XI. UNION EXCLUSION IN THE UNITED STATES, UNITED KINGDOM, AND WESTERN EUROPE

Union Avoidance and Employer Hostility to Union Organizing in the UK

TONY DUNDON
National University of Ireland

Abstract

      This paper presents empirical data concerning the pattern of non-union employer strategies to remain union-free. The evidence is collected from seven case studies across different industrial sectors and organizational sizes in Britain. Three factors are identified that help understand the context and significance of employer behavior towards unionization: structural, ideological and cultural dimensions. It is argued that these represent a deeper understanding of employer hostility towards unions than existing employment relationship classifications. The prospects for union mobilization are considered in the light of these findings.

Introduction

      Decline has been a common problem facing trade unions in almost all industrialized economies. Various reasons have been advanced to explain this "crisis of labor": the changing composition of the labor force, business cycle variables, new patterns of industrial relations, a rise in the power of global capital and a shift from Fordist to flexible modes of production. The precise significance of each of these factors has been the subject of much debate (Freeman and Medoff 1984; Kochan et al. 1986; Towers 1997; Walton et al. 1994). In Britain the government is promoting a policy of "Fairness at Work", with new rights for individual employees along with the statutory provision for union recognition (Wood and Godard 1999). Interestingly, evidence from the experience of North American union certification shows that, in practice, statutory recognition procedures are increasingly more difficult for unions than employers (Logan 2001).

      The purpose of this paper is to present empirical evidence about the "shape, pattern and form" of employer tactics to remain union-free. Following a brief critique of the typologies of union avoidance, the evidence is then used to illustrate a deeper understanding of employer behavior towards unions. The evidence suggests that the "configuration" of anti-union approaches involves an uneven and at times contradictory interaction of context-specific factors. Three mutually inclusive influences on employer behavior are identified: structural, ideological and cultural factors. The prospect for union organizing is then briefly considered in the light of very different patterns of union avoidance tactics.

Non-Unionism and Employment Typologies

      In the non-union situation labor relations practices are often related to an either/or scenario of union suppression and/or substitution. On the one hand, companies such as IBM, HP or M&S are cited as exemplars of good human relations that "substitute" the triggers to unionization. At the other end of this simply dichotomy is the sweatshop or exploitative small firm that "suppress" union demands (McLoughlin and Gourlay 1994). One implication is that non-union firms tend to be labeled as being either "good, bad, or ugly" (Guest and Hoque 1994).

      A more recent addition to non-union "typologies" has been advanced by Gall (2001). Given that employers may use, simultaneously, practices that are both suppressive and substitutive, Gall revisits a framework devised by Roy (1980) in the United States, and seeks to classify managerial control approaches in the light of legally enforceable union recognition. Essentially, Gall (2001:3) adds three additional categories to Roy's original four typologies to accommodate differences between UK and U.S. managerial practices (see Table 1).

      While this revised framework can better locate different types of anti-union behavior with more detail than the simple "suppression-substitution" dichotomy, there remain a number of difficulties. First, it is unclear whether employers have the ability to consciously adopt one particular strategy over another. It is possible that managerial approaches to union organizing are both haphazard and ad hoc. Indeed, Gall (2001:17) acknowledges that "the use of one or more of the seven approaches at any one point in time" is important (emphasis added). Second, there is little evidence to suggest that such typologies in general have any predictive power across industrial sectors or occupational groups (Kitay and Marchington 1996). For unions seeking recognition and worker mobilization, then, this is likely to be of particular importance.

Research Method

      The evidence used to consider these issues was collected from seven non-union case studies between 1995–1998. Detailed interviews were conducted with key informants in each organization: company directors, line managers and workers. The case study organizations are briefly outlined in Table 2. An initial comment about employer behavior towards unionization is indicated in the final column, which is the subject of more detailed explanation and analysis in the following sections.

Findings

      The evidence suggests British employers are to some extent aware of American-style union-busting tactics, even though these are not fully embraced. What seem to be emerging are hybrid forms of union avoidance particular to given organizational contexts, rather than any ideal approach toward union resistance. Using this analysis three mutually inclusive dimensions are used to help understand the complexity of employers' avoidance strategies rather than the mapping of discrete typologies. These include structural barriers, managerial ideology, and cultural influences that shape the form of employer resistance to unionization.

