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This chapter discusses changes in the characteristics of workplaces over the period covered by the Workplace Industrial Relations Survey (WIRS) series in Great Britain. The discussion begins by examining trends in the types of activity undertaken within workplaces and the nature of their ownership. This is followed by a discussion of the size of workforce across the population, the proportion of workplaces that form part of wider organizations, the size of such organizations and the degree of foreign ownership. Trends in the age and location of the population of workplaces are also considered, as is the spread of microtechnology. The chapter ends by looking at changes in the composition of workforce. The discussion shows that there have been many important changes in the characteristics of the population of workplaces since the beginning of the WIRS series, as well as notable patterns of stability. Some of the changes observed were increase in the domination of service industries over manufacturing in the private sector, rise in the incidence of small firms, greater degrees of foreign ownership, and development of a more youthful population in general. In addition, workforces are nows somewhat less segregated by either gender or ethnicity. Use of certain non-standard forms of employment such as part-time work and short fixed-term contracts has become much more commonplace.

This article introduces the book All Change at Work? British Employment Relations 1980-1998, As Portrayed by the Workplace Industrial Relations Survey Series by Neil Millward, Alex Bryson and John Forth. The data used in this book comes from the 1998 Workplace Employee Relations Survey conducted in Great Britain. The aim of this book is to present and interpret those data and, in so doing, provide an informed assessment of the changes that have taken place in workplace employment relations in Great Britain between 1980 and 1998. Chapter 2 discusses changes in the characteristics of workplaces over the period covered by the Workplace Industrial Relations Survey series. Chapter 3 looks in detail at the management of employees. The extent of employee voice at work forms the focus for Chapter 4, which looks at the prevalence of structures that enable employees to influence the actions of their employer. Chapter 5 pursues a different, but related, theme by examining how the nature of union representation has changed among workplaces that still contain the basic structure of joint regulation. Chapter 6 focuses on what, for many, is the most central aspect of the employment contract: pay and rewards. The final chapter builds upon the evidence compiled within the rest of the book in examining the extent to which one can identify particular trajectories of change throughout the survey series: the decline of joint regulation or the development of a non-union model, for example. The chapter also assesses the prospects for the future in the light of the current policy environment.

Presents the technical appendix of the book All Change at Work? British Employment Relations 1980-1998, As Portrayed by the Workplace Employment Relations Survey Series by Neil Millward, Alex Bryson and John Forth.

This article outlines the changes in employee relations management in Great Britain for 1980-1998. First, workplace employee relations were dealt with in 1998 by different sorts of managers from those responsible in 1980. For a start, more of them were women. More importantly, employee relations were less likely to be handled by generalist managers and more likely to be handled by employee relations specialists or line managers Nevertheless, specialists and non-specialists alike were dealing in 1998 with much the same set of issues as they, or their predecessors, were dealing with in the early 1980s. Second, affiliation to an employers' association continued to contract in the 1980s and, more slowly, in the 1990s. Pay determination was the issue on which the most binding forms of multi-employer co-ordination hinged. The declining extent to which workplaces were affected by multi-employer agreements is therefore a potent measure of decentralization. Third, trade union membership declined during the period. Membership declines were apparent in all types of workplace, including those where management continued to subscribe to the principle of joint regulation. Membership renewal failed to materialize as newer workplaces with no or few members replaced those with high density. These and other changes can be attributed to the policies implemented and advanced by Conservative governments as well as broader changes in the nature of the economy and the labor market.

This chapter focuses on pay determination and reward systems in Great Britain for the period of 1980-1998. The first section of the chapter begins with an overview of the pay determination during the period covered by the Workplace Industrial Relations Survey series. Next, it looks at the causes of the various changes in the nature and level of pay determination more clearly by examining each of the three broad sectors of the economy: manufacturing and extraction, service industries and the public sector. In doing so, it becomes much easier to identify the influence of numerous factors such as the collapse of particular industry-level agreements, the abolition of the wages councils and the establishment of pay review bodies. The second section of the chapter looks, in detail, at the coverage of collective bargaining, including those workplaces where it was not the dominant form of pay setting. In doing so, it considers the different systems of payment and reward that managers have to deal with as well as the manner by which payments are dispersed within workplaces. These include incentive pay, profit-related pay schemes, share-ownership schemes. The chapter concludes that the 1980s and 1990s saw major changes in the structures through which pay was determined, but far less change in the types of payment systems that fixed the details of individuals' pay packets.

