A Case for Consultation
| Published date | 01 January 1981 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/eb054961 |
| Pages | 10-16 |
| Date | 01 January 1981 |
| Author | Mick Marchington,Roger Armstrong |
| Subject Matter | HR & organizational behaviour |
A Case for
Consultation
by Mick Marchington,Senior Lecturer,
and Roger Armstrong,Research Assistant in
Industrial Relations, Preston Polytechnic
Introduction
From recent evidence in both the industrial and the
political arena, it would seem that diluted forms of
industrial democracy/employee participation are
undergoing some kind of a revival[1]. This is probably a
reflection of a change of government on the one hand and
a reaction to the proposals of Bullock and the White Paper
on the other. One of the forms of participation attracting
most interest would appear to be joint consultation and, in
a recent report in the Employment Gazette, Hawes and
Brookes have argued that "in particular it seems likely that
over the next few years emphasis will be placed on the
voluntary development of employee participation by
managements and trade unions, and the growth of new
and existing forms of negotiating and consultative
machinery"[2].
It is within a context such as this that we
can outline the remainder of this article.
It would seem that diluted forms of
industrial democracy/employee participation
are undergoing some kind of a revival
Briefly, our argument runs as follows: consultation has
got a fairly poor reputation in both academic and
industrial circles. Much of this, we feel, has been due to an
implicit or explicit acceptance of McCarthy's ideas put
forward in the 1960s and based, to a large extent, on data
gathered from the late 1950s. Because of this, consultation
has been viewed far too narrowly and is often seen as being
in direct competition with collective bargaining rather than
in conjunction with it. Moreover, when assessed against
some of the claims put forward for the value of
participation, consultation might be seen as lacking in
achievement. It is only by taking into account some of the
incidental benefits of a consultative structure—as seen by
both management and stewards—that its true worth can be
properly evaluated. In other words, consultation would
appear to be a worthwhile adjunct to collective bargaining
not only as a useful structure in industrial relations but
also for the way in which it contributes to developing
relationships between the key parties in the workplace. We
will conclude by noting a number of implications which
flow from this analysis.
Views of Consultation
There have been a number of reviews of the history of
consultation and these do not need to be repeated here[3].
Rather, it is more useful to start with an outline of the so-
called McCarthy thesis[4]; in this, he says, two
propositions can be made with reasonable certainty:
Firstly, that consultative committees cannot survive the
development of effective shop-floor organisation. There is
a choice of direction in which consultative arrangements
can go. "Either, they must change their character and
become essentially negotiating committees carrying out
functions which are indistinguishable from the formal
process of shop-floor bargaining, or they are boycotted by
shop stewards and, as the influence of the letter grows, fall
into disuse." Secondly, shop stewards do not subscribe to
the assumptions underlying such committees and "any
committee on which they serve which cannot reach
decisions, albeit informal ones, they regard as essentially
inferior or inadequate substitute for proper negotiating
machinery". For these reasons, he concludes "the decline
of the joint consultative committees, as shop steward
influence grows, is understandable enough"[5].
This conclusion has not gone without criticism of
course, primarily because joint consultation is viewed far
too narrowly and also in rather a static way. According to
Cuthbert and Whitaker, it is altogether "a more dynamic
process than McCarthy's characterisation. Encompassing
a wider problem-solving approach this "revitalised" form
of joint consultation has been viewed as a 'way of exten-
ding worker influence in an atmosphere of
co-operation' "[6]. Moreover, since the degree of
unionisation has increased considerably since the presenta-
tion of the "thesis" and this has been at the same lime as a
revival of consultation—particularly in well organised in-
dustries—the whole approach would appear dubious in the
circumstances of the present day.
Joint consultation is viewed
far too narrowly and also in
rather a static way. It is altogether
"a more dynamic process..."
However, this has not prevented the thesis from being
accepted by a large number of writers, many of whose
publications are geared towards the practitioner. For ex-
ample, Hebden and Shaw, after noting the decline of joint
consultation, suggest that this is due to the rise in plant-
level bargaining. Consequently, the discussion at con-
sultative meetings is derided as trivial[7].
In a similar vein, Guest and Knight argue that
"since ... consultation gave no control over decision-
taking to the worker representatives, it is not surprising
that with the advent of plant bargaining, and more par-
ticularly productivity bargaining, it began to fall by the
10 | Employee Relations 3,1 1981
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