Structural Barriers: "Bypassing Union Channels"

      Employers used the tried and tested economic (external) sanction that unionism would damage company profits and future job losses would be a likely consequence. In almost all of these cases, management sought to devise flexible working systems justified on the grounds of external economic necessity. This created a structural barrier to collective organization that served managerial aims. At Water Co, it was common for workers to be dismissed and re-employed a few weeks later to circumvent statutory employment rights. If individuals or groups of workers proposed the idea of union representation, they were simply not invited back, according to the managing director.

      While such extreme examples point towards "fear stuff", it is important to understand that workers themselves were not ignorant of economic conditions and, in most organizations, management used other tactics in tandem with the threat of economic or structural instability. At Merchant Co, TEC, Petrol Co, and Mini Steel management devised structures of employee voice that mirrored previous forms of collective representation. Management derecognized the trade unions but in place they promoted their own form of employee involvement: company councils and semi-autonomous teams. The Personnel Director at Petrol Co explained the rationale:

We've actually collapsed everything into what we call an employee forum . . . constituency-based representation, and that's critical is that; not based on tribal loyalties. We have 12 reps elected across the site and they are elected from defined areas . . . [they] represent all the people within an area whether they're a craftsman, technician, a process technician, whether they're one of the secretaries, whether one of the managers in that area.

While these approaches can be labeled as "fear" or "harm" in terms of unionization, it is also important to understand the importance and relevance of the ideological origins of employer behavior.

Ideological Sentiments: "You Can't Have a Union"

      Structural barriers to resist unionization were often underpinned by the employers' ideological distaste of trade unionism. In some cases management were open in their own personal attitude towards unions, and this conveyed a very clear and intimidating message to workers. In many cases, management effectively substituted worker resistance with a climate of "fear". At Water Co one worker commented: "Join the union and you get sacked, that's it".

      At Mini Steel similar responses were articulated by workers: "We've been told that if we even mention the union, then the job centre is down the street, turn left."

      Management also unashamedly articulated the anti-union message. The personnel director for Mini Steel explained: "If an individual didn't share our vision they'd have to go and work for another company where they could enjoy that sort of representation".

      The impact of such messages is not new. However, these anti-union sentiments rarely existed in isolation but were combined with other union avoidance tactics that made it difficult for workers to articulate a claim for unionization. Thus while the classification of "fear stuff" has a resonance with these incidents, there remain other qualitative aspects that require a deeper exploration in order to fully understand employer behavior and union hostility.

Cultural Influences: "Facilitating Winning Teams"

      In many of these case studies, management actively sought to socially construct a workplace culture that would engender loyalty to a (non-union) corporate identity. Thus, against a backdrop of managerial intimidation, there also coexisted specific organizational practices that mediated some of the harsh realities of employer behavior. A particularly important factor in this regard is how a discourse of language and meaning is interpreted inside the organization. To this extent the use of fun, humor and games featured as a strong characteristic of non-unionism at Water Co, Delivery Co, Chem Co and the TEC. Significantly, this gave management the space and opportunity to counter any notion of collective representation while not appearing to be the bad guy. The personnel director was quite clear that cultural symbols particular to Delivery Co were important tools to counter any potential union recognition claims:

We're not too sure how to tackle the [recognition] issue yet. We understand a bit more now, and we'll put some effort in to handle it "our way" because we think it's the right thing to do.

Some of the detail about how management developed initiatives "their way" included the promotion of fun and humor. In the call center at Delivery Co, management encouraged employees to participate in competitive interteam games, with financial and other rewards for "winning teams". At the TEC management would pay for social events with the clear objective of diverting attention away from on-going union organizing efforts. In a number of these organizations, this managerial tactic was relatively successful as this Delivery Co employee makes clear:

I think people can say and do what they want here without a union. People can put their suggestions forward and if somebody doesn't like it at the end of the day then they say so. It's not a bad working environment, it's not like a factory where it's dirty or filthy. We get free coffee, we have a laugh, there's a good environment. At the end of the day I don't think unions are necessary or help with the client needs for the direction of our industry.

