How Do We Know If Shop Stewards Are Getting Weaker?
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8543.1986.tb00679.x |
| Published date | 01 July 1986 |
| Author | Michael Terry |
| Date | 01 July 1986 |
British Journal
of
Industrial Relations
24:2
July
1986 0007-1080
$3.00
How
Do
We
Know
If
Shop
Stewards
Are Getting Weaker?
Michael Terry*
Arguments
as
to whether trade unions are getting stronger or weaker
have been
a
constant feature of industrial relations debate for decades. In
recent years (i.e. since about
1979)
a general consensus that they are
getting weaker has emerged (Massey and Miles
(1984),
Edmonds,
(1984),
Lane
(1982)).
These authors tend to focus
on
national patterns such
as
declining membership levels, especially in areas of traditional union
strength; structural shifts in the economy away from manufacturing and
towards the chronically under-unionised service sector; and the re-loca-
tion
of
industry away from traditional working-class communities (cities)
into rural areas (greenfield sites). Other factors identified
as
possible
sources of weakness include the increasing use
of
part-time and casual
employment, especially among women, and the increasing importance of
white-collar membership to overall trade union density. The association
of
these trends with union weakness looks plausible, but behind each
of
them lie particular assumptions about the nature of trade union strength.
At the extreme, some of these assertions are, baldly stated, simply circu-
lar: accounts of trade unions that take union density
as
their measure
of
strength will inevitably suggest a weakening when density declines. All
these factors point to what might be termed
a
reduction in the general (or
national) power
of
trade unions.
But there are problems in moving too rapidly from this sort
of
evidence to
the assertion that trade union organisation at the level
of
the individual
company or plant is weaker now in its dealings with management than it was,
say, a decade
ago.
If one were speaking of shop stewards
as
a
movement, or
national organisation, such data might well be enough
to
support
a
view
of
their declining power or influence since, taken together, they make it clear
that those workplaces and workers most characteristic of ‘strong’ shopfloor
trade union organisation in the
1960s
and
70s
are less widely found in the
economy of
the
1980s.
If we add to these observations
a
pessimistic prognosis
of
the unions’ continuing inability to recruit members and to build organisa-
tion
in
the service and small firms sectors, then the assertion that shop
stewards are becoming weaker
is
a truism: there are and will continue
*
Senior Research Fellow, Industrial Relations Research Unit, University
of
Warwick
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