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Comparative Employment Relations

- - - - –union organisation
        
        –strategic choice approach
        
        see unions as having only a very limited roles. Strategic choices for unions have played a less prominent role than those for enterprises
        •enterprise-level link between business and HR strategies → shifting the focus away from traditional concerns with ER as a system or with the political and representational role of employees’ organisations
        •rationale for union organisation: contributing to efficiency & effectiveness at enterprise level, not interest representation
        • strategic choice approach sees unions as engaged in competition (e.g. with works councils) for employee interest representation rights
        
        –Marxist political economy approach
        
        unions play a crucial role as they are political and economic organisations, a means of collective worker mobilisation (e.g. Kelly (1998) - mobilisation theory)
        •however, mobilisation theory provides only a partial framework for comparative ER as:
        –it focuses on only one aspect of ER (collective mobilisation of employees);
        –It focuses on the areas in which the interests of employers and employees conflict without analysing the areas in which their interests coincide (Martin 1999)
        
        –systems approach
        
        sees the role of unions as one dimensional: to negotiate the best terms and conditions of employment within the framework of agreed-on workplace rules
        •major strategic issue: trade-off between wages and job security
        •unions mainly seen as economic organisations, with limited institutional political ambitions
        •evolutionary theory: role of unions is secondary, responding mainly to management strategies and socio-economic and political contexts (not driving force of ER system change)
        114.709
      - –Role of the state in ER: national regulatory regime is fundamental to the form of an ER system and to the economic and political system of which it is a part in much comparative research
        
        –strategic choice approach
        
        focus on enterprise level business strategy – little attention to the state’s role (e.g. Boxall & Purcell 2003, 2008, 2011 – Strategy and HRM)
        •nb: we shouldn’t neglect the state’s role since the increase in management power & ER changes were themselves a reflection of changes in state policies at least in part (e.g. US deregulatory policies undermined commitment to CB built on 1930s New Deal law; Britain’s post-1997 New Labour government; NZ?)
        •i.e. state actions were key to changes in enterprise-level management’s capacity to undertake ER initiatives
        
        –Marxist political economy approach
        
        give the state more attention (e.g. Gall (2003) – the link between the state and ER, and the subordination of state relations to class relations, is evident
        •politics of the workplace are linked to state politics and the electoral process
        •State’s key role: to secure the (often contradictory) objectives of accumulation and legitimation (Hyman 1989) – but capitalist accumulation takes priority
        114.709
        
        –systems approach
        
        •see week 2 for an overview of Dunlop’s system theory in ER (built on Durkheim and Talcott-Parsons’ work)
        •evolutionary systems theory extended Dunlop’s initial theory – also gave the state a limited role (though more in analyses of Asian systems – Bamber & Martin 2004)
        –Kerr et al. (1962): industrialisation drives the development of ER systems toward convergence – different types of industrialising elites use different approaches but middle class ones had greatest success involving decentralisation and pluralist interest representation (difficult to reconcile with a powerful role for the state)
        –International, national, sector and enterprise-level influences interact in the pursuit of industrialisation
        114.709
        
        Video: Asia rising: Japan
        •watch this short video:
        •http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Pk0VxLj_GM
        •which (elements of) comparative ER approaches are emphasised in the 1950s Japanese ER system? What leads you to this conclusion?
        •would these models still hold in describing Japanese ER? Why/not?
        •Optional: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KaxgmmjNrpA&feature=related
      - –pattern and role of collective bargaining:
        (in determining the terms and conditions of employment)
        
        –strategic choice approach
        
        • ER determined by unilateral management decision making or collective bargaining
        • Countries vary in their ideological opposition to collective
        bargaining
        • In stressing the role of management initiative and marginalisation of union power, strategic choice advocates have underscored the decline of collective bargaining
        • In its place? US: increasing concern with substantive rights of individual employees but the level of substantive rights has been set low (also Britain)
        
        –Marxist political economy approach
        
        varied on the functions of collective bargaining
        •
        
        –systems approach
        
        primary way of determining rules at work was collective bargaining (see research emphasis), which regulated & institutionalised potential industrial conflict
        •CB: main mechanism for managing ER in classic evolutionary literature too though level at which CB took place differed, with complex multi-tiered systems in many countries
      - –degree of enterprise-level management autonomy in ER
        
        –systems approach
        
        high degree of autonomy for enterprise-level managers to conduct their ER (US – independent bargaining within an agreed legal framework)
        •coordination in collective bargaining is achieved through pattern bargaining (influenced by unions and employers)
        •different versions of evolutionary theory → different answers on the degree of employer autonomy, and differing levels of analysis
        
        –Marxist political economy approach
        
        analysis of management autonomy is ambivalent. Assumes management power and autonomy, with management interests prevailing (i.e. management are the main but not only agents in the determination of ER)
        •but the degree of autonomy available to management is limited, with competition forcing it to seek the most efficient means to maximise the extraction of surplus value (i.e. ER are determined ultimately by the competitive processes and structures of the capitalist political economy, not by enterprise managers’ strategic choices)
        114.709
        
        –strategic choice approach
        
        enterprise is the main unit of analysis with management having a high degree of autonomy
        •HRM involved a close association between HR strategies and corporate strategy and provided the core of this firm-centric approach
        •role of multi-employer bargaining is limited because enterprises which to maximise the scope for achieving their own strategic priorities and responding to their own specific market circumstances
        •increased competition reduced the likelihood that firms would use multi-employer industry-level collective bargaining to eliminate wage costs to secure competitive advantage