What is significant here is that management would merge cultural initiatives with other, more aggressive anti-union tactics (structural and ideological) when the occasion demanded it. However, as Willmott (1993) argues, such cultural symbols are only effective control systems where employees "internalize" managerial ideologies. At Delivery Co, perhaps the most sophisticated and certainly the largest and commercially successful of all the case studies, management found it necessary to remove their cultural velvet glove and reveal an iron fist of anti-unionism when the impact of corporate culture was found wanting. One call center employee explained:

There was a lady who worked here. She was quite happy for a union to be here. She doesn't work here anymore--she was too much that way and not enough the management way. She did leave on her own accord, but I think it was because she was made uncomfortable.

Conclusion and Discussion

      There are two immediate issues arising from the evidence presented in this paper. The first concerns the way non-union organization, and in particular classifications of employer behavior, have traditionally been viewed and understood. The second is the extent to which new methods of union organizing, such as those depicted by the TUC's New Organising Academy (TUC 1996), may stand up against employer hostility towards unions.

Non-Union Typologies

      The variation in employer approaches to resist unions is more complex and uneven than either suppression or substitution would otherwise imply. The often-cited view that non-union employers are either "good, bad, or ugly," or "suppress or substitute" union triggers, is in many respects a misinterpretation. In the smaller case study firms, such as Water Co and Chem Co, management could not afford the same substitution strategies deployed by the larger organizations, such as Delivery Co or Petrol Co. Moreover, the configuration of union avoidance tactics did not fit neatly into either of the managerial approaches reviewed here. On Roy's (1980) and Gall's (2001) classifications, Delivery Co, Mini Steel, and Petrol Co may be labeled as "sweet", "fear", and "harm stuff", respectively. Yet each of these organizations also utilized a combination of specific practices that made sense only within their respective contexts: above average salaries, training schemes, devolved management, non-union voice mechanisms as well as intimidation and threats. There is thus a danger that such typologies represent ideal rather than real situations.

Union Organizing Methods

      The pattern of employer behavior also offers some limited insights into the prospect of union organizing among such enterprises. In response to a simple attitude survey, workers in these firms were either mildly or significantly supportive of the principle of union representation. However, one pragmatic implication concerns the efficacy of a union to correct a perceived injustice. In many of these companies workers were fearful of managerial reprisals and this led them to question the ability of a union to effectively challenge managerial attitudes or provide any instrumental job improvements (Dundon 2001). Given the complexity and unevenness of both employer behavior and worker responses, it is debatable what sort of union campaigns can counterbalance managerial hostility and alleviate worker concerns. In part this is because existing evidence suggests a dual strategy by the unions: they want to appear respectable to employers while at the same time trying to appeal to workers.

      However, this conveys the concept of universalistic mutual gains without due regard for the context-specific factors prevailing in an organization. There is some research to suggest that a partnership approach may allow employees to articulate their voice (Marchington et al. 2001), or promote union membership through in-fill recruitment (Heery et al. 2000). Significantly, partnership is often a function of managerial support given the pre-existence of collective representation or owing to the industrial relations legacies in an organization.

      This is not an option in the case studies reported here. It is difficult to envisage the notion of partnership appealing to an employer who is fundamentally opposed to the very existence of a union (Claydon 1998; Kelly 1996). Of course much depends on the contours of specific partnership arrangements. Recent evidence indicates that "weak" rather than "strong" partnerships are developing in some non-union organizations (Knell 1997; Marchington et al. 2001), perhaps in anticipation of possible union recognition. Indeed, it is highly probable from the evidence presented here that a "weak" (non-union) variant of the partnership model may be used to pacify worker concerns, as in the non-union employee voice mechanisms found at Delivery Co, Chem Co, and Petrol Co. It is also evident that informality and the promotion of a distinctive cultural identity can ameliorate the unpleasant experiences of managerial control strategies (Grugulis et al. 2000). In one respect this can help understand why workers may find unionization either less attractive or indeed unattainable, depending on the precise configuration of employer behavior against a specific organizational context and (anti-union) managerial attitude.

