Trade Union Recognition and Employment Contraction. Britain, 1980–1984
| Author | P. B. Beaumont,R. I. D. Harris |
| Published date | 01 March 1991 |
| Date | 01 March 1991 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8543.1991.tb00227.x |
British Journal
of
Industrial Relations
29:l
March
1991
0007-1080
$3.00
Trade Union Recognition and
Employment Contraction. Britain,
1980-1984
P.
B.
Beaumont* and
R.
I.
D.
Harris""
Final version accepted 3 October 1990.
Abstract
Information contained in the two work-place industrial relations surveys
reveals that the proportion
of
employees, both manual and non-manual, in
private sector establishments which recognised trade unions declined in the
period
1980-84.
The various pieces
of
analysis undertaken in this paper
reveal that establishment closures and employment reduction concentrated
among relatively large sized establishments were a major source
of
the
observed decline in union organisation.
1.
Introduction
In a recent issue
of
this Journal two articles examined the determinants of
the decline in the overall level of union density in Britain in the 1980s
(Freeman and Pelletier 1990; Disney 1990).
The
present paper seeks to
complement their analysis and findings in a number of ways. First, we
concentrate essentially on the determinants of trade union recognition
status, a different measure of 'trade union organisation'
of
the work-force
from that
of
the level
of
union density (Beaumont and Harris, 1988b:
406).
Second, in analysing the above measure, we are making some use
of
the
framework
of
analysis put forward by Green (1988) and outlined by Disney
(1990:
171-3) which distinguishes between (1) the determinants
of
'cover-
age' (i.e. is there a recognised union for an individual to join in an
establishment?) and
(2)
the determinants of 'individual membership,
conditioned on coverage' (i.e., does an individual choose to join a union that
is recognised?). Our analysis is concerned solely with the determinants
of
coverage, with our 'bottom line' finding being that employment contraction
was the major determinant
of
the decline in coverage observed in Britain in
**
Department
of
Economics, University
of
Waikato,
NZ
*
Department
of
Social and Economic Research, University
of
Glasgow
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