Colin Whitston

Why Do People Join Unions in a Period of Membership Decline

Drawing on a large survey of new members, this paper examines the reasons why people join unions and the methods of their recruitment. It shows that collective reasons remain central to union membership and that individual services are secondary in the recruitment process. While there is little variation in reasons for joining across industry, occupation and sex, there are marked differences in the methods used to recruit new members. These findings are used to examine existing explanations of membership decline and to assess the efficacy of the different recruitment policy options available to unions.

Attending to work : the management of attendance and shopfloor order

Preface 1. Introduction 2. The Legitimacy of Absence 3. Multiplex: From Paternalism to Managerialism 4. British Rail: Between Tradition and Managerialism 5. City General: Management Change and the Service Ethos in the NHS 6. FinCo: the Regulation of White-collar Work 7. Conclusions Appendices References Index.

Disciplinary Practice : A Study of Railways in Britain, 1860-1988

Does disciplinary practice by employers evolve over time? Not only conventional analyses of discipline but also Foucauldian theories assume that it does. Three features may be tested: the rate of discipline (which should fall); the types of behaviour punished (which should reflect the maintenance of routine); and the dynamics of the process (which should indicate a rationalised approach and the absence of disciplinary purges). Yet there are very few studies of the process. One previous study of the US textile industry found a remarkable continuity between the early nineteenth and late twentieth centuries. The present analysis confirms this finding in the very different context of British railways: though types of behaviour subject to discipline were as expected, the rates of action in the late twentieth century were similar to those of the nineteenth, and the dynamics of the process in both periods contradicted an image of rationalisation. The paper also examines links between formal rules and workplace practice. Some findings, for example the particular ways in which rules and practice were connected, are specific to railways. Others, notably the unchanging dynamics of discipline, have a more general relevance and challenge evolutionary assumptions.

The Reform of Joint Labour Committees - The Re‐Commodification of Labour?

The reform of Joint Labour Committees in Ireland is analysed as a victory for neoliberalism within the shell of pluralist traditions in industrial relations: a floor of rights is transformed into an ‘iron ceiling’; worker voice is drastically reduced; reform is consistent with the re-commodification of labour within the EU.

Job regulation and the managerial challenge to trade unions: evidence from two union membership surveys

Data from a survey of union activists in twelve unions, and from a survey of members of the Communication Workers Union, are used to argue that changes in labour management and work organisation do not provide scope for social partnership at work, but do represent new difficulties for collective representation.