Best value and workplace partnership in local government

Purpose – This paper explores employee experiences concerning job security/insecurity, workload, job satisfaction and employee involvement in the aftermath of Best Value reviews in a local authority. Design/methodology/approach – Using a mix of quantitative and qualitative data collection techniques employees’ experiences of Best Value reviews in a local authority are compared and contrasted with council staff employed elsewhere in the authority to establish the extent to which workplace partnership principles have taken hold under a Best Value regime. Findings – Little evidence of positive outcomes was found from partnership at work under a Best Value regime. The constraints imposed by central government, under which managers in the public sector operate, contributed significantly to partnership at work remaining little more than a hollow shell. Originality/value – This paper provides a recent in-depth case study of the experience of workplace partnership, which was developed not discrete from but as part of the Best Value modernisation programme in a local authority

Negociación colectiva: Construyendo la solidaridad mediante la lucha contra las desigualdades y la discriminación (Collective bargaining: Building solidarity through the fight against inequalities and discrimination)

Equality bargaining in essence is turning the resource of collective bargaining to the objectives of equality and diversity in work and employment. This article traces the progress of equality bargaining, with a focus on the UK. It explores the decline of the coverage and scope of collective bargaining and increase in pay gaps on the vertical plane alongside extant social divisions and inequalities. It looks at legal solutions including statutory mechanisms to achieve collective bargaining and a National Minimum Wage. It notes that in the UK women are more likely to be covered by collective bargaining and despite a hostile economic climate, characterised by the fragmentation of bargaining through privatisation, that a union pay premium has survived and is larger for women. It discusses the limitations of both a National Minimum Wage and voluntary Living Wage for equality and concludes by supporting calls for the rebuilding of sectoral collective bargaining, but emphasises that this needs to be inclusive and expansive

Employee representation and partnership in the non-union sector: a paradox of intention?

Non-union forms of employee representation have become increasingly prominent in UK workplaces in the last 15 years. In addition, partnership working has been encouraged by New Labour, the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, the Confederation of British Industry and the TUC as a route to higher commitment and higher individual and organisational performance. These trends have been further encouraged by recent European Union legislation. This article seeks to examine the implied linkages between non-union employee representative mechanisms and partnership working and their influence on the effectiveness of employee voice as a conduit of high performance. The article is based on a case study organisation from within the UK finance sector, and data are drawn from semistructured interviews with managers and staff and a survey of employee attitudes. The article concludes that employers’ attempts to utilise a non-union partnership framework for organisational gain are severely constrained by structural limitations on effective employee voice

The changing face of employment relations: equality and diversity

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore what has happened to the notion and reality of equal pay over the past 50 years, a period in which women have become the majority of trade union members in the UK. It does so in the context of record employment levels based upon women’s increased labour market participation albeit reflecting their continued over-representation in part-time employment, locating the narrowed but persistent overall gender pay gap in the broader picture of pay inequality in the UK. Design/methodology/approach – The paper considers voluntary and legal responses to inequality and the move away from voluntary solutions in the changed environment for unions. Following others it discusses the potential for collective bargaining to be harnessed to equality in work, a potential only partially realised by unions in a period in which their capacity to sustain collective bargaining was weakened. It looks at the introduction of a statutory route to collective bargaining in 2000, the National Minimum Wage from 1999 and at the Equality Act 2010 as legislative solutions to inequality and in terms of radical and liberal models of equality. Findings – The paper suggests that fuller employment based upon women’s increased labour market activity have not delivered an upward pressure on wages and has underpinned rather than closed pay gaps and social divisions. Legal measures have been limited in the extent to which they have secured equal pay and wider social equality, whilst state support for collective solutions to equality has waned. Its replacement by a statutory minimum wage initially closed pay gaps, but appears to have run out of steam as employers accommodate minimum hourly rates through the reorganisation of working time. Social implications – The paper suggests that statutory minima or even voluntary campaigns to lift hourly wage rates may cut across and even supersede wider existing collective bargaining agreements and as such they can reinforce the attack on collective bargaining structures, supporting arguments that this can reduce representation over pay, but also over a range of other issues at work (Ewing and Hendy, 2013), including equality. Originality/value – There are then limitations on a liberal model which is confined to promoting equality at an organisational level in a public sector subject to wider market forces. The fragmentation of bargaining and representation that has resulted will continue if the proposed dismantling of public services goes ahead and its impact upon equality is already suggested in the widening of the gender pay gap in the public sector in 2015

Partnership with and without trade unions in the UK financial services: filling or fuelling the representation gap?

