Finding a Voice at Work? New Perspectives on Employment Relations
| Pages | 254-256 |
| Date | 13 February 2017 |
| Published date | 13 February 2017 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/ER-11-2016-0209 |
| Author | Eugene Hickland |
| Subject Matter | HR & organizational behaviour,Industrial/labour relations,Employment law |
Book review
Finding a Voice at Work? New Perspectives on Employment Relations
Edited by Stewart Johnstone and Peter Ackers
Oxford University Press
Oxford
2015
336pp
£22.99, soft back
ISBN 978-0-10-966801-4
Keywords Worker democracy, Employee engagement, Employee voice
Review DOI 10.1108/ER-11-2016-0209
Finding a Voice at Work? But what is this slippery concept of voice? Literature on employee
voice can often be confusing with different terms used to describe similar processes. It is an
umbrella term used to capture relate d practices including employee info rmation,
communication, consultation, participation, partnership or negotiation. Given the range of
related concepts, there is no widely accepted or simple definition of the concept of employee
voice. The term voice is a concept developed from the work of Hirschman (1970) and applied
initially to understandings of trade union organised workplaces by Medoff and Freeman
(1984). For these authors, voice was an alternative to exit when assessing worker responses
to dissatisfaction. Hirschman’s work has been influential in the field of IR in bringing
forward the use of the term into research on workplace voice regimes.
When one hears Teresa May, the latest Tory Prime Minister of the UK, issue a call for
reform of company governance with workers on company boards in July 2016 –we could be
listening to 1970s debates on industrial democracy such as those encapsulated by the
Bullock Report (1977) on Industrial Democracy. So the question that comes to mind has the
time for “real”employee voice arrived? Both Stewart Johnstone and Peter Ackers have being
writing and researching dimensions of employee voice and perspectives on work for some
time. Their edited volume Finding a Voice at Work? New Perspectives on Employee Relations
appears to be published at a fortuitous moment in UK politics.
The book attempts to offer more than a reflection of good modern research on voice but
to link the contours of “existing”voice at work to a range of contextual and causal factors on
employment relations. The book is structured in four parts –key concepts; union voice –
competing strategies; European models and varieties of capitalism; and looking ahead. The
chapter by Ed. Heery starts at the beginning of any understanding of voice with discussion
of Fox’s (1966) frames of reference and chides some contemporary IR pluralists for moving
towards unitarism by accepting the managerial fetish with business performance as a
standard measure of worker participation. He further puts forward a “social justice”
argument as a new frame of reference and Ann-Marie Greene discussing a diversity
approach makes a similar interesting argument.
The second section of the book has three chapters concentrating on revitalisation of
union organisation and how to “make”voice a legitimate concept at work. Johnstone makes
a strong argument that the continuing decline of union density requires some form of
representative structure for employees in the UK private sector, offering workplace
partnership as a potential vehicle. He also adds, in a similar vein to Pateman (1970) that such
bodies can add to sustaining a more pluralistic society and create mutual gains in the
workplace. In her chapter, however, Simms argues very cogently for better union organising
Employee Relations
Vol. 39 No. 2, 2017
pp. 254-256
© Emerald PublishingLimited
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