Caroline Lloyd

What Do Employee Councils Do? The Impact of Non-Union Forms of Representation on Trade Union Organisation

The article examines how non-union forms of employee representation impact on employee attitudes to unionisation. Through an analysis of union derecognition and the introduction of an employee council in an aerospace plant, it explores a number of factors that may be important in both sustaining and undermining support for trade unions.

Regulating Employment: Implications for Skill Development in the Aerospace Industry

This article examines the link between labour market regulation, in particular in relation to employment security, and the development and maintenance of an adequate skill base. The implications of the different institutional and regulatory contexts within France and the UK are addressed through a comparative study of the civil aerospace sector. The evidence indicates that the institutional framework can have a profound effect on levels of employment security and, therefore, on training and skill development; and thus that labour market flexibility in the UK is a major barrier to the development and maintenance of skills.

Capture and transfer: improving the performance of the pharmaceutical sales rep

This article presents research findings from a case study of a companys pharmaceutical sales force working in the UK and Ireland. We explore how changes in the nature of the customer and the competitive environment are impacting on the way management are structuring the work process and the nature of skills required. A central focus is whether these changes are pushing management to increase the skills and knowledge of sales reps or are encouraging the use of a more rigid and less autonomous form of work organization. Can we identify a shift of this occupational group either towards the knowledge worker end or towards the routinized service worker end of the skill/control spectrum? By analysing the relationships between customer, employer and employee, we evaluate how changes in the pharmaceutical industry and the reorganization of the UKs national health service (NHS) have led management to re-evaluate the balance between control and autonomy in managing sales reps work. We argue that managements desire to empower and upskill reps, through the capture and transfer of knowledge and the recruitment of higher qualified individuals, was being undermined by the use of forms of control which reduced autonomy and routinized the work process. The routinization approach was more pervasive, despite the beliefs by many reps that it was inappropriate for successful selling within the particular customer environment and its negative impact on job satisfaction and labour turnover. Our evidence would refute any assertion of a general trend towards more skilled and autonomous work, showing that there remain considerable pressures on management to control and downskill their workforce, despite the benefits of autonomous working.

Decentralization in the NHS: Prospects for Workplace Unionism

The substantial changes that are taking place in the organization of the UK public sector are transforming traditional patterns of industrial relations based on centralized and institutionalized collective bargaining. Whether the trade union can succesfully respond to this process will be of prime importance for the future development of industrial relations in the public sector. The paper considers recent evidence of the impact of decentralization on union organization in four hospital units. The research findings suggest that there is a growth in union activity as a result of the process of decentralization, but that the effectiveness of unions is likely to vary considerably between hospitals

Microelectronics in the Clothing Industry: Firm Strategy and the Skills Debate

This article examines the impact of CAD/CAM on the UK clothing industry. It questions the extent to which computerisation has led to a greater choice over production strategy and argues that upskilling has not occurred.

Computerising the salesforce: the introduction of technical change in a non‐union workforce

Employee participation and involvement in the introduction of change provide specific challenges for the non-union firm. This article provides evidence from a case study of a pharmaceutical salesforce and argues that the lack of employee ‘voice’ in the introduction of technical change had far-reaching consequences for employee satisfaction and the performance of the company.

The high skills project and the limits of possibility: a response to Coffield

In 2003, we wrote a critical reply to Frank Coffield’s reflections in this journal on the significance of the Performance and Innovation Unit’s project on workforce development for the future direction of skills policy in England. As Coffield made clear in a rejoinder, underpinning our arguments are fundamental disagreements about what would be required to tackle the low skills equilibrium and develop the UK as a high skills society. Coffield criticised our project for being unrealistic and as offering no threat to the status quo. In this reply, we respond to these criticisms before subjecting Coffield’s own policy recommendations to closer scrutiny. The danger with following his approach is that it not only results in academics setting their sights too low but is overly optimistic about what can be achieved by working with policy makers given current political and ideological constraints.