Union Renewal and Workplace Greening — Three Case Studies
| Published date | 01 December 2018 |
| Date | 01 December 2018 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/bjir.12293 |
| Author | Tom Farnhill |
British Journal of Industrial Relations doi: 10.1111/bjir.12293
56:4 December 2018 0007–1080 pp. 716–743
Union Renewal and Workplace
Greening — Three Case Studies
Tom Farnhill
Abstract
This article evaluates the renewal potential of three unions’ workplace greening
agendas in three large workplaces. The cases suggest the agenda is easy to
initiate with members and employers and has tangible environmental benefits
but is labour intensive and dicult to sustain beyond focusing events. There is
limited evidence that the agenda attractsnew members but stronger evidence that
it attracts new activists. Although facilitative of partnership, unions are mainly
cast as environmental watchdogsand trouble-shooters. The findings suggest that
even timely, popular, developmental agendas, conducive to partnership, can have
only a moderate eect on union renewal and must be consciously configured to
do so properly.
1. Introduction
‘The environment’ is rarely the focus of union renewal literature. But
although not yet a core union concern increasing numbers of British
unions are becoming environmentally active (Farnhill 2016). Past research
has shown some positive benefits for unions of environmental activism
(Gregory et al. 1999; Snell and Fairbrother 2010; TUC 2008, 2010, 2014)
and union grey materials suggests workplace greening forms the bulk of their
environmental activities. Workplace greening comprises site- or employer-
specific bottom-up interventions involving union branches — ideallyworking
in partnership with employers — conducting environmental audits to secure
measurable energy savings and improvements in organizations’ recycling,
waste, waterusage and procurement practices. Unions from diverseindustrial
sectors are participating including: ports; insurance companies; schools and
colleges; steel manufacturers; warehousing and distributioncompanies; water
companies; breweries; museums and energy generation and distribution
companies (TUC 2012, 2014).
The author is at the University of Birmingham.
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2017 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
Union Renewal and Workplace Greening 717
Although unions’ environmental activism is motivated by genuine
environmental concern, during a period of continuing decline it is sensible to
interrogatethe agenda’s renewalpotential. The Trades Union Congress (TUC)
— British unions’ national co-ordinating centre — is certainly interested in
this; as one plain speaking TUC staer who helped to roll-out the TUC’s
workplace greening agenda remarked:
We’re not having people travelling hundreds of miles around the fucking country to
speak to non-union members about how they can reducetheir employer’s electricity
bills. I’ll not do it. This is about capacity building and increasing the influence of
unions in the workplace in a growing agenda.
In fact, the TUC identifies several benefits (TUC 2008, 2010, 2014): the
recruitment of new members and activists; enhanced relationswith employers;
raised environmental awareness; porous, robust environmental policymaking
processes and better-informed policies themselves.
This is one of very few detailed academic studies of British unions’
environmental activism in the workplace; contributing to our understanding
of the interrelationship between environmental concern, union renewal and
extant systems of industrial relations. The article focuses on evaluating
workplace greening’s ability to recruit new members and activists and to
enhance unions’ standing with employers. These are not the only goals
available to unions but rightly remain important (Danford et al. 2014; Gall
and Fiorito 2016; Hickey et al. 2010; Upchurch et al. 2012). I interweave case
study data with relevant employee relations and renewal theory to test the
claims for workplace greening made by the TUC.
Concretely, all three workplaces succeeded in meeting and/or exceeding
their carbon management targets and so unions can claim association with
a successful initiative. But workplace greening, as practised, appeared to
possess limited utility as a recruitment tool — although union participation
in the agenda was appreciated by employees none of the unions could cite
persuasive evidence that it had attracted new members. The agenda was also
labour intensive and dicult to sustain outside focusing events. The agenda
facilitated partnership working and the ensuing absence of conflict may have
helped to attract first-time activists. But these partnerships had limitations:
unions were mainly cast as environmental watchdogs and trouble-shooters
and because each workplace already featured constructive employee relations
the agenda’s ability to function as a catalyst to improve relations on other
agendas remained untested. Crucially, as a recruitment tool unions’ proximity
to management was considered neither positive nor negative and the agenda,
as practised, was not really perceived as indicative of union strength or
weakness. Such judgements are probably restricted to unions’ performance
in those ‘core’ agendas characterized by orthogonal union – management
interactions.
This article commences by reviewing the literature on union renewal and
using this to identify how (if at all) and why workplace greening might
contribute to union renewal. I then explain mymethodology before providing
C
2017 John Wiley& Sons Ltd.
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