Sonia McKay

Facing ‘fairness at work’: union perception of employer opposition and response to union recognition

The introduction of statutory mechanisms by which unions can gain union recognition in Britain has stimulated employer activity to avoid and subvert union recognition campaigns. This article examines the nature and extent of such employer activities and how unions have responded.

Between flexibility and regulation : Rights, equality and protection at work

The year 2000 represented the real year of delivery on Labours proposals for industrial relations and employment rights. This review focuses on the content of the governments legislative programme, taking account of the impact of public policy at European level and its relationship with national legislation. The governments programme included a number of measures designed to target discrimination and promote equality, and the review examines the form and significance of these changes, in the light of continuing discrimination in the labour market. It then turns to examine the most fundamental legal reform of the year, the introduction of the statutory right to recognition. Copyright Blackwell Publishers Ltd/London School of Economics 2001.

Developments in Union Recognition and Derecognition in Britain, 1994–1998

This research note shows a marked change in the relative incidence of cases of derecognition and recognition in the period 1994-1998. It shows that the level of derecognition has fallen significantly in recent years while that of the signing of new recognition agreements has continued at its former level, so that on balance new recognition agreements clearly outnumber cases of derecognition. The context and reasons for this are explained by reference to developments in public policy, employer views and union practice. The results of derecognition and the prospects for union recognition are also examined.

Employer sanctions: The impact of workplace raids and fines on undocumented migrants and ethnic enclave employers

The context of this article is the use of employer sanctions, in the form of raids and fines on businesses found to be employing people who do not have permission to work in the UK, as a method of in-border immigration control. Drawing on qualitative interviews with undocumented migrants and ethnic enclave employers in London, this article examines the impact of sanctions from the perspectives of those who have been or are most likely to be affected. More specifically the article sheds light on individual experiences of and strategies against immigration enforcement raids, and the effect of raids on the labour market, conditions of work and more widely, on local community relations. The paper concludes that there is a disjuncture between the real impact of sanctions and at least some of the stated policy aims.

MIGRANT WORKERS IN EUROPE'S MEDIA

The media production industries of most European countries have undergone considerable changes in the last 30 years. The de-regulation of the sector and technological changes have transformed recruitment and employment practices, with some impact on the ethnic composition of the media workforce. Based on relevant literature and the views of 68 senior journalists and media professionals in Italy, Greece, Ireland, the United Kingdom, Poland and the Netherlands, the article examines the factors—impeding and facilitating—that determine migrant employment in the European media. It highlights the many aspects of the recruitment process and the nature of media work that can pose additional barriers to those outside the mainstream of society. For a full explanation of the methodology of the research project, please see the introduction in this themed section: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17512786.2012.740213.

The Working Lives of Undocumented Migrants: Social Capital, Individual Agency and Mobility

Undocumented migration has occupied a central place in the UK government’s migration policy, one symbol being the Coalition government’s controversial decision, in July 2013, to send white vans around the country carrying the slogan ‘In the country illegally? Go home or face arrest’. Migrants generally, but those without documents in particular, are now demonised as the harbingers of all the ills that society faces, including rising and youth unemployment, a declining health service, a housing crisis and as the rationale for attacking welfare benefits. The Immigration Act 2014 increases the sanctions on employers who hire those without documents, by imprisonment or a fine of up to £20,000, while service providers, such as landlords, are also to be held culpable if they rent accommodation to an undocumented migrant. Yet all these measures are being taken in response to a matter about which little is actually known. Policymakers cannot provide statistical data showing how many undocumented migrants there are, where they come from or why they have migrated, with estimates varying widely between 300,000 and 850,000, and too little is known about their working and personal lives. UndocNet, our two-year study into undocumented migrants and their employers, has tried to cast a spotlight on some of these issues through a focus on three minority ethnic communities in London.

