David Beale

Workplace Bullying, Psychological Perspectives and Industrial Relations: Towards a Contextualized and Interdisciplinary Approach

Workplace bullying is increasingly recognized as an important area of debate, particularly among researchers adopting a psychological perspective of work. This paper examines definitions of workplace bullying and explores less orthodox approaches within a British context. It focuses primarily on managers as perpetrators, and comments on the ‘bullying organization’, the relevance of human resource management and of gender. Context, the workplace balance of power, workers’ collective resistance and trade unions are then emphasized as significant factors and the potential for developing a contextualized, politicized and interdisciplinary approach to workplace bullying is suggested. Links with mobilization theory are explored, and the issue is also examined within the UK public sector environment.

Workplace bullying and the employment relationship exploring questions of prevention, control and context

Previous research strongly indicates that the perpetrators of workplace bullying in Britain are mainly managers. Contrary to the predominant view in workplace bullying literature and despite cost implications for employers, this article proposes an agenda for future empirical research focused on whether employers may also benefit significantly from bullying. It outlines a definition of workplace bullying, key debates and prescriptions suggested in previously published literature for management to contest and prevent it. When bullying is perceived in terms of managerial control of labour and the core concepts of the labour process – an approach not previously embraced in the established psychological and social psychological analyses of the issue – bullying is better understood as an endemic feature of the capitalist employment relationship. Existing secondary material and future research possibilities are then explored and discussed, with some conclusions that are aimed to take the research in this field in new directions.

Workplace bullying, industrial relations and the challenge for management in Britain and Sweden

This article explores workplace bullying in Britain and Sweden. It compares and contrasts the patterns of bullying in the two countries, examines the attitudes and responses of employers and explores the different legal frameworks. It adopts a contextualized approach and explores the possibility of a connection between workplace bullying issues and the distinctive patterns of industrial relations in the two countries. The article draws on previously published material to examine these questions, suggesting possibilities for new empirical research.

The workplace bullying-organizational change interface: emerging challenges for human resource management

Though previous research has established organizational change as an antecedent of workplace bullying, issues about the source, aetiology, target orientation and level of organizational involvement and the role of HRM remain unstudied. Addressing these gaps through a hermeneutic phenomenological inquiry of Indian IT sector employees laid off during the 2008–2009 financial recession, downwards depersonalized bullying rooted in the organizational context, stemming from the implementation of the change endeavour and indicating the complicity of HR managers emerged as predominant. Apart from adding the perspective of workplace bullying to the lay-off literature, the study proposes the concept of ‘compounded bullying’ and has implications for the definition of workplace bullying, the legitimacy of organizational power and the scope of HRM.

Engaged in battle: exploring the sources of workplace union militancy at Royal Mail

Sources of workplace union militancy at Royal Mail (UK) are examined in relation to four particular management initiatives in the late 1980s and 1990s. The wider industrial relations context and balance of power are emphasised and an assessment is made of the relative contribution of union leadership to workplace militancy.

India, Neo-liberalism and Union Responses – Unfinished Business and Protracted Struggles

Since the 1970s, the spread of neo-liberalism across the world has radically reconfigured the relationship between unions, employers and the state. The contributors highlight that this is the major cause and effect of union decline and if there is to be any union revitalisation and return to former levels of influence, then unions need to respond in appropriate political and practical ways. Written in a clear and accessible style, the Handbook examines unions’ efforts to date in many of the major economies of the world, providing foundations for understanding each country.

Indian Public Sector Trade Unionism in Context: Gujarat and West Bengal Compared

Abstract Using qualitative research methods and comparing two Indian states (Gujarat and West Bengal), the authors examine the relative power and influence of trade unions in three parts of the public sector, viz., state government employment, municipal bus and tram services, and telecommunications. The distinctive methodology and the findings emphasise the importance of caution in generalising about trade unionism and industrial relations in India as a whole; and indicate that the context of particular Indian states is a vital ingredient of trade union analysis. The authors identify a complex web of explanatory factors for the relative power and influence of the unions under study, within the distinctive political, economic and historical contexts of Gujarat and West Bengal. Thus, they demonstrate the largely untapped potential for primary, qualitative and comparative research to expand our understanding of industrial relations in India.

The bitter recent history of employee involvement at Royal Mail: an aggressive management agenda versus resilient workplace unionism

Focused on a large, diverse branch of the British postal workers’ trade union, workplace union responses to Royal Mail’s employee involvement initiatives are examined through a two-stage longitudinal case study. Royal Mail – the letters section of the British postal service – has carried out a series of managerialist experiments with employee involvement and participation in the last few decades, providing the basis for an important research literature on union and worker responses to new management initiatives, participation and HRM. Findings suggest that these management initiatives and union responses have mutated over time, with an ever-growing gap between management rhetoric associated with employee involvement and increasingly punitive management practice; and with changing but relatively resilient, oppositional workplace union responses. These developments are closely related to the entrenched, confrontational nature of Royal Mail industrial relations that has persisted since the mid-1980s.

Indian Public-Sector Trade Unionism in an Autocratic Political Climate: The Distinctive Case of Gujarat

The power and influence of trade unionism in telecommunications, state government employment and municipal bus services are examined in Gujarat, an Indian state ruled by the Hindu nationalist, pro-big business Bharatiya Janata Party. We identify significant examples of resilience in unions critical of the BJP, alongside conflicts of interest and challenges for pro-BJP unions. These are somewhat surprising findings in a context expected to be hostile to class-based trade unionism, suggesting an important pole of ongoing, organised labour opposition to Gujarat’s perceived political hegemony, and posing some wider issues. In the interim between the writing and publishing of this article, the BJP won India’s 2014 general election.

India at the Crossroads? Economic Restructuring, Deregulation and the Instability of Labour Relations

Dominated by a strong state sector for the first four decades after independence, alongside a relatively corporatist approach to labour relations focused on formal labour, India has experienced obvious restructuring of its economy since the mid-1990s. This has been particularly in terms of increasing market orientation, deregulation and privatization, the emergence of internationally competitive industrial and technical sectors and growing integration with the global economy, in conjunction with rapid economic growth and very considerable, growing disparity of poverty and wealth. These changes have had an important federal dimension and substantial geographical imbalances, and also, the drive towards greater market domination of the economy has been protracted and contested. Regarding the impact of these changes on labour relations, the following aspects are critical: the formal/informal labour distinction, the ongoing demands for legal reform in favour of employers, the challenge of collective representation of informal workers, the question and dilemmas of political party allegiances of trade unions, the significance of special economic zones, the diverse pattern and periodic intensity of labour relations confrontation, and the impact of central government policies and ascendency of the Bharatiya Janata Party.