The two faces of partnership?. An assessment of partnership and co‐operative employer/trade union relationships
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/01425450210428435 |
| Pages | 262-276 |
| Published date | 01 June 2002 |
| Date | 01 June 2002 |
| Author | Sarah Oxenbridge,William Brown |
| Subject Matter | HR & organizational behaviour |
Employee
Relations
24,3
262
Employee Relations,
Vol. 24 No. 3, 2002, pp. 262-276.
#MCB UP Limited, 0142-5455
DOI 10.1108/01425450210428435
The two faces of partnership?
An assessment of partnership and
co-operative employer/trade union
relationships
Sarah Oxenbridge and William Brown
Department of Applied Economics, University of Cambridge,
Cambridge, UK
Keywords Industrial relations, Partnering, Trade unions, Employers
Abstract The paper examines the context and characteristics of partnership arrangements
currently emerging between employers and unions at the workplace level in Britain. Case
studies of 11 firms involving interviews with managers and trade union officials revealed two
broad types of arrangement. Those in production sector firms nurtured collective bargaining
through informal partnership relationships, while those in the private service sector contained
collective bargaining tightly through formalised partnership agreements. We analyse the
pressures that underlie relationships, the net benefits to the parties, the scope of relationships,
and employer strategies for restricting union influence. A key f inding is that partnership
relationships can be characterised by a ``continuum'' of union involvement in the workplace,
with unions having greater rights where they have informal relationships backed up with high
levels of workforce unionisation.
Introduction
There has been a substantial growth in the pursuit of workplace partnership
agreements in recent years. It has been encouraged by both Government
funding and ACAS guidance, as well as by a tighter labour market and the
EU's preference for employee consultation (ACAS, 2001). Analysis of this
development has so far tended to concentrate on the question of how far
partnership agreements have been in the long-term interests of trade unions.
Do they offer a valuable means for trade union renewal, or do they threaten to
undermine the independence on which the vitality of workplace unionism
depends? In this article we seek to establish a less polarised debate by
analysing the spectrum of co-operative relationships that is developing
between employers and trade unions. There is, we shall argue, a substantial
variety of such co-operative relationships, and within this variety lie very
different implications for employers as well as for trade unions themselves.
The contrasting views in the current debate can be set out simply. On the
one hand there is the view that considers partnership to be something of a
lifeline for embattled trade unions. For example, Ackers and Payne (1998,
p. 546) believe that partnership provides a vehicle for union renewal, enabling
them to ``swim among the fishes, and re-enter the mainstream of employment
relations''. In contrast to this position, Martinez Lucio and Stuart (2000) and
Kelly (1998) warn that partnership agreements may serve to undermine
workplace unionism and weaken the union movement as a whole. Hence the
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