Michael P. Jackson

Decentralization of Collective Bargaining

B Reasons for Trade Union Decline

The role of the head of department in managing performance in UK universities

The increasing scrutiny of universities has led to increasing pressure on heads of department to deliver increased performance. This paper presents 14 case studies from UK institutions examining in detail and in context how heads of department manage performance. It establishes that heads of department have often struggled due to a lack of options and possibilities to influence performance and a lack of management training to help them achieve it. The paper concludes that the real problem facing universities in this area arises from the fact that the change in role of head of department has not been thought through but has been a reaction to external pressure, leading to ambiguity and confusion.

The Water Industry

Before privatization of the water industry in England and Wales in 1989, the structure of the industry was laid down by statute. The Water Act 1973, established, for England and Wales, ten multi-purpose Regional Water Authorities (RWA) to deal primarily with sewage treatment and disposal and supplying clean water by taking over the functions of over 1000 separate local authorities (Map 7.1). Many authorities were also involved in a range of water-related activities such as flood protection, fisheries and recreation. In addition to the ten Water Authorities, Statutory Water Companies (SWC) supply clean water to a quarter of the population of England and Wales (Map 7.2). These had been established by Acts of Parliament in many localities during the nineteenth century, but by 1989 a process of merger and acquisition had reduced the number to 28, largely in the South East of England.

Personnel management in UK universities

Until recently UK universities have paid little attention to managing the personnel function. However, matters changed in the 1980s, and surveys at the beginning of the 1990s suggested that all institutions had established personnel departments. Discusses research recently completed in 14 universities. Finds that there is still considerable variation in the conduct of the personnel function, and that the boundaries of the personnel department and the roles played by personnel differ from one institution to the next. Suggests that much more thought remains to be given to the way that responsibility for human resource functions is devolved to heads of departments. Further, it suggests that while greater recognition may have been given to the importance of the human resource function within universities (and that it may be seen to have a more important role in strategic planning) this has not led necessarily to an increasing role for the personnel department as such.

Decentralization of collective bargaining : an analysis of recent experience in the UK

List of Tables - Acknowledgements - List of Abbreviations - Introduction - The Rise and Decline of National Bargaining - The Hosiery and Knitwear Industry: Coats Viyella - Local Government - Retail Food Industry - The Steel Industry - The Water Industry - The Experience of Decentralisation: The Case Studies Explored - Bibliography - Index

Retail Food Industry

The retail industry employs approximately 2 145 000 people or 9.8 per cent of the total working population in Great Britain. Almost twothirds of those working in retailing are women and a quarter of all employees are aged twenty-four or less. The retail food sector accounts for 818 000 (35 per cent) of those employed in retailing (Retail Pocket Book, 1991). Of these approximately 45 per cent are employed on a part-time basis. Whilst the majority of the retail industry is based in small units spread over a wide area, the industry is dominated by a small number of larger companies.

The Experience of Decentralization: The Case Studies Explored

This chapter will draw together the different strands explored in our five industry case studies. In doing so a number of key features of managing the process of decentralizing collective bargaining will be highlighted. It has already been made clear that we do not pretend to be able to generalize from these case studies. Nevertheless, we can examine issues in more detail than would have been possible had other methods been used and we can identify ideas that might be worth further exploration.

The Hosiery and Knitwear Industry: Coats Viyella

This case study differs from the others in that it is a study of part of a single firm, Coats Viyella plc, operating within one industry, the knitwear industry. Coats Viyella plc is the product of the 1986 merger of three separate firms, Nottinghamshire Manufacturing, Vantona Viyella and Coats Patons. It is organized into seven divisions covering most aspects of the textile and related industries. This case study focuses on the Apparel Division of the company which for collective bargaining purposes was, until 1988, party to the Knitting Industries Federation (KIF) agreement with the National Union of Hosiery and Knitwear Workers (NUHKW) negotiated in the National Joint Industrial Council for the Hosiery Trade.

Collective Bargaining in the UK: The Rise and Decline of National Bargaining

The system of industrial relations in the UK traditionally has been dominated by national bargaining. The years of the First World War and immediately after saw the emergence of industry-wide multiemployer bargaining as the dominant model, and the model which remained dominant for the following fifty or so years.

The Steel Industry

The British Steel Corporation (BSC) was formed by the 1967 Iron and Steel Act which took into national ownership the fourteen largest steelmaking companies in Britain. (The criterion for inclusion in the nationalization programme was the capacity to produce 400 000 tonnes of steel.) Nationalization of the steel industry followed a period of under-investment by the private steel companies (Dobson, 1981). Profits in the industry were low, reflecting the constraints of a production process spread over a large number of small plants operating already obsolete technology. There was a widely held belief that the steel industry needed large-scale rationalization in order to shift production to a small number of large plants operating with the latest equipment and technology. Thus, ‘Nationalisation was intended as a method of rationalising production and of bringing about a lot of investment in the latest technology’ (ibid. p.48).