address their consistency with the widely perceived reduction in the "disadvantages of (British) unionism" in recent years. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses the reasons that can be offered for the lower trade union membership rates of female part-time workers in the UK and focuses in particular on female part-timers' attitudes to trade unions. The findings are based on original research: 50 qualitative interviews with female part-time workers in the retail industry. The paper argues that female part-timers are supportive of the aims of the trade union movement and concludes that an integrated approach is necessary in order to understand part-timers' unionization rates. This includes structural factors, the approach that trade unions have taken towards part-time workers and attitudes towards trade unions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most of the literature on strikes has addressed one of four issues: causation, variation between sectors and countries, trends over time and the relationship between strikes and other forms of collective and individual protest. Very little research has addressed the equally important questions of strike outcomes and trade union membership despite the substantial body of research on the causes of trade union membership decline and strategies for membership growth. In this paper we reverse the usual sequence of trade union membership as a causal factor in the genesis of strikes and examine the impact of strikes on trade union membership levels. After setting out the relevant theory and hypotheses, we use a unique seven-year dataset of trade union membership joiners and leavers from a major British trade union with a substantial record of strike activity. Controlling for other possible determinants of trade union membership, we find that months in which there is strike action, whether national or local, are associated with a significantly higher rate of membership growth, measured both by the number of joiners and by the ratio of joiners to leavers. Data from new union members suggest that perceived injustice and perceived union effectiveness both motivate the decision to join. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the relationship between the pay of young men relative to adult men and the size of the youth cohort. The evidence presented indicates that during the post-war period, relative hourly earnings and relative union negotiated wage rates were both negatively influenced by the size of the youth cohort. This fact indicates that the relative availability of young workers influences their rates of pay even if these are the outcome of union negotiations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Existing studies of British trade union membership concentration have used the variance of logs and concentration ratio measures to show a tendency towards increasing concentration. This paper proposes the Herfindahl index as a more appropriate measure. The annual variation in concentration is analysed by means of the Herfindahl index and shows some fluctuation, particularly prior to 1947. Divergent trends are also shown for manual and white-collar membership concentration. An explanation of the aggregate trend and of these different occupational trends is advanced in terms of bargaining structure and the development of general unionism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Postwar concern about our industrial relations system has been dominated by three issues: pay; performance at workplace, company and national level; and industrial action. In each case the focus of interest is the link between the institutions, procedures and processes of the system and the outcomes that it generates. This paper evaluates evidence on these three issues for the last quarter-century, since the publication of the Donovan Report in 1968. Special attention is given to information from successive WIRSs. The evidence suggests that (i) industrial action is of minor importance; (ii) the industrial relations system can no longer be held to stymie company performance; (iii) the pay-jobs trade-off is as intractable as ever. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Some common management themes of the 1980s can be traced to Donovan and are revealed in practice by the 1990 Workplace Industrial Relations Survey. The paper considers the relevance of factors not endorsed by Donovan and concludes that, while in terms of industrial action in manufacturing -- the focus of concern in the mid-1960s -- there is evidence that more order and responsibility has been injected into industrial relations at plant level, we cannot yet maintain that inflationary dangers have been overcome. Collective bargaining is, however, now revealed as affecting only a minority in the private sector, and public services behavior looks increasingly out of step. The paper suggests that future surveys may therefore need to be recast to capture changing patterns of employer - employee relationships and their links to economic success. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent research has attempted to explain the impact of changes in union bargaining on the UK productivity miracle of the 1980s. A central part of these explanations is the concept of ‘effort’ or ‘working conditions’ as an observable component of negotiations. After reviewing the evidence, this paper shows that, in models where effort and wages are jointly negotiated in an environment of weakening union power, a positive effort-wage association—as observed in the early 1980s in the UK—emerges only under quite special assumptions. We show that the stylized facts are better explained by a model where effort and wages are bargained over sequentially. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines changes in union wage differentials in Britain between 1980 and 1984 on the basis of two comparable establishment-level data-sets. This period saw considerable economic and legislative change with potential effects on the outcomes of collective bargaining. Despite these changes, the mean differential shows little change between these two years, and what there is attributable to compositional changes, such as the shift away from the manufacturing sector and the downward shift in the establishment size distribution. The impact of the changes in unemployment and union coverage that took place is found to be minimal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What precisely is the impact of unionization on wages? The estimated union/non-union wage differential appears to fluctuate widely across various empirical studies. For example, based on a time-series estimation of a macro-model, Minford (1983) arrives at a figure of 70 per cent for the union mark-up. Studies based on industry cross-sections, however, appear to converge on 25 per cent for the United Kingdom. (See for example, Mulvey, 1976; Metcalf, 1977; Parsley, 1980. An exception is Mulvey and Abowd, 1980, who, after bias correction, arrive at about 6 per cent.) But many think that such cross-section studies are unreliable (e.g. Nickell, 1982) and misleading (e.g. Geroski and Stewart, 1982). In fact, concluding from his extensive survey, Lewis (1983) argues that, in general, industry cross-sections measure more than the union/non-union wage differential and therefore report an upward biased mark-up.
