Workplace Industrial Relations in Local Government
| Date | 01 February 1991 |
| Pages | 1-31 |
| Published date | 01 February 1991 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/01425459110004347 |
| Author | Ian Kessler |
| Subject Matter | HR & organizational behaviour |
2
WORKPLACE INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS
IN
LOCAL GOVERNMENT
Abstract
and
Keywords
Workplace Industrial Relations in Local
Government
Ian Kessler
Industrial Relations, Local Government,
Management, Trade Unions, United Kingdom
The range of pressures which has impacted on local
government in the 1980s has forced the emergence
of dynamic and sophisticated forms of industrial
relations at the workplace
level.
It is clear, however,
that with conceptual tools forged to analyse
developments in the private manufacturing sector,
very few attempts have been made by academics,
policy makers or commentators to discuss the
structures and processes which have emerged.
The character of the changes at authority level are
considered using material from a survey of
personnel officers in over a third of authorities in
England and Wales and within the context of
prevailing analytical and theoretical frameworks. It
is argued that the distinctive development of the
personnel function in local government has resulted
in a managerial process which conforms to key
features of the human resource management
(HRM) model, in particular the devolution of
personnel responsibilities to line managers and the
integration of personnel concerns at the strategic
level. However, other features of this model are
less in evidence. The search for employee
commitment and flexibility remains patchy and
often appears as a practical response to labour
market and competitive pressures. Furthermore,
collectivist features of employee relations remain
well entrenched with the continued encouragement
of both union membership and involvement. This
is not to deny change beyond the HRM model.
Thus,
it is clear that established joint machinery
is becoming increasingly unable to deal with
ongoing issues while the trade unions are gradually
being forced into a consultative rather than a
bargaining role.
INTRODUCTION
3
1.
Introduction
For much of the period following the Second World War
the interest shown by policy makers, commentators and
academics
in local
government industrial relations has been
concentrated at the national
level.
For
over 20
years social,
political and economic circumstances combined to provide
a supportive and stable environment for the central
determination of terms and conditions of employment with
the result that industrial relations activity at the workplace
level remained relatively undeveloped. The consensual
principles underlying the Whitley model of collective
bargaining were in tune with
a
broader political consensus
on the importance of a strong and developing local
government sector,
while a relative
abundance of resources
reflected in growing local government expenditure and
employment helped limit the scope for conflict over
substantive issues.
This ordered and centralised system of industrial relations
stood
in
stark contrast
to
the private manufacturing sector
where the dynamics of workplace industrial relations were
perceived as contributing
to
economic difficulties emerging
from the early 1960s. At the time when the Donovan
Commission was providing a thorough analysis of
workplace industrial relations
in
this sector, and
in
so doing
setting an agenda for future policy debates and extensive
related research, industrial relations in the local
government sector remained relatively static, simply
attracting descriptive accounts of bargaining machinery and
celebratory histories of individual unions and their
leaders[1,2,3].
There were some stirrings of industrial relations activity
at the local authority level from the late 1960s with the
selective introduction of locally negotiated bonus schemes,
upheavals in employment patterns generated by local
government reorganisation and union leadership strategies
encouraging steward organisation. Nonetheless, a series
of prolonged and often bitterly fought countrywide disputes
involving teachers, social
workers,
firefighters, manual and
white-collar workers still concentrated attention at the
national level and, more particularly, on the economic and
political consequences of instability
in a
highly centralised
system of pay determination during periods of incomes
policy[4,5].
The 1980s marked a watershed in local government
industrial relations, necessitating a change in the focus
of interest. In the face of cumulative and sustained
pressures throughout the decade a much more complex
and dynamic form of industrial relations developed at the
workplace level. Questions remain, however, about how
far and at what
level
of sophistication mainstream industrial
relations debates have addressed this development.
The related debates revolving around the common theme
of how far the pattern of British workplace industrial
relations has changed during the Thatcher years are now
well established. Although they
do
not, as a consequence,
require a detailed restatement at this point, a review of
their empirical foundations suggests a continued failure
to take full account of the local government sector. Much
of the most influential research on workplace industrial
relations has simply bypassed not only local government
but the whole of
the
public sector. One of
the
few attempts
to provide quality case study material on recent
developments justified its failure to select a public sector
case by reference to the "scope for greater variation
between organisations" in the private sector[6]. More
significant
is
the revelation from
a
review of major surveys
conducted over the last decade that the Workplace
Industrial Relations Surveys (WIRS)[7,8] alone have
covered the public sector, the others concentrating
exclusively on the private sector[9].
Even where the public sector
is
included in survey work,
little attempt has been made to disaggregate information
to allow developments in the local government sector to
be identified. This has had a significant "knock-on" effect
with a number of the more important interpretative
accounts of the Thatcher era basing their analysis on
published WIRS data[10,11].
Finally, work which has concentrated on the local
government sector has not always been sensitive to the
distinctive features of the local authority employment
context. It is important to stress from the outset that local
authorities do not constitute a homogeneous group of
employing units. There are major structural differences
between the different types of authority
—
shire districts
and counties, metropolitan districts and London Boroughs
—
in terms of the areas and populations covered, the range
of services provided and the occupational diversity of the
workforces employed.
While appreciating these structural differences, a number
of more general employment features distinguishing the
local government sector also require recognition. First,
any given authority has a workforce comprising a wide
range of occupational groups providing
a
range of diverse
and discrete services. Second, these groups are organised
in a range of separate bargaining units with structural
variations influencing the institutional presentation and
articulation of employment issues. Third, many services
are provided by employees dispersed and often isolated
throughout the authority rendering traditional
establishment definitions difficult to
apply[12]
and analytical
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