The Trade Union Role in Career Development: a Membership Perspective

Abstract

This article explores how a highly unionised and professional occupational group, school teachers, want their trade union to be involved in their career development. By taking an apparently individualistic concept and considering it from a collective perspective, the article provides insights into a neglected aspect of career development.Career development is normally viewed as a highly individualistic concept suggesting an emphasis either on an individual actively developing his or her career or on the organisation developing its employees through career development strategies. This article takes a less usual approach to the study of career development by placing it in the arena of industrial relations and thereby enabling it to be seen from a collective perspective. Trade unions have always had a role in career development, particularly in relation to the perceived equity associated with both the allocation of career development resources such as training and with decisions surrounding career progression. Further, unions have an established role in issues surrounding career curtailment, such as discipline and dismissal. At the same time, it is also the case that careers may be bound up with solidaristic forms of collectivism, where the impact on an individual's career is subsumed to the interests of the collectivity and where the career impact is indirect. This article aims to provide a broad understanding of the industrial relations of career by considering career in its structural context and exploring trade union members' beliefs about their union's role in career development. It does this by drawing on a study of a professional and highly unionised occupational school teachers, through a survey of NUT (National Union of Teachers) members, and exploring what this group believed its union should do to further career development.The article opens by considering three inter-related themes: firstly, the context of teachers' employment, secondly, the concept of 'career' and finally, the debates on collectivism and individualism. Using data on teachers' career development

Individualism and collectivism revisited: a study of black and minority ethnic women

“…Indeed, Towers argues that there is no convincing evidence of a conversion to individualism in the attitudes of employees (1997: 237). Healy (1997a) shows how highly individualistic HRM approaches, such as appraisal, were collectivised by trade union involvement and how union members demonstrated collective attitudes to their career development (Healy, 1999). Waddington and Whitston (1997) demonstrate that the demand for an individualistic service model of trade unions (see Bassett and Cave, 1993) is unsupported by evidence.…”

L’organisation collective pour l’obtention d’une voix au chapitre

“…Certaines catégories de travailleurs, bénéficiant d'une marge d'autonomie dans leur travail qui s'effectue souvent seul, remettent en cause la légitimité de l'institution syndicale et se tournent dès lors vers des formes alternatives de représentation collective, la plupart du temps des associations professionnelles (Eaton et Voss 2004 ;Hecksher, 1996 ;Milton, 2003). Ces dernières mettent à l'avant-plan de leurs préoccupations les besoins spécifiques des membres représentés (Bergeron et Renaud, 2000 ;Eaton et Voss, 2004 ;Healy, 1999 ;Hecksher, 2001 ;Milton, 2003). Les associations non syndicales se distinguent notamment du mouvement syndical traditionnel par leur implication politique directement axée sur les intérêts de la profession (Eaton et Voss, 2004 ;Gagnon et Beaudry, 2014).…”

Women's attitudes towards trade unions in the UK: a consideration of the distinction between full- and part-time workers

“…Unions now generally, though with variation, advocate a more 'inclusive' strategy, encouraging women and potentially marginalised groups, such as ethnic minorities, and disabled, lesbian and gay workers, to become unionised. Indeed, there is now a growing interest in women's and minority ethnic workers' experiences of industrial relations and trade unionism, particularly centring upon issues of equality (Healy, 1999;Healy and Kirton, 2000;Heery, 1998;Kirton and Greene, 2002;Ledwith and Colgan, 2002;Munro and Rainbird, 2000;Parker, 2002). Alongside these new equality agendas, debates have also focused upon new strategies for union revival in the form of partnership or 'mutual gains' strategies (Martinez Lucio and Stuart, 2004) which emphasise training and improving the quality of working life, as well as organising models based on more traditional concerns and functions, including recruitment of new members and campaigning for improved health and safety conditions (Heery, 2002).…”