This paper has presented results on the union/non-union wage differential using individual-level cross-section data. It appears that, once account is taken of working characteristics such as job demands and job severity, the wage differential becomes smaller. The mark-up for 1968-1969 is slightly higher
than the figure of 8 per cent for 1975 arrived at by Stewart (1983). But it is still pretty close to his estimate, much lower than that of 25 per cent associated with most British industry cross-section studies, and bears no comparision to the time-series estimate of 70 per cent obtained by Minford (1983). However, it is worth bearing in mind that the sample size we have utilized is relatively small. Our results on job security variables and job benefit variables also suggest that it might be worthwhile concerning ourselves with an explanation of the "enlarged wage differential" instead of the conventional "pure wage differential". This should be possible with the availability of more information, which would enable us to impute monetary values to all... [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The 2004 Workplace Employment Relations Survey (WERS 2004) is the fifth in a series that spans almost a quarter of a century. This paper reflects on the history of this series, examines some of its key limitations and speculates on what future directions it might take. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Twelve years ago, Working for the Union presented an analysis of paid trade union officers working for UK unions. This paper returns to the themes of this earlier study using a fresh survey of union officers carried out in 2002. It provides limited support for two of the principal findings of the earlier research: that union work is performed differently by officers with different demographic and attitudinal characteristics and that union management systems can be effective in encouraging officers to respond to a new bargaining and organizing agenda. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the ‘mutual gains’ argument that employees benefit when teamworking is introduced alongside employee involvement in problem-solving and within a co-operative industrial relations climate. It reports worker outcomes from negotiations to introduce teamworking across two steelworks. Moderate union branches and employees at one of the works (Scunthorpe) co-operated with managers in joint problem-solving teams to redesign work. However, contrary to mutual gains expectations, greater job insecurity at this works coerced union branches to accept teamworking agreements containing extensive demanning and a pay increase for fewer employees. Employees perceived greater job security at the other works (Teesside) and by rejecting joint problem-solving with managers, militant union branches protected more jobs and extracted higher payment for teamworking. The findings indicate that job insecurity can lead co-operative unions down a slippery slope of coerced co-operation restricting employee benefits from teamworking. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the policies towards unions and collective representation in US multinationals in the UK. It uses detailed case-study data to argue that the dominant ‘ideological norms’ of anti-unionism in the US business system shape, but do not determine, the behaviour of US multinational subsidiaries in the UK. Within the structural constraints determined by such factors as sector, subsidiary policy and behaviour towards unions are the outcome of the complex interaction of the contrasting ‘macro-institutional’ forces of home and host business systems, and how these are filtered through the perceptions and interests of actors at different levels of the multinational. The resulting ‘micro-politics’ generates a complex and evolving pattern of union relations and non-unionism in US subsidiaries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports a study of two union organizing campaigns in the higher education sector. Using mobilization theory, we tried to explore why one campaign was more successful than the other as measured by membership growth and recruitment of activists. We found that in the more successful campaign, the union was perceived as more effective in voicing workers’ concerns, generated greater social cohesion and union identification amongst employees, was more successful in convincing employees that the university management was to blame for their problems and promoted amongst employees a stronger sense of union instrumentality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper tracks the rise in the percentage of employees who have never become union members (‘never-member’) since the early 1980s and shows that it is the reduced likelihood of ever becoming a member, rather than the haemorrhaging of existing members, that is behind the decline in overall union membership in Britain. We estimate the determinants of‘never-membership’ and consider how much of the rise can be explained by structural change in the labour market and how much by change in preferences among employees. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers the rapid decline in unionization that has occurred in Britain since the late 1970s. The overwhelming factor underpinning falling unionization was a failure to organize new establishments set up in the last twenty years or so, thus confirming that developments since 1990 represent a continuation of the pattern revealed in earlier work for the 1980-90 period. The sharpest falls in unionization occurred in private manufacturing establishments set up after 1980. Finally, there is some evidence that it is age of workplace, rather than age of worker, that is the critical age-based factor behind union decline. