Why Do Non-Union Employees Want To Unionise? Evidence from Britain

The introduction of a statutory recognition procedure offers British unions the opportunity to reverse membership decline by organising non-union workers. The aim of this paper is to test theories of individual union joining in order to assess the likely impact of the new procedure on British union membership. Responses of a nationally representative sample of non-union employees to the question 'how willing would you be to join a union if one were available at your workplace?' are analysed. Results suggest that the new legislation will cause union membership to rise among manual employees, but that unions will face a much harder challenge organising non-manual employees. Unless unions can change their environment, or change themselves then long-term decline is likely.Trade Unions, employee attitudes, unionisation

The Anatomy of Union Decline in Britain: 1990-1998

To what extent can the decline in British trade union density between 1990 and 1998 be attributed to declining opportunities to unionize compared to declining propensity to unionize among workers with the opportunity to do so and to compositional change? This question is answered using data to from both workplaces (from 1990 and 1998 Workplace Employee Relations Surveys) and individuals (fro m the British Household Panel Survey). Results show that both falling opportunities and falling propensities to unionize accounted for membership decline during this period. Membership fell because unions lacked the power to maintain bargaining relationships with management, to organize new workplaces, or to uphold the ¿social custom¿ of union membership among new workers who took union jobs. However, there was little evidence that declining union membership was the result of a change in employee attitudes towards unions.Labour Management Relations, Trade Unions, Collective Bargaining

The De-Collectivisation of Pay Setting in Britain 1990-1998: Incidence, Determinants and Impact

Overall, collective bargaining coverage has dropped by around fourteen percentage points. This paper investigates the causes and consequences of the decline in collective bargaining in Britain between 1990 and 1998. One in three workplaces that practiced collective bargaining in 1990 had abandoned it by 1998 and the incidence and coverage of collective bargaining in newer workplaces was lower than in the workplaces they replaced. The abandonment of collective bargaining was not associated with an increase in individualised payment mechanisms or with the use of 'high involvement' HRM practices. Workplaces that abandoned bargaining reported less impressive productivity gains than other workplaces. Male wage inequality rose as a result of the decline of bargaining coverage and of weaker unions where collective bargaining remained. Higher levels of job creation in workplaces that abandoned collective bargaining balance these negative outcomes.Collective bargaining, de-collectivisation, wage dispersion

Unions and the Sword of Justice: Unions and Pay Systems, Pay Inequality, Pay Discrimination and Low Pay

Dispersion in pay is lower among union members than among non-unionists. This reflects two factors. First, union members and jobs are more homogeneous than their non-union counterparts. Second, union wage policies within and across firms lower pay dispersion. Unions' minimum wage targets also truncate the lower tail of the union distribution. There are two major consequences of these egalitarian union wage policies. First, the return to human capital is lower in firms which recognise unions than in the unorganised sector. Second, unions compress the wage structure by gender, race and occupation.Unions, pay distribution, discrimination

Influences on Trade Union Organising Effectiveness in Great Britain

This paper brings together data from the 1998 Workplace Employee Relations Survey, National Survey of Unions and TUC focus on recognition survey to investigate influences on union organising effectiveness. Organising effectiveness is defined as the ability of trade unions to recruit and retain members. Results suggest that there are big differences in organising effectiveness between unions, and that national union recruitment policies are an important influence on a union's ability to get new recognition agreements. However local factors are a more important influence on organising effectiveness in workplaces where unions have a membership presence. There are also important differences in organising effectiveness among blue and white-collar employees. These differences suggest that unions will face a strategic dilemma about the best way to appeal to the growing number of white-collar employees.Trade union objectives and structures, organising effectiveness

The relevance of the human resource management (HRM) to lean in the service sector: evidence from three exploratory case studies