References

Claydon, T. 1998. "Problematising Partnership." In P. Sparrow and M. Marchington, eds., Human Resource Management: The New Agenda. London: Pitman, pp. 180–92.

Dundon, T. 2001. "Put Up and Shut Up: Social Mobilisation and Employee Attitudes in Non-union Firms." Paper presented at the British Universities Industrial Relations Association Annual Conference, Manchester Metropolitan University, July 5–7, 2001.

Freeman, Richard B. and James Medoff. 1984. What Do Unions Do? New York: Basic Books.

Gall, G. 2001. "Management Control Approaches and Union Recognition in Britain." Paper presented to the Work Employment and Society Conference, University of Nottingham, September.

Grugulis, I., T. Dundon, and A. Wilkinson. 2000. "Cultural Control and the ‘Culture Manager': Employment Practices in a Consultancy." Work, Employment & Society, Vol. 14, no. 1, pp. 97–116.

Guest, D., and K. Hoque. 1994. "The Good, The Bad and the Ugly: Employment Relations in New Non-union Workplaces." Human Resource Management Journal, Vol. 5, no. 1, pp. 1–14.

Heery, E., M. Simms, R. Delbridge, J. Salmon, and D. Simpson. 2000. "The TUC's Organising Academy: An Assessment." Industrial Relations Journal, Vol. 31, no. 5, pp. 400–15.

Kelly, J. 1996. "Union Militancy and Social Partnership." In P. Ackers, C. Smith, and P. Smith, eds., The New Workplace and Trade Unionism: Critical Perspectives on Work and Organization. London: Routledge, pp. 77–109.

Kitay, J., and M. Marchington. 1996. "A Review and Critique of Workplace Industrial Relations Typologies." Human Relations, Vol. 49, no. 10, pp. 1263–90.

Knell, J. 1998. Partnership at Work. Employment Relations Research Series No. 7, London: Department of Trade and Industry.

Kochan, T., H. Katz, and R. McKersie. 1986. The Transformation of American Industrial Relations. New York: Basic.

Logan, J. 2001. "Is Statutory Recognition Bad News for British Unions? Evidence From the History of North American Industrial Relations." Historical Studies in Industrial Relations, No. 11 (Spring), pp. 63–107.

Marchington, M., A. Wilkinson, P. Ackers, and T. Dundon. 2001. Management Choice and Employee Voice. London: Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, Research Report.

McLoughlin, I., and S. Gourlay. 1994. Enterprise Without Unions: Industrial Relations in the Non-union Firm. Buckingham: Open University Press.

McLoughlin, I. 1996. "Inside the Non-Union Firm." In P. Ackers, C. Smith, and P. Smith, eds., The New Workplace and Trade Unionism: Critical Perspectives on Work and Organization. London: Routledge.

Roy, D.F. 1980. "Repression and Incorporation. Fear Stuff, Sweet Stuff and Evil Stuff: Management's Defences Against Unionization in the South." In T. Nichols, ed., Capital and Labour: A Marxist Primer. Glasgow: Fontana.

Towers, B. 1997. The Representation Gap: Change and Reform in the British and American Workplace. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Trades Union Congress. 1996. New Unionism--Organisers with Attitude: Experiences from the USA. London: Trades Union Congress.

Walton, R.E., J.E. Cutcher-Gershenfeld, and R.B. McKersie. 1994. Strategic Negotiations: A Theory and Change in Labor-Management Relations. Boston: Harvard Business School Press.

Willmott, H. 1993. "Strength is Ignorance; Slavery is Freedom: Managing Culture in Modern Organisations." Journal of Management Studies, Vol. 20, pp. 515–52.

Wood, S., and J. Godard. 1999. "The Statutory Union Recognition Procedure in the Employment Relations Bill: A Comparative Analysis." British Journal of Industrial Relations, Vol. 37, pp. 203–44.