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper addresses the under-explored relationship between women's structures and union democracy and argues that women's structural progress is mediated by an enduring gendered oligarchy and an associated struggle to access power resources. It provides, first, an analysis over time of women's structures in UK unions, and second, a case-study analysis of the Manufacturing, Science and Finance (MSF) trade union. The analysis over time demonstrates women's progress in achieving positional power, but conceals the complexity of the way different resources are used to constrain and enable women trade unionists. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paradigm elaborated by John T. Dunlop in his landmark 1958 volume, Industrial Relations Systems, described this system as consisting of three actors: unions, employers and the State. Over the past few years, the call to expand upon the notion of actors in the industrial relations environment has become more and more widespread, but no one has yet suggested how this integration might be implemented. The main objective of this paper is to propose an analytical model of the actor and to explore how the latter could be applied in the case of public urban transit users. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the 1980s existing approaches to union government and democracy came under critical scrutiny. The virtues of decentralized systems were questioned; unions were strongly criticized for failing to represent the interests of women. These debates found clear expression in the negotiations leading to the creation of Unison. This paper examines the negotiations that created governing structures intended to preserve key features of the partner-unions' own democratic traditions and to respond to criticisms of their shortcomings. Most dramatically, Unison introduced a system of proportionality for women. It also provided systems of representation for the lower-paid and for other groups often excluded from union government. The conclusions examine whether the representative but complex system, likely to serve as a benchmark for the future, can live up to its claims. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the existence of effective equal pay legislation in the UK since 1975 aimed at eradicating pay discrimination, women are still in receipt of only 79.5 per cent of the hourly earnings received by men (EOR 1994b). Whitehouse (1992) claims that a centralized collective bargaining model is more likely to lead to equality for women in the labour market than a liberalized individualistic model. The model was tested at an aggregated level for 13 OECD countries. This article provides a case study which charts a trade union claim for equal pay over a period of ten years (1984-94), which may be seen as an examination of the Whitehouse proposition at a disaggregated level. The paper highlights the barriers to equality bargaining and analyses the case study to identify the criteria necessary for achieving equality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the initial studies of derecognition, many articles have focused on the issue, by and large pointing to a slow increase in derecognition. However, a small number have indicated it is actually much larger. This paper shows that derecognition is even greater than these suggest and that its nature has changed. The paper looks at the contexts of this rise but argues that derecognition should not yet be seen as a major problem facing the unions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The popular view that unions are bad for productivity and bad for economic performance has gained renewed academic support in a collection of papers by David Metcalf of the London School of Economics. Metcalfs work throws up new evidence for Britain on a controversial topic. This paper reviews that evidence and challenges Metcalfs interpretation of it. In developing his case, Metcalf refers to recent American research which shows that unionized firms in the USA tend to be more productive than their non-unionized counterparts. This alternative hypothesis, that unions may be a source of enhanced productivity, cannot be ruled out for Britain. A fresh interpretation of recent productivity trends in Britain is offered. In contrast to the static framework of economic analysis on which Metcalf draws, the dynamic structure of the economy is stressed. Under this view, collective institutions such as trade unions can play a key role in shaping economic development in one direction rather than another. By closing off routes to increased profitability via wage-cutting and labour intensification, unions can indirectly act as a spur to investment in new and more effective production systems. This can have long-term benefits for economic performance. As Metcalf notes, recent productivity gains appear to have been secured through labour intensification. But, given that investment in both capital stock and human resources remains low, the paper argues that longer-run economic dynamism has probably been impaired. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides a step in this direction by estimating the determinants of each of the bargaining levels that characterise British industrial relations. The paper broadly follows the approach of Deaton and Beaumont (1980) but adopts a more sophisticated econometric technique, the multinomial logit. This also has the advantage of allowing straightforward interpretation of the determinants of the probability of bargaining at the organisation level or at the establishment level, with the industry or national level as the base. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The economic and political climate of the 1980s has presented new challenges to trade unions in the United Kingdom as they seek to retain the levels of membership and influence they enjoyed in the late 1970s.