The aim of this research is to explore the relevance of the Human Resource Management (HRM) to lean in the service sector. In particular, the focus is to further understand the HRM bundle which is one of the four main bundles of lean: Just-In-Time (JIT), Total Quality Management (TQM), Total Preventive Maintenance (TPM), and Human Resource Management (HRM) (Pont, Furlan, and Vinelli, 2008; Shah and Ward, 2003). In this context, a bundle (whether a lean or a HRM bundle) means a set of interrelated and internally consistent practices (Pont, Furlan, and Vinelli, 2008). The study uses case study research because it allows a rich coverage of the area of investigation (Yin, 2009) via the utilisation of multiple sources of evidence (Gillham, 2000). Case study research studies a phenomenon in its real context and has the ability of reporting and documenting events in their practical nature (Yin, 2011). Its researchers’ understanding that lean influences certain HRM practices (HRM bundle); however, the degree and nature of the influence is yet to be further explored

Artemisinin-based combination therapy does not measurably reduce human infectiousness to vectors in a setting of intense malaria transmission

<p>Background: Artemisinin-based combination therapy (ACT) for treating malaria has activity against immature gametocytes. In theory, this property may complement the effect of terminating otherwise lengthy malaria infections and reducing the parasite reservoir in the human population that can infect vector mosquitoes. However, this has never been verified at a population level in a setting with intense transmission, where chronically infectious asymptomatic carriers are common and cured patients are rapidly and repeatedly re-infected.</p> <p>Methods: From 2001 to 2004, malaria vector densities were monitored using light traps in three Tanzanian districts. Mosquitoes were dissected to determine parous and oocyst rates. Plasmodium falciparum sporozoite rates were determined by ELISA. Sulphadoxinepyrimethamine(SP) monotherapy was used for treatment of uncomplicated malaria in the contiguous districts of Kilombero and Ulanga throughout this period. In Rufiji district, the standard drug was changed to artesunate co-administered with SP (AS + SP) in March 2003. The effects of this change in case management on malaria parasite infection in the vectors were analysed.</p> <p>Results: Plasmodium falciparum entomological inoculation rates exceeded 300 infective bites per person per year at both sites over the whole period. The introduction of AS + SP in Rufiji was associated with increased oocyst prevalence (OR [95%CI] = 3.9 [2.9-5.3], p < 0.001), but had no consistent effect on sporozoite prevalence (OR [95%CI] = 0.9 [0.7-1.2], p = 0.5). The estimated infectiousness of the human population in Rufiji was very low prior to the change in drug policy. Emergence rates and parous rates of the vectors varied substantially throughout the study period, which affected estimates of infectiousness. The latter consequently cannot be explained by the change in drug policy.</p> <p>Conclusions: In high perennial transmission settings, only a small proportion of infections in humans are symptomatic or treated, so case management with ACT may have little impact on overall infectiousness of the human population. Variations in infection levels in vectors largely depend on the age distribution of the mosquito population. Benefits of ACT in suppressingtransmission are more likely to be evident where transmission is already low or effective vector control is widely implemented.</p&gt

Gene flow and cross-mating in Plasmodium falciparum in households in a Tanzanian village

The diversity of the genes encoding 2 merozoite surface proteins (MSP-1 and MSP-2) of Plasmodium falciparum has been examined in parasites infecting members of 4 households in a village in Tanzania. The polymerase chain reaction (PCR) was used to characterize allelic variants of these genes by the sizes and sequences of regions of tandemly repeated bases in each gene. In each household extensive polymorphism was detected among parasites in the inhabitants and in infected mosquitoes caught in their houses. Similar frequencies of the alleles of these genes were observed in all households. Capture-recapture data indicated that both Anopheles gambiae and A.funestus freely dispersed among households in the hamlet. The results confirm that cross-mating and gene flow occur extensively among the parasites, and are discussed within the context of spatial clustering of natural populations of P. falciparu

HRM and the COVID-19 Pandemic: How can we stop making a bad situation worse?

This provocation argues that the COVID-19 pandemic has exposed deep labour market inequalities. Partially underpinning these inequalities are human resource management (HRM) theories and practices which encourage and legitimise the commodification of labour. Workers whose jobs have been commodified have suffered disproportionately during the pandemic. While HRM is not wholly responsible for this suffering it is important for those of us involved in researching, teaching and practicing HRM to reflect on the ways in which what we do has made a bad situation worse so that we can do better in the future