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At the annual conference of the Institute of Personnel and Development (IPD) held in October 1998, a seminar debating the changing face of employee relations highlighted how difficult it is for the UK social partners even to agree on what "partnership" means, never mind on how to make it work in practice.
The Institute of Personnel and Development (IPD) has a membership of over 90,000 personnel and human resource managers and its annual conference, attracting some 2,000 delegates and many more visitors, is regarded as one of the foremost occasions on the UK's human resources calendar, attended by practitioners, policymakers, academics and the media.
The 1998 conference, held in October, was split into seven main streams, covering: strategic issues; developing people; achieving business success; managing performance; managing change; legal updates; and practitioner updates. A key part of the conference from an industrial relations point of view was a debate on the "changing face of employee relations in the UK". The seminar, chaired by Clive Morton (human resources director of the Anglia Water utility company) involved four presenters: John Monks, general secretary of the Trades Union Congress (TUC); Bill Proudlock, former human resources director of Glaxo Wellcome UK; Pat McCarten of the University of Ulster; and Geoff Armstrong, director general of the IPD.
After a period in which the social partners have arguably courted each other with what might be described as "polite restraint", refraining from overtly criticising each other as the Labour government has developed its industrial relations proposals and sought a climate of "partnership", the seminar highlighted the significant differences of opinion which exist about just what partnership is, never mind how it should be applied in practice.
With a message of "partnership, partnership, partnership", John Monks told delegates that "Britain has moved away from adversarial industrial relations". He stated, however, that job insecurity was one of the chief concerns of the 1980s and 1990s, a factor which has been accelerated by public policy of the past. Despite the recent changes brought about by the Labour government, he argued that many UK workplaces are still unfair in their practices towards employees. However, Mr Monks stated that "decent" employers should have nothing to fear from recent and future legislation in the area of employee relations, telling them that trade unions are good for business and that this was reinforced by the recently published interim results of the 1998 Workplace Employee Relations Survey, which highlight a clear link between productivity and employee commitment and a similar link between unions in the workplace and productivity (UK9811159F).
Mr Monks said that, although the TUC now accepts the reality that unions may no longer be the sole channel for the representation of workers, he hoped that new employee representation mechanisms such as the those contained in the working time Regulations (UK9810154F) will "enable unions to show once again that [they] can play a valuable role in protecting workers". He warned employers:" If people feel excluded then they will resist change. Employers will find that they have a demoralised and disaffected workforce rather than a workforce seized of the need for change and committed to the future of the organisation."
The second speaker, Bill Proudlock, clearly did not share the TUC's case for union-based partnership. He warned of the dangers of returning to the times prior to the 1980s, arguing that through the government's recent Fairness at work proposals (UK9806129F), British industrial relations was in danger of returning to its adversarial past.
Mr Proudlock agreed that the move to left-of-centre politics in the UK reflected a concern among people that they are not being protected by politicians and management from insecurity and overwork. Whilst he was not sure that dissatisfaction in organisations was being expressed as a demand for trade union recognition, he conceded that this might be the case: "As John Monks' troops go into your workplaces with the feeling that spring is here, there is a huge risk that staff will be attracted to them and that we will have to fight yesterday's battles. Have you planned for this?"
Emphasising the need for employers to rethink their approach to trade union recognition, he urged organisations to ask themselves what reasons led people to want a "third party" in the workplace, and what they plan to do about this.
The third speaker, Pat McCarten, focused on the benefits of partnership through examples of eight organisations in Northern Ireland, each of which included agreements with trade unions. Speaking about partnership agreements Mr McCarten argued that: "In Ireland, their roots lie in the adversity faced by many organisations and the trauma of threatened job insecurity arising from heightened exposure to global competitiveness. The shared adversity brings about a realisation of the necessity to build around a set of values held in common by management and workforce, which builds joint commitment to a series of interventions which characterise cooperative industrial relations and which have the expected outcomes of higher returns and enhanced job security."
Mr McCarten identified the following six key values for successful partnership:
These are very similar to the TUC's principles for effective partnership. Yet, as the final speaker emphasised, there is still disagreement over the role of unions in delivering partnership.
Geoff Armstrong said that the IPD was not hostile either to partnership or the view that unions could be good for an organisation, but he was not sure that employee concerns are always best represented by unions. He added that it is not self-evident that Marks and Spencer or other leading non-union companies would be more productive if unionised.
He also argued that "the jury is still out" on union effectiveness in workplace. The IPD feels that union recognition may be a "red herring" as far as the change-management process is concerned and the final message was clear: "If unions cannot demonstrate that they add value [and] if they continue to cause less than competitive practices, go round them like I did in the 1970s."
Partnership is the current "buzzword" in UK industrial relations. However, while all sides to the debate - including the government - embrace the rhetoric of partnership, agreement on its meaning and practical application is more difficult. For the government, a partnership approach is the central theme of its industrial relations policy, both at national and company level.Ian McCartney, Minister of State at the Department of Trade and Industry told an EU conference on social dialogue and the European social model in Vienna in November 1998 that: "For modern companies to succeed, they need to work smarter. Partnerships can help them do that. The best companies in the UK currently practice partnership - it works in both union and non union settings." Mr McCartney outlined key elements of the government's strategy to boost partnership, including spreading best practice and establishing a partnership fund for innovative training projects.
Yet while there is full agreement on the need for a training fund for partnership, this is where the convergence of views between the social partners ends. There is no single model of partnership. The TUC's vision of "partnership, partnership, partnership", preferably through collective bargaining, has to be weighed against Bill Proudlock's preference for "leadership partnership" between the leaders of organisations and "people lower down", which does not involve a centralisation of industrial relations. The government itself makes the picture no easier to interpret by arguing that partnership is possible in union and non-union settings. For its part, the IPD insists that the partnership must be between management and employees but that the latter need not necessarily be collectively represented in the process.
A partnership approach to employee relations is increasingly being adopted by some UK organisations (UK9810153F). Although initial survey and case study evidence suggests that experience to date is broadly positive, the type of partnership mechanism, and in particular the extent of union involvement, are likely to emerge as crucial variables. (MW Gilman, IRRU)