INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS JOURNAL最新文献

Unlike national trade unions, which operate within country-specific industrial relations systems, Global Unions have an international mandate and multi-scalar positionality. As a consequence, their repertoires of action and the opportunity structures available to them differ from those of national unions. Drawing on qualitative interview data and fieldwork observations, we propose a typology of different strategic domains used by the Global Union Federations (GUFs), which identifies their characteristics, scale and constraints. We then discuss two cases that illustrate how complementary strategies of (a) engaging in incremental innovation and (b) combining repertoires from different strategic domains have supported the GUFs' desire to play a stronger role as global labour governance intermediaries.

In the 1990s, German employers' associations started offering bargaining-free membership. Firms can be members without the obligation to adhere to a collective agreement. This study examines the characteristics of firms choosing a bargaining-free membership. It shows the influence of works councils, union density, foreign ownership, firm size and firm age.

In response to the COVID-19 virus, the UK government introduced the Job Retention Scheme in March 2020. The scheme, a novelty in the United Kingdom, provided income support to those furloughed from work. In this paper, we examine how individuals in several occupations and organisations experienced furlough and how they were treated during this enforced period of work absence. Beyond describing their experiences during the furlough, we examine how these experiences threatened and challenged their sense of dignity. Experientially we report on furlough as a time that elicited both delight and despair. The analysis of dignity relates to how treatment based on their employment status rendered many employees marginalised and cast adrift.

Existing research emphasises employer choice in determining the form and content of non-union employee representation (NER) structures. This article puts forward an alternative but complementary thesis: we conceptualise NERs as an ‘offer’ that employees can choose to either accept or reject, with several shades of settlement in between. This article argues that employee choice matters insofar as it determines the likely impact and sustainability of the NER offering. Contributing an original typology of employee choices and the associated prospects for the NER, we illustrate our argument via six workplace case studies assessing NER trajectory.

The end of free movement of labour from the European Union represents an unprecedented form of re-regulation of the UK labour market. This study explores how old and new actors engage with the sphere of migration, arguing that not only their economic interests but also different political agendas and meanings of regulation shape dialogue on migration regulation post-Brexit. Our findings suggest moving away from a unilateral, positive view of regulation in work and employment as well as to overcome any artificial distinction between the economic and the social implications of international migration.

This study examines precariousness among cultural workers during an ongoing crisis. A survey of Norway's largest trade union for performing artists 1 year into the pandemic shows that precariousness before the pandemic was amplified during the crisis. Lack of economic buffer and social benefits rendered economic insecurity most burdensome for those with precarious work arrangements. For future crises, we suggest that the authorities need to develop better targeted economic compensations for labour with precarious work arrangements.

Using a mixed-method research design involving interviews and a survey, we examined how union officials in Quebec perceive social movement unionism (SMU). We show that union officials view SMU as a multifaceted phenomenon with ideal and pragmatic dimensions. They are torn between strong support for the ideals of SMU and a practical reluctance to use members’ dues to provide services to non-members. Experience with civil society organisations mitigates this tension, encouraging union officials to defend the interests of everyone not only as an ideal, but also as a strategy that allows unions to protect members and unrepresented workers.

We examine the relationship between union membership and job satisfaction over the life-course using data from the National Child Development Study (NCDS) tracking all those born in Great Britain in a single week in March in 1958 through to age 55 (2013). We find there is a significant negative correlation between union membership and job satisfaction that is apparent across the life-course. Lagged union membership status going back many years is negatively correlated with current job satisfaction, though its effects become statistically non-significant when conditioning on current union membership status. These results provide a different perspective to longitudinal studies showing short-term positive responses to switches in membership status. They are consistent with earlier work showing that this cohort of workers, and others before them, have persistently lower job satisfaction as union members compared to their non-union counterparts.

We explore the role of nurses and their unions in workplace innovation through case study research on the introduction of Lean production (LP). We find that nurses' unions were not involved in the implementation of LP. We draw conclusions about how union power, identity and narratives help explain union strategic behaviour.

This article highlights the weakness of the UK's occupational health and safety infrastructure exposed by the COVID-19 pandemic. Utilising a political economy perspective, it captures the critical role of workplace union safety representatives in mitigating risk and contesting the expropriation of health and recommodification of labour, specifically inadequate sick pay.