INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS JOURNAL最新文献

In many European democracies, political parties and trade unions have developed a long-standing relationship. This relationship has certainly evolved over the last few decades as both actors have had to adapt to changes in their constituencies. This study examines the evolving dynamics between political parties and trade unions across Europe, with a focus on both Western and Central-Eastern European contexts. By utilising data from the Comparative Interest Group survey, we investigate how factors such as political power, resources, and ideological alignments influence these interactions. Our findings reveal that unions prioritise contacts with ruling parties, underscoring the importance of political access. Despite assumptions, financial resources alone do not determine engagement frequency, as well as ideological alliances. We also highlight differing contact levels influenced by political systems, showing that pluralist environments foster more interaction compared to corporatist settings. This research contributes valuable insights into the adaptive strategies of trade unions in contemporary democracies, reflecting on historical ties and varying institutional landscapes.

Recent contributions within the disconnected capitalism literature argue that personal financial insecurity related to household indebtedness and pension fund financialisation is positively associated with time-related underemployment. This is because financially insecure workers are more likely to accept worsening working conditions on the fear of losing their job and defaulting on their debts. Using quarterly data from the Eurostat for the period 2008Q3–2020Q4, this paper shows that the persistent rise of time-related underemployment rates in postcrisis Greece is robustly associated with the household debt ratio and pension fund investments in financial derivatives. We also demonstrate that while the effects of financialisation are similar for men and women, the employment-tied and gendered nature of social benefits in the country has disproportionately affected women in the context of austerity. The paper concludes that personal financial insecurity is a key missing factor behind rising time-related underemployment in Greece since 2008.

Union density has fallen dramatically in many western European countries over recent decades, with grave implications for unions' strength and legitimacy regarding collective bargaining. Free-riding remains an ongoing challenge in maintaining union membership levels, as covered nonunion workers generally receive the same collectively bargained terms as union members. To help resolve this problem, we propose a union default that would, as a legal requirement, automatically enrol all workers under coverage as union members in the first instance, but with a subsequent right to opt-out. We use survey evidence from New Zealand to suggest that nearly half these nonunion workers working for unionised employers would retain membership if defaulted. A default would be effective at converting nonunion workers into union members partly because it would shift the norms of the workplace from nonunion to union, as per social custom theory.

The article focuses on the factors that explain the emergence and accomplishments of the ‘FairTube’ campaign, which was initiated in 2019 by the YouTubers Union and the German metalworkers' union IG Metall, and was later established as a formalised German association (“Verein”). While the initial focus of the campaign was on changing the monetisation rules, which YouTube had altered very abruptly in 2017, the initiative subsequently focused on improving the working conditions of content creators. Methodologically, we deploy a mixed-methods design that flanks media discourse network analysis through qualitative content analysis of expert interviews, which helps to identify the interaction between these established and new actors in the governance and interest representation in the digital platform economy. Our findings reveal a ‘hybrid form of governance’ that, by aligning ideologies and combining sources of power, was able to accomplish most of the goals set out by the campaign (avoiding arbitrary platform decisions, increasing transparency and communication, securing creators' income). We conclude that new forms of collective action, i.e. the coalition between “old” and “new” organizations, may mitigate particular negative consequences of the platform economy. The study seeks to contribute to a better understanding of platform work and to the concepts of power, ideas, and interests in industrial relations.

This paper analyses new forms of strike data published as a result of the Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Act. An unintended consequence of the Act is that we now have quantifiable data at the micro level, which has previously been unavailable, that helps us understand the various mechanisms at play in individual strikes. We analyse two disputes from the 2022-2023 strike wave in detail (in NHS England and on the UK's rail system), and provide the first academic analysis of these new forms of strike data. The aim of the paper is to examine what these new forms of data can tell us about strikes using examples of two disputes. While the paper is not designed to be an in-depth study of the strikes themselves, the use of these novel forms of data enable new insights into membership participation in strikes, and builds upon long-standing analyses of the relative power resources of unions.

Existing Industrial Relations (IR) research suggests that Private Equity (PE) takeovers may have profound effects on the target firm's industrial relations policies and practices, most notably in terms of security of tenure and relative proclivity to engage in redundancies. This study supplements the literature by exploring the effects of PE takeovers on other firms in the same industry. We find that PE takeovers increase the sensitivity of target firms to wage costs; when there is an upward pressure on wages, they respond by shedding jobs to a greater extent than their non-acquired same-sector competitors. However, workers in non-acquired firms were less likely to move to a firm that had been acquired by PE, even if pay was more than sectoral rates. Even if there is a strong emphasis on restraining wage costs in the target firm, PE takeovers do not necessarily lead to the degradation of employment practices elsewhere in the sector; rather, they may provide competitors opportunities to entice talented and skilled employees from the target firm.

Repeated short-term sickness absence has been linked to poor psychosocial work environment. However, the handling of short-term sickness absence is often driven by a formal monitoring of employees' absence records rather than by a focus on enhancing well-being at work. In this paper, based on interview data, we found that repeated short-term sickness absence was primarily addressed as an individual employee issue, with limited focus on prevention through improvements in the work environment such as fostering trust between employees' and managers and promoting overall well-being at work.