To understand changes in union membership, we need to know how workers view trade unions, why they join trade unions and what benefits they derive from membership. Surprisingly little research on this subject has been conducted in the U.K. The aim of this paper is to begin to fill this gap by presenting the results of a study designed to test competing explanations of union membership on a sample of union and non-union workers. A subsequent paper will examine attitudes towards the unions and management among the same sample. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is to investigate appropriate methods of modelling the business cycle theory of trade union growth, and to develop and estimate a specification of the business cycle model. In so doing, the paper draws on the important pioneering work of Bain and Elsheikh (1976) for the United Kingdom. (The results of extension of the Bain and Elsheikh model to 1980 are shown in Appendix A.). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

IN 1969, after twenty years during which union density in Britain stagnated, it began to increase and continued to do so for the next ten years, since when it has declined. This paper focusses on the upsurge in union density which occurred between 1969 and 1979; outlines its dimensions; analyses the factors which brought it about; and, in the light of this analysis, predicts the course of union growth in Britain during the 1980s. In addition, since the paper is a lineal descendant of three earlier papers published in this journal, (see Bain, 1966; Bain #x0026; Price, 1972; Price & Bain, 1976), it takes this opportunity to revise and update some of the data they presented and to reassess some of the arguments they advanced. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper presents an econometric model of trade union membership in the United Kingdom from 1896 to 1984, with the particular object of forecasting the decline of over 2 million in membership since 1979. The empirical model utilizes cyclical variables in the explanation of membership changes, and separates the short- and long-run dynamics explicitly. It proves to be a superior specification to previous 'business cycle' models estimated for the UK and predicts satisfactorily the recent decline in membership. The inclusion of a dummy variable reflecting the political complexion of the government is the only secular variable that significantly improves equation performance, but the composition of changes in employment plays no part in explaining the recent decline in membership. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the analysis of the role of trade unions in wage determination, British economists in the last decade or so have concentrated their efforts on the part played by unions in wage inflation. This paper is addressed to a somewhat different question: by how much have trade unions in Britain raised the pay of unionized manual workers relative to the pay of non-unionized manual workers? The derived estimates pertain not to a single occupation or industry, but are an economy-wide average and so, no doubt, conceal some important differences within particular sectors. Nevertheless an examination of the British experience affords a valuable opportunity to consider whether the institutional setting of collective bargaining acts as a neutral factor in determining the influence of unions on relative wages. Many observers have drawn attention to the existence in the high employment postwar British economy of two systems of industrial relations; in its Report, the Royal Commission on Trade Unions and Employers' Associations (1968) presents a cogent, if rather strong, summary description of the characterization of the two systems. On the one hand, there are those industries where average hourly earnings (net of overtime pay) do not differ substantially from the wage rates negotiated between representatives of the employers and of the unions at the industry level. On the other hand, there are those industries (the large engineering sector being the standard example) in which actual hourly earnings are considerably in excess of the industry-wide wage rate agreements and it is in these industries that, as far as the pay of manual workers is concerned, bargaining at the plant or firm level takes on paramount importance. These differences in the industrial relations systems may imply corresponding differences in the opportunities available to unions to secure an hourly earnings differential for their members vis--vis non-union workers. To investigate this possibility, a... [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the implications of introducing measured daywork (M.D.W.) for the institutions of collective bargaining. The decision to introduce M.D.W. will have been taken by a single firm for one or more of its plants. M.D.W. will be replacing an existing pay system based substantially on payment by results (P.B.R.), and that the main impetus for change has come from the degeneration of this system. Management is already engaged in some form of collective bargaining, though this may mean no more than that it recognizes the unions organizing the workers concerned and deals with their shop stewards.

Both the causes and the timing of changes in the normal daily or weekly hours of work have been the subject of considerable controversy. This paper proposes to discuss each of these problems in turn. The first section deals with the causes of changes in the normal hours by focusing attention on the reasons why unions press for reductions and why employers yield to such pressures. The remaining sections provide a theoretical model to account for the unusual timing of the changes in normal hours that have occurred in Great Britain in this century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Assesses the extent of shift of union relations with members toward a collectivist approach in the context of the UNISON-membership education programme, Return to Learn (R2L) in Great Britain. Concept of partnership; Features of the R2L; Association of the shift to `new unionism' with centralization of union power and decision making.

