Contemporary workplace occupations in Britain. Motivations, stimuli, dynamics and outcomes
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/01425451111174094 |
| Date | 04 October 2011 |
| Pages | 607-623 |
| Published date | 04 October 2011 |
| Author | Gregor Gall |
| Subject Matter | HR & organizational behaviour |
Contemporary workplace
occupations in Britain
Motivations, stimuli, dynamics and outcomes
Gregor Gall
University of Hertfordshire, Hatfield, UK
Abstract
Purpose – This paper aims to examine the more militant response of a minority of workers to
collective redundancy and restructuring in Britain since 2007.
Design/methodology/approach – The paper deploys secondary sources to develop a series of
grounded micro-factors to help explain the presence and absence of the deployment of the occupation
tactic.
Findings – Some headway is made in explaining why only a limited number of occupations took
place against redundancy and restructuring.
Practical implications – The method of occupation was not shown to be as effective as might have
been thought in opposing redundancies.
Social implications – These concern union strategies and tactics for resistance to redundancy and
restructuring.
Originality/value – The paper provides a grounded explanation of the phenomenon and incidence
of worker occupations against collective redundancy and closure.
Keywords Workplace conflict,Industrial action, United Kingdom,Industrial relations, Disputes,
Organizationalrestructuring, Employees
Paper type Research paper
Introduction
Historically, workplace occupations are a significant, if infrequently used, tool in the
armoury of the collective of workers. In Britain, the most widely known, if rather
idiosyncratic, case was that of the UCS (Upper Clyde Shipbuilders) work-in of
1971-1972 in Scotland (Foster and Woolfson, 1986). The workers’ actio n prevented the
yards’ closure and secured their jobs. This seemed to typify workers ’ ability in Britain
in the early 1970s to not only struggle collectively and successfully, but to do so in a
way that challenged the prevailing social and political orders. In its wake, many other
workers facing redundancy took the example of UCS as both template and inspiration
for their own actions (Darlington and Lyddon, 2001; Gold, 2004, p. 76), suggesting a
positive demonstration effect. Some of these became minor cause ce
´le
`bres like the
seven-month long Lee Jeans occupation in Greenock, Scotland, in 1981 (which was the
subject of a television documentary in 2005 and had a 30-year commemoration at the
Scottish Parliament) and the 103-day occupation of the Caterpillar plant in Uddingston,
Scotland, in 1987 (Woolfson and Foster, 1988). Subsequent to the UCS work-in,
occupations were used for an additional array of mostly defensive purposes, ranging
from resisting victimisation of union representatives and unilaterally imposed changes
to working conditions to demanding higher pay. However, and as a result of recession
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at
www.emeraldinsight.com/0142-5455.htm
The author offers thanks to the two reviewers of an earlier version of this paper.
Contemporary
workplace
occupations
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Employee Relations
Vol. 33 No. 6, 2011
pp. 607-623
qEmerald Group Publishing Limited
0142-5455
DOI 10.1108/01425451111174094
and austerity in private and public sectors, the sense in which the occupation tactic
may again have become a potentially powerful tool by which workers can collectively
respond to and resist redundancy seems palpable. Indeed, Labour Research, the
monthly magazine of the Labour Research Department, in its “Redundancy Watch”
column, has documented the continual and relentless extent of mass redundancies and
workplaces closures since the onset of the global recession from late 2007. And yet,
despite the occupation providing more leverage over an employer than a strike because
workers maintain control of employer assets from inside the workplace (see Gall,
2010a), Britain has witnessed very few examples of workers deploying this tactic –
certainly far fewer than might have been expected given the depth and extent of this
recession and retrenchment, and when compared with the recessions of the early 1980s
and early 1990s.[1] Indeed, in the period of the occupations studied, namely, from 2007
to 2010, 476 strikes were recorded involving 1.601m workers. And of these strikes, for
example, in 2009, only 17 per cent concerned redundancy (Hale, 2010).
This paper seeks to study those occupations that have taken place in order to
understand their genesis, character, dynamics and outcomes in terms of the
micro-social processes involved. From this, the paper seeks to develop a grounded
series of factors and characteristics which can then provide the basis for a
counter-factual explanation of why the worker occupations are used so sparingly by
those who do deploy the tactic, and why more workers do not consider or engage in
them when faced with comparable situations of redundancy and workplace closure to
those that did use the occupation tactic. The contention is that by deploying this
approach more purchase can be gained in explaining the relative balance of action and
inaction than can be gained by, alternatively, looking at macro-level factors. The latter
would mean examining factors like the overall declines in worker conscio usness, union
presence and worker combativity in an abstracted way and making at distant
deductions from these. The consequence of this approach is that while useful in
developing an understanding of the overall context of the salient social processes, it
remains at too many steps removed from, and above, the level of the cognitive
processes at which decisions on whether to act or not act are taken. Indeed, the
macro-level factors are interpreted by workers and shape – but do not determine –
their actions or inactions, alongside many more mundane and practical concerns of
mounting occupations (like providing food, bedding and entertainment). So the benefit
of the micro-level approach is predicated on it being able to focus on the more
immediate and meaningful factors and processes – seen as specific conjunctural
moments in time – which concern and affect workers in their decisions about whether
to be active or passive in the face of redundancy, and which forms of activity should be
pursued. This speaks to the appropriate research site – the site for investigation – for
explaining the action and inaction being the psychology of the workers (individual,
semi-collective and collective) at the point in time and space when they face
redundancy, and understanding what factors influence this psychology. Here
mobilisation theory on collective grievances and collective action is of use in
identifying the salient factors in terms of workers making attributions, having the
opportunity and resources to act and making cost/benefit calculations for their actions
(see Kelly, 1998).
The paper begins by providing biographical descriptions of each occupation,
focusing upon their geneses. From here, identification of key characteristics of
motivation and stimuli is made. Using this framework, a grounded explanation is
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