Unions on the Margin?

Marchington, Mick

doi:10.1108/01425459010003105

Cited by 9 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 26 publications

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“…The new employee relations policy within HealthCo emphasized a move away from the direct, technical supervision of work, towards discretionary and self‐management aspects[46, 47]. PA was the method of monitoring the form in which this discretion was understood and practised.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Image and identity: performance appraisal in a trust hospital

Coates

1996

Health Manpower Management

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Looks at performance appraisal (PA), which has become an important tool in the overseeing of employees in contemporary society. Notes, however, that little work has focused on its mediation or actual practice, beyond simple descriptions informing its implementation. First examines the changing nature of employee management under PA, before investigating the contemporary usage of PA regarding its emphasis on the issue of managing and controlling the "images" of performance. Illustrates this with research, gathered from a case study in the Midlands. More specifically, focuses on the requirement on individuals to present the right image/self-presentation as a means of subordination. Highlights, with the use of a hospital case study, some of these issues in relation to the changes taking place in the public service sector, which faces fundamental transformations to its concept of service. Concludes that, whatever the original intentions of PA were, they have seriously failed, and are superseded by the management of the subjectification of performance.

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Image and identity: performance appraisal in a trust hospital

Coates

1996

Health Manpower Management

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“…Much comfort was consequently derived from this evidence of greater formalization suggesting that collective industrial relations remained largely intact. Macho management, to the extent that it existed, was consequently not part of a widespread attack upon workplace organization but rather confined to isolated cases explained in the context of particular circumstances facing individual employers[ 11,47]. There were few attempts to derecognize unions or withdraw union rights at establishment level.…”

Section: Continuity Transformation and Contractionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Against the pattern of continuity based on the survey studies of the formal institutions, there was a growing body of qualitative case study evidence that revealed quite substantial change and important developments in the influence of workplace organization in the process of change itself[11,49, 50]. The picture of often quite radical change, frequently by agreement reached with much weaker labour forces, coexisted within the continuity of joint regulating institutions.…”

Section: Continuity Transformation and Contractionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Opportunities for intervention may extend influence (as Thompson et al , argue in this issue) and lead to the prospects of renewal that enhances organizational stability and continuity. It may in different circumstances result in possible threats to existence through derecognition[10], declining membership, deteriorating finances (as Morris and Willman demonstrate in this issue) and marginalization[11, ch. 9] in the decision‐making process.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Unions on the Brink?

Salmon

Stewart

1994

Employee Relations

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The 1980s has been viewed as a period of considerable change in industrial relations. The transformation of the global market and new style management practices have raised important questions regarding the extent and character of continuities and discontinuities. Much emphasis has been placed on managerial initiatives although the substance of change has remained relatively unexplored. Much of the focus of change in terms of sophisticated management has underestimated the continuing indeterminancy of management in practice. The importance of trade union responses, including the role of employees, cannot be easily deduced from a focus upon the mechanisms of change. Considers some of the questions arising out of the new paradigms of managerial change in terms of institutional reform, human resource management and Japanization.

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“…There is a long tradition within many British companies of a collaborative approach towards trade unions (Ackers and Black, 1991;Hendry, 1994;Lane and Roberts, 1971), and in these circumstances, both management and unions may be loathe to abandon traditional "collective" approaches towards industrial relations. It should not be assumed therefore that management is necessarily anti-union (Marchington, 1990). If unions are to "positively engage" with management in the future (Bacon and Storey, 1993), then important lessons may be drawn from exploring a case where collaborative industrial relations exist as in the case to follow.…”

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confidence: 99%

“Something’s gotta give”: trade unions and the road to team working

McCabe

1997

Employee Relations

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IntroductionA fundamental feature of modern management theory and practice is team working. Human resource management (HRM), total quality management (TQM), just-in-time (JIT) and business process re-engineering (BPR) each share an implicit unitarist ideology and a common emphasis on teams. In terms of HRM, the whole organization may be viewed as a team (Guest, 1987). TQM entails teams of workers coming together in order to solve problems in the interests of all (Crosby, 1979); while the most recent management buzzword -BPR -emphasizes "teams" of multiskilled workers (Hammer and Champy, 1993a) and aims "to develop systems built around teams" (Grint, 1994, p. 181). Trade unions are often deemed incompatible with HRM (Guest, 1987) and are rarely considered in relation to TQM (Wilkinson et al., 1991) or BPR. According to Ackers et al. (1996), team working "follows a long standing effort by employers to weaken occupational consciousness" (p. 15). Yet Keenoy (1990) has asked, if HRM is to meet the interests of all, why should trade unionism be inconsistent with HRM? Moreover, if after BPR, "work becomes more satisfying" (Hammer and Champy, 1993b, p. 10), why should unions be incompatible with BPR? Such organizational conceptions pay only passing attention to issues of power, politics, conflict or competing interest groups. It is assumed that such issues fade away, either as a consequence of visionary leadership, or following the introduction of team working. By team working we refer to innovations such as cellular manufacturing, autonomous working, flexible working practices, employee involvement, consultation and supervision through team leaders. It is both an "ideological construct" expressing a unitarist understanding of the world and "a mode of organizing the shopfloor" (Pollert, 1996, p. 179).Team working may be resisted by trade unions where it threatens employment levels and if team leaders are used by management to by-pass shop stewards (Garrahan, 1986), or if it accompanies work intensification (Berggren, 1993;Parker and Slaughter, 1988). It is not possible to know what the responses of shop stewards are, or what the implications of team working will be for shop stewards, as trade unions have generally been neglected within the

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Unions on the Margin?

Cited by 9 publications

References 26 publications

Image and identity: performance appraisal in a trust hospital

Image and identity: performance appraisal in a trust hospital

Unions on the Brink?

“Something’s gotta give”: trade unions and the road to team working

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