Labor History Symposium: Rohini Hensman, Workers, Unions and Global Capitalism: Lessons from India

Noted labour economist Richard Freeman has estimated that over the past generation or so, the global labour force has more than doubled due largely to the entry of Chinese, Indian and former Soviet bloc workers into the global economy. Workers had of course always existed in these places, but it was only in the 1980s and 1990s that their economies were thrust into the global system of production and consumption. While these countries contributed precious little capital to that system, they added approximately 1.47 billion new workers to the global labour pool, and this has placed such unprecedented pressure on labour markets throughout the world that Freeman regards it as a major ‘turning point in economic history’. As a result, advanced countries will see real wages and employment grow more slowly than in the past for the foreseeable future. Developing countries will lose manufacturing jobs and will see a shift in labour to the informal sector, with an accompanying increase in poverty. And rising inequality in India and China will create ‘dangers of social unrest’. Freeman is certainly not alone in calling attention to the seismic shift in the global capital-labour ratio brought about by economic developments in China and India, and he is hardly the sole voice calling for the World Bank and International Monetary Fund to adopt ‘a new model of globalization and new policies that put upfront the well-being of workers around the world’. Considering their historical importance, it is surprising how little we know about these 1.47 billion new entrants to the global labour pool. What rights do working people have in these countries? What labour laws and industrial relations systems exist there? What do we know of their trade union histories? How have these workers and their institutions been impacted by having been thrust into the global system of production? How have they resisted the inevitable dislocations of globalization? And what can we learn from studying their collective histories and current strategies? We are beginning to learn about Chinese workers and their organizations, particularly the All China Federation of Trade Unions (ACFTU). Although often dismissed as a sham because it is state controlled, the ACFTU has enormous potential as a source of change because of its sheer size. With nearly 170 million

Locating the 2000 Statutory Recognition Procedure

Until 2000, save for a very brief period in the 1970s (discussed below), there was no statutory system of trade union recognition. Trade unions had rights to represent their members only in so far as an employer was prepared to concede it. This notion of an employer veto over rights to representation is very different from that which applies in most of the Member States of the European Union.1 In these states the legitimacy of trade unions is acknowledged; either because it is enshrined in the state’s constitution or is embedded in primary legislation which recognises trade unions as key social actors and which therefore grants an automatic right to recognition. The idea that an employer in Italy, Germany or France would have the power to veto the rights of trade unions to represent their members in the workplace is unthinkable, and social dialogue is conducted through the recognised social partners — the trade unions and their counterpart employer organisations. In these countries the employer has no say over the right of a union to represent its members and workers more generally. This apparent weakness in the UK model seems to be at odds with the power and the position which trade unions in the UK have traditionally been viewed as exercising; at least until relatively recently a majority of workers were union members or as a minimum worked under terms and conditions that had been negotiated by a trade union with their employer.

Challenging Recognition — The Legitimacy of Employer Behaviour

This chapter turns to employer responses to recognition claims. As Chapter 1 described, employer behaviour defeated previous recognition legislation and the design of the 2000 statutory process aimed to ensure that this would not reoccur. Yet initial research (Ewing et al., 2003) suggested that employers had the potential to frustrate the purpose of the legislation, both within and outside the procedure. In the 2010 survey of the 20 unions that up to that point had used the procedure, the vast majority — 17 of 20 (85%) — considered that employer behaviour generally aimed to undermine union claims. This raises questions about the extent to which contesting recognition represents legitimate employer behaviour or whether its aim is to circumvent the rights to recognition provided by law, an aspect explored more fully in Chapter 6. Whilst CAC decisions document employer responses to claims once in the procedure, the seven case studies highlighted in this chapter offer a fuller picture of employer behaviour in the workplace. We draw upon both the CAC decisions and the case studies to identify employer strategies that preempt recognition claims, exploit legal technicalities, contest the union’s application by influencing CAC discretion and finally intervene in the workplace to undermine union support.

Be Careful What You Wish for — Unfair Practices and the Law

The previous two chapters looked at both employer and trade union strategies in relation to the recognition law and raised the question of what might constitute legitimate contestation over employee representation in the workplace. This chapter turns to a key change to the law introduced in 2004 by which certain practices within the procedure can be challenged as unfair. Subsequent to its implementation, the 2010 survey of trade unions found that whilst the overwhelming majority reported that they had encountered employer behaviour which they considered constituted an unfair practice, less than a quarter had submitted a complaint under the legislation. The chapter sets out the background to the call for a change to the law and examines the content of the legislative amendment, noting that either party can commit unfair practices with negative consequences for the offending party. It also considers why unions have made only a small number of claims alleging unfair practices, as well as why none have been upheld.