NON‐UNION ESTABLISHMENTS IN BRITAIN: THE SPATIAL PATTERN
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/eb055126 |
| Pages | 13-16 |
| Date | 01 April 1988 |
| Published date | 01 April 1988 |
| Author | P.B. Beaumont,R.I.D. Harris |
| Subject Matter | HR & organizational behaviour |
NON-UNION ESTABLISHMENTS
IN
BRITAIN:
THE
SPATIAL PATTERN
by
P.B.
Beaumont
Department of Social and Economic Research, University of Glasgow, and
R.I.D. Harris
Department of Economics, Queen's University, Belfast
Introduction
As the overall level of union density has fallen substantially in the United States in recent decades, some
academics have begun increasingly to turn their research activites to management-led changes in industrial
relations arrangements and practices that occur outside the formal processes of collective bargaining [1]. This
concentration has invariably involved the study of various aspects of employee relations or human resource
management in non-union firms, a reorientation of the traditional interest and focus of industrial relations
researchers that has provoked some concern and criticism among certain older students of the subject [2].
In Britain, in the 1980s, industrial relations research has also paid increased attention to levels of management
decision making above that of the individual workplace, with the current wave of interest in the differing "styles"
of management (in industrial relations) in particular having the effect of opening up an interest in the study
of non-union establishments and firms.
This interest
is
pursued here through
an
examination
of the spatial distribution
of
non-union establishments
in Britain,
as
revealed
by an
analysis
of the 1980
workplace industrial relations survey. This particular
survey has been followed
up
by one conducted
in
1984,
with hopefully others still
to
come.
If
this hope
is
realised,
industrial relations researchers
in
Britain will
find themselves
in
the unique position (both historically
and relative
to
other countries)
of
being able, among
other things,
to
identify any changes that occur through
the course
of
time
in the
extent
(and
nature)
of
non-
union establishments
in the
system
at
large.
In
short,
the "mapping exercise" undertaken here will hopefully
provide
the
sort
of
"base-line data" that
can be
built
on over time
so as to
identify
any
changes
in the
size,
nature, distribution, etc,
of
this particular sub-set
of
firms
that can provide a potentially important indicator
of the
changing nature
of
the larger British system
of
industrial
relations.
Is
the
South
of
England less
highly unionised than
the
North?
The reason
for our
concentration
on the
spatial
distribution
of
non-union establishments follows from
the considerable interest
in, not to say
concern
with,
the "North-South divide" in the economic performance
of Britain
at
present [3]. This divide is
of
obvious interest
to industrial relations researchers because
of
the general
belief that the South
of
England
is
less highly unionised
than
the
northern areas
of
Britain. There
is
some
empirical evidence
to
support this belief [4], although
it
is
typically only
for the
level
of
union density
(as
opposed
to
non-unionism) and frequently involves only
a test
of the
statistical significance
of a
broad North-
South dichotomy (i.e. a dummy variable) in the relevant
data
set. The
approach adopted here moves well
beyond such
a
broad distinction
to
provide
a
detailed
breakdown
of the
relevant data
for the
individual
planning regions
of the
country.
Accordingly,
in
what follows,
we
outline the distribution
of non-union establishments along regional lines
in
order
to
identify those parts
of
Britain that have
an
above-average number
of
employees
in
such
establishments. This exercise
is
then followed
by an
examination
of
some
of the
basic characteristics
of
these establishments
in
the areas
of
the country where
they
are
most well represented. Some relatively brief
comments
are
then made
on the
sub-regional
distribution
of
such firms prior
to
highlighting the major
conclusions from
our
analysis.
The Distribution of Non-union
Establishments by Region
In Table
I, we
present
our
first
set of
evidence
for the
proportion
of
manual workers
in
establishments that
do
not recognise unions,
by the
individual regions
of the
country. The nature
of
the questions asked in the survey
allow
us
separately
to
identify and distinguish between
(a) establishments that have
no
trade union members
present among their manual workforce
— i.e.
column
(iv)
—
and,
(b)
establishments which
may
have some
manual employees who are union members, but where
a manual union
is
not recognised there
for
the purposes
ER
10,4
1988
13
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