Despite Reports Of Its Early Death, Voluntarism Is Alive And Well As The Underpinning Principles In The Conduct Of Employee Relations In The United Kingdom
Despite reports of its early death, voluntarism is alive and well as the underpinning principles in the conduct of employee relations in the United Kingdom
This report explores the significant elements of employee relations, the internal and external factors influencing it and considers voluntarism as an underpinning principle in the practice of employee relations.
The last quarter of the twentieth century saw the decline of traditional industries and the enormous growth of the service sector that coincided with a steady decrease in British union membership from 13 million in the early eighties, to 8 million in the late 1990’s. This paralleled the increase in the use of human relations practices and new forms of work organisation that provided the basis for a new win-win relationship between employees and managers. This contributed to the introduction of employee relations as a concept that broadened the study of industrial relations from a union focus to include wider aspects of the employment relationship, including non-unionised workplaces, personal contracts, and socio-emotional, rather than contractual arrangements. (Taylor, 2003)
British unions have traditionally been known for their adherence to a collective laizzes-faire approach or voluntarismmeaning “reluctance to see state intervention in industrial relations.” (Howell, 1998, p 296) However, by the mid 1990’s the Trade Union Congress had endorsed a wide range of individual and collective rights at work into legislation. This culminated in a number of provisions of the 1999 Employment Relations Bill, (especially those dealing with union recognition) and more recently policy directives from the European Union. (Sisson, 1999 and Taylor, 2003) Sisson, 1999, argues that the idea of voluntarism is not confined to state or legislative intervention in the union and employer relationship but should be expanded to consider the relative freedom of employees and...
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