What demand-side and institutional factors raised the skilled wage premium over the 1980s in UK manufacturing? Using a panel of 80 industries over 1980-9, we find that (1) the average skill premium rose by around 13 percentage points; (2) computer introduction explains around 50% of this rise; (3) the growth in small firms and in contracting-out together explain around 20% of the rise; and (4) the fall in unionization explains around 15% of the rise. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Can a union be both democratic and administratively efficient, or are these goals always at odds? Building on the Webbs' focus on this critical question, this article analyses and compares the changing administrative policies and practices of US, UK and Australian trade unions over a 25‐year period. We conducted surveys of unions in all three countries to gather information on union policies and practices involving the unions' human resources, hiring, budgeting and strategic planning. Using these novel longitudinal data, we contribute to industrial relations scholarship by showing that unions have increasingly adopted formal, systematic practices in these areas. The article is grounded in theory and also has practical relevance given the important implications that our findings may have for the revitalization of unions in the three countries and beyond. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article comments on Peter Cappelli's article about the changes in the internal labour market (ILM) in the United States. Highlights of the article include an analysis of the growth of the ILM from the early part of the century and a description of its main features, discussion of factors influencing its apparent decline, documentation of evidence on the decline, and discourse on implications for the future of work and industrial relations. Cappelli documents internal contradictions of the changes in employee management and congruence of U.S. and Great Britain's dialectics.

This article examines changes in the financial performance of British trade unions in the early 1990s. Using survey data, it looks for a relationship between changes in financial management and changes in financial performance. Unions have continued to increase the concentration of financial decision-making and the sophistication of financial systems. However, financial concerns have become no more central to union decision-making and as a result financial management improvements do not lead to improvements in financial performance. We argue that new financial management techniques lead to increases in the cost base as union organizations become more centralized and bureaucratic. The implications for representative effectiveness are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines whether there is a link between establishment closure and union presence using data from the 1984-90 panel sample of establishments of the Workplace Industrial Relations Survey. It considers whether the notion that unions damage long term performance and ultimately force uncompetitive establishments to shut down is a reasonable one.
I can find no evidence whatsoever for this hypothesis. There is no evidence that establishment closure and union presence are positively correlated. The relationship is usually negative and sometimes significantly so.
These results are important for at least two reasons: (i) it does not seem that unions have detrimental effects that force establishments to close down in the long run; (ii) the idea that union establishments have been dying at a faster rate forms no part of the explanation of the sharp union decline observed in the 1980s. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Fewer than 50% of British employees now have their pay and conditions affected by collective pay-setting institutions -- collective bargaining or wages councils. This paper charts the historical context for the current picture of a decollectivized Britain, constructing a time series on coverage from 1895 to 1990. Extant estimates and sources of coverage data are presented and discussed alongside estimates drawn from a source used only sparingly before now -- the number of workers affected by changes in wage rates of national agreements or wage orders. The recent decline in collective bargaining coverage is the most prolonged ever recorded and has been noticeably steeper than the fall in union density, such that the proportion of British workers covered is lower now than in the 1940s. With the abolition of wages councils in 1993, collective pay-setting machinery now affects the pay and conditions of fewer workers than it did in the 1930s. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we analyse data from the 1980–4 WIRS panel for the light they can shed on the causes of the decline in aggregate trade union density in the UK. We argue that, contrary to conventional wisdom, intra-establishment union density did, on average, decline between 1980 and 1984. This suggests that a traditional compositional change story is untenable. We proceed to investigate the correlation of intra-establishment change with variables suggested by the various hypotheses advanced to explain declining density over the period. We find some evidence for an influence of intra-establishment compositional changes, but the most statistically significant variables are wages and unemployment. These take the wrong sign, however, to support the business cycle interpretation of falling aggregate union density. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper offers a preliminary investigation of union impact on investment in intangible capital. We first report evidence on the raw correlation between union membership density and R&D intensity. This suggests that higher union density is associated with increased innovative activity among an important subset of British industry. Attention then shifts to a consideration of whether the 'stylized facts' are indicative of a causal relation or are instead an artefact produced by the concentration of unions in those sectors evincing greater scope for R&D. We offer a simple cross-country test in which German R&D outlays serve as the benchmark or comparator. No support is adduced for the notion that unions cause higher R&D. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]