This article draws on two Irish case studies to examine the nature and outcomes of voluntary workplace partnership (WP), and the conditions affecting its durability. We found that WP delivered mutual gains for all stakeholders at Aughinish Alumina (AAL), which were quite equally divided. While WP delivered most gains for management at Waterford Crystal (WC), and some for the union, worker gains were less. The WC partnership broke down after 10 years, but the AAL partnership continues. Voluntarist mutual gains partnership is feasible, but success and durability depends on specific clusters of contextual conditions, notably management support, a quality-focused competitive strategy, insulation from market pressures, union postures, vertically aligned bundles of mutual gains practices, institutional supports, emphasis on fairness, all party commitment to performance enhancement and capital-intensive technology. Conditions supporting WP were stronger at AAL than WC. More generally, as supports for WP in Ireland are weaker than retardants, we conclude that few mutual gains partnerships will take root, and even fewer will endure. Copyright (c) Blackwell Publishing Ltd/London School of Economics 2009.
This article examines the introduction of teamworking in the pharmaceutical industry. It was found that the organisation of work contained a mix of benefits and costs. The balance between the two was not random; employees' response was influenced by and connected to prior experiences and expectations, management's business strategies and approach to industrial relations and HRM. The article argues that there was a new dynamic, but one cast within the familiar terrain of management seeking to maintain control and generate consent.
Ireland is rare among advanced economies in not having statutory trade union recognition legislation for collective bargaining purposes. The matter has been a source of policy contention over the years with attempts to resolve it encapsulated in the so-called 'Right to Bargain' legislation, introduced in 2001. This legislation has sought to circumvent statutory recognition in Ireland by putting in place an alternative mechanism for unions to represent members in non-union firms where collective bargaining is not practiced. This review, based on a mixture of empirical and documentary evidence, demonstrates that IRAA 2001-4 was moderately successful for a short period in generating pay rises, improved employment conditions and better access to procedures for union members in non-unionised firms. Indeed, in some respects, it was a superior institutional mechanism to a statutory recognition regime.3
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