This chapter considers the strength of trade unions within workplaces continuing to recognize them for pay bargaining purposes during the period of 1980-1998 in Great Britain. The first half of the chapter begins with an analysis of union density in workplaces with recognized union, referred to as unionized workplaces. It also includes consideration of management support for unions through the closed shop and management recommendations of membership, as well as the incidence of check-off arrangements for the payment of union dues. Next, the worker side of the relationship is tackled with consideration of the nature and number of union representatives. The second half of the chapter assesses a range of measures used to gauge the changing influence of unions in unionized workplaces over time. It considers some indicators of the way in which recognized unions participate in the joint regulation of the workplace through agreement to procedures and the appointment of employee representatives to consultative committees and health and safety committees. Then, it reviews what has happened to the proportion of employees covered by collective agreements, and the scope of bargaining. Finally, the chapter considers the incidence of industrial action over time.

This chapter of focuses on employee voice in the workplace by looking at the structures that enable employees to influence the actions of their employer for the period 1980-1998 in Great Britain. It describes and analyzes the changes in the main indicators of employee representation at work, which are: union presence, union membership density, union recognition, the presence of workplace representatives and the presence of a consultative committee or works council. It proceeds by looking at how the various combinations of direct and indirect participation have varied through time and across different types of workplace. At the end of the chapter, it will be show how various arrangements for employee voice are currently associated with employees' perceptions of how responsive management is to their views and suggestions and how successful managers are in creating a climate of fairness at work. The chapter concludes that employees have not lost their voce in the workplace. But the nature of communication channels between employees and managers have changed a great deal. There is a major shift from channels involving representatives, usually able to call upon the information and resources of independent trade unions, to channels where employees communicated directly with management, largely on occasions and on terms set by management themselves.

This chapter considers the management of employee relations for the period 1980-1998, concentrating on the way in which workplace-level employee relations management has developed over time. The first half of the chapter begins with the issue of who manages employee relations, identifying the incidence of employee relations specialists and a new breed, the human resources manager. Then it considers whether employee relations management is emerging as a profession, looking at trends in qualifications, job tenure and experience, and time spent on employee relations matters. Next, it looks at the growing proportion of women employee relations managers and how they differ from men doing the same job. In the second half, the chapter tackles some broader issues facing employee relations. It considers the changing role of employee relations managers, looking at the responsibilities they have, their role as managers of information, and the advice they seek in performing their jobs. Before concluding, the chapter looks at the status and influence of employee relations managers. It concludes by identifying trends in employee relations management.

This article focuses on employment relations. The time-series dataset provides successive cross-section estimates, or "snapshots," of employment relations at the time of each survey. In the first instance, the time-series data enables one to look at the aggregate picture, tracing the degree of change or stability that is evident among the whole population of workplaces over a period. One is then able to look at change within particular sectors of the economy, such as the private sector, manufacturing industries or smaller workplaces. If being in manufacturing is associated with recognising trade unions, the shift from manufacturing to services might produce a net change in the aggregate level of union recognition, even if workplaces with similar characteristics continue to behave in the same way. Substantial developments have occurred in the economy, in the labour market and in the political and legal spheres over the past 18 years. The election of the Conservative government in 1979 signalled the beginning of a period of policy reform that was to change the face of the British labour market.

Lists the conventions used in tables and text of the book All Change at Work? British Employment Relations 1980-1998, As Portrayed by the Workplace Industrial Relations Survey Series by Neil Millward, Alex Bryson and John Forth.

Acknowledges the people and organizations that contributed to the completion of the 1998 Workplace Employee Relations Survey and the book All Change at Work? British Employment Relations 1980-1998, As Portrayed by the Workplace Industrial Relations Survey Series by Neil Millward, Alex Bryson and John Forth.

This article introduces the book All Change at Work? British Employment Relations 1980-1998, As Portrayed by the Workplace Industrial Relations Survey Series by Neil Millward, Alex Bryson and John Forth. This book is the latest publication to report results from the 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 focuses on the changes in the labor management practices in Great Britain through the analysis of surveys and panel discussions conducted through 1980-1998. Specifically, it deals with contemporary issues such as new configurations of labor management practices, decline in trade union representation, and nature of union organization.