Partnership theory proposes that an appropriate integration of direct and indirect employee participation mutually benefits workers and company. This study explores the putative employee voice gains and the risks for union effectiveness by comparing employees' evaluation of partnership practices at two financial service companies with nonunion and union employee representation respectively

Partnership, high performance work systems and quality of working life

The paper measures the effects of workplace partnership and selected high performance work practices on four different dimensions of employee experience. Whilst the partnership– high performance work systems nexus seems to have little impact on employees’ job satisfaction or sense of attachment, it does, however, have a negative impact on both workplace stress and employee evaluations of union performance. The analysis thus questions common assumptions about the inevitability of ‘mutual gain’ and the necessity of employer/union partnership

Best value and workplace partnership in local government

Purpose – This paper explores employee experiences concerning job security/insecurity, workload, job satisfaction and employee involvement in the aftermath of Best Value reviews in a local authority. Design/methodology/approach – Using a mix of quantitative and qualitative data collection techniques employees’ experiences of Best Value reviews in a local authority are compared and contrasted with council staff employed elsewhere in the authority to establish the extent to which workplace partnership principles have taken hold under a Best Value regime. Findings – Little evidence of positive outcomes was found from partnership at work under a Best Value regime. The constraints imposed by central government, under which managers in the public sector operate, contributed significantly to partnership at work remaining little more than a hollow shell. Originality/value – This paper provides a recent in-depth case study of the experience of workplace partnership, which was developed not discrete from but as part of the Best Value modernisation programme in a local authority

Non-Standard Contracts and the National Living Wage: A Report for the Low Pay Commission

This research explores the relationship between contractual arrangements and the payment of the National Living Wage (NLW). Its focus is non-standard employment arrangements; specifically zero hours contracts (ZHCs), Minimum Hours contracts (MHCs), agency work (effectively zero hours in this research) and dependent self-employment. In this report the term ‘dependent self-employed’ (DS-E) is used to refer to workers who are to all intents and purposes employees, but who are defined as self-employed, for example to achieve a more favourable tax and national insurance regime; the so-called ‘bogus self-employed’ (BS-E). Overall, these contractual forms may mean that workers receive variable pay from week to week and that once hours worked and related costs are taken into account, they may be paid below the NLW, and/or dependent upon in-work benefits to supplement pay. Using qualitative data collection the research contributes a set of worker case studies - 36 in total - drawn from six low paying industry sectors where the types of contracts under investigation are known to be in use. The approach allows detailed scrutiny of hours and their relationship with earnings and consideration of whether the NLW is achieved, taking into account fluctuations and paid and unpaid components of working time. The case studies explore elements of unpaid working time, highlighted in homecare (travel and waiting time), but increasingly in other sectors1. They capture the organisation of working time, the notion of unsocial hours and, concretely, the payment of premia. The case studies identify changes in contractual arrangements and pay and grading structures (compression or removal of differentials) in the light of the NLW, along with perceptions of employer behaviour in relation to its introduction. The report identifies factors driving contractual arrangements and the extent to which these represent individual preference or are involuntary, including where workers are deemed ‘self-employed’ and particularly in the context of recent Employment Tribunal cases. The impacts of contractual forms on work and the work-effort bargain are explored. Finally the research illustrates how workers survive in the context of wider household and familial relationships, including interaction with the tax and benefits systems. In focusing upon the ways that workers are formally or informally removed from employment protection, including the NLW, the report addresses a number of issues that the Taylor Review of Modern Working Practices2 proposes might, in the future, fall within the remit of the Low Pay Commission (LPC)