Stephen Deery

Industrial Relations Climate, Attendance Behaviour and the Role of Trade Unions

In recent years there has been a growing interest in the impact of co-operative union‐management relations on firm performance and organizational outcomes such as employee turnover and absenteeism. This paper seeks to identify the factors that affect the development of a co-operative industrial relations climate and analyses the effects of that climate on organizational and union allegiance and on employee attendance behaviour. The data are drawn from a study of a large automotive manufacturer in Australia. The results indicate that a positive union‐management relationship is associated with higher levels of work attendance. Moreover, this outcome is consistent with the presence of strong and effective unionism at the workplace.

Temporal Flexibility: Management Strategies and Employee Preferences in the Retail Industry

The introduction of more flexible working time arrangements has become an important managerial objective in Australia. This is particularly the case in the retail services sector where management has sought to obtain greater freedom to match staffing levels more closely to fluctuations in the volume of customer demand. Such arrangements may not, however, be in accordance with employee preferences. The aim of this paper is to examine the issue of temporal flexibility by looking at the employment policies of a large retailing firm as well as the attitudes of its employees to the introduction of flexible working hours. Contradictions are identified in the companys labour utilization strategy, which have attendant costs for both the employees and the organization.

Trade Unions, Technological Change and Redundancy Protection in Australia:

Redundancy protection has become an important industrial issue in Australia over the past five years. Trade union interest in the question of job security has been heightened by fears that the greater use and application of computer technology will lead to significant reductions in the use of manpower. This article looks at the form and extent of redundancy protection in Australia and the ways in which trade unions have sought to press their claims for greater protection against the labour displacement effects of technological change. It concludes that in general Australian trade unions have met with very little success in establishing even minimum standards of employment security for their members.

Book Reviews : Technological Change and Employment: Innovation in the German Economy: Edited by Ronald Schettkat and Michael Wagnen Walter De Gruyter, Berlin, 1990, xxiii + 384 pp., DM 128, US

ment at times successfully exploited tensions within the employer association structure to keep business off-balance. The unvarnished reality is that under Labor employers cut up rough. The Confederation of Australian Industry (CAI) became less and less effective as business’s peak council because powerful affiliates began jockeying for influence at the national level. The federal government’s economic policy-making strategy was instrumental in causing employers to put their own self-interest above what they might have attained for capital generally, by working through the CAI. Despite extolling the Hawke government’s commitment to consultation with both capital and labour, however, the authors at one point coyly admit that ’frequently this consultation has been based on discussion papers or reports of committees of inquiry’. Curiously, the volume lacks an analytical framework for explaining the political and economic initiatives of the Hawke government. The cover suggests a pluralist paradigm, but most of the theoretical discussion concerns Olson’s ’shock’ thesis and corporatism. Here is their somewhat surprising and vague conclusion: ’Perhaps the truth ... lies somewhere between the positions of the corporatists and Olson.’ While the authors obviously have an in-depth knowledge of how economic policies have been made and who made the decisions, as the cover puts it, they have kept such information to themselves.

69.95 (paperback)

environment faced by Swedish unions. Doubt is cast on the ability of Australian unions to replicate similar outcomes. This challenge to unions in their quest for control over work is an important avenue in Probert’s eyes for bringing about changes in work. This, then, is Probert’s message: gain a degree of control over technological advances through individual and collective action, but move beyond that to approach the redefinition and reshaping of social, political and economic forces. Only through an integrated strategic approach can change be effected which will benefit all workers. Probert’s optimism shines through in her belief of this possibility, though whether unions and workers can take up this challenge is difficult to predict. Probert faces us in the direction but provides little in the way of articulated strategies. Telling what needs to be changed is important, but explaining or suggesting how this is to be done is critical. These are arguments that need to be pursued. Working Life, with its clear and persuasive tone, should be the start of a necessary debate. Phillip Institute of Technology CATHY BRIGDEN

Book Reviews : TECHNOLOGY AND WORK Edited by Wort Buitelaar. Gower, Aldershot, 1988, x + 216 pp., £27.50 (hardback)

was predominantly a public sector union dealing with one major employer. One would like to know more about the attitude of private employers to managerial unionism and the behaviour of such unions in the private sector. If managerial unionism is to become more significant, it will have to grow in the private sector. It must be said that the prospects for this at the present time are bleak indeed. Despite these reservations, however, this is a well-written and informative study. It can be read with benefit by anyone interested in industrial relations in the British steel industry and the fortunes of a managerial union.

Book Reviews : INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS AND NEW TECHNOLOGY By Annette Davies. Croom Helm, London, 1986, 250 pp.,

By Tom Keenoy. Basil Blackwell, Oxford, 1985, xiv + 287 pp.,

49.95 (hardback)

11.95 (paperback),

Book Reviews : Invitation To Industrial Relations:

45.00 (hardback) This is not a book of great academic import. Rather it is a lively, clever and partly iconoclastic explanation of the main features of British industrial relations. Keenoy makes it clear that he has no intention of producing a solid but dour introductory textbook focusing on actors, processes and outcomes. His purpose is to offer ’a way of seeing: a method through which we can

Book Reviews : Employment Relations in Industrial Society: By John Goodman. Philip Allan, Oxford, 1984, ix + 244 pp, £5.95 (paper back) £ 12.00 (hardback)

The final chapter integrates the impact of election and collective bargaining ballots on union government and industrial relations outcomes, this time in the context of the well-traversed territory of union democracy. The empirical evidence is examined in terms of each of five models of democracy to find that the result for democracy in British unions of enforcing postal ballots is problematic. This is due to the effect of legislation depending on the interaction between voting method and the union’s existing formal and informal decision-making processes and the absence of a common pattern in the latter, particularly informal procedures. These and other conclusions, for example that many major influences on union democracy cannot be legislated for, are not surprising. The issues have been well canvassed by Australian writers reaching similar conclusions. A distinctive contribution here is the depth of the empirical evidence and its proximity and relevance to activity by political 61ites. There are, however, new subsidiary conclusions, for example the National Union of Miners with its requirements to ballot members on strikes (tic) is cited to illustrate that such mandatory reference back may change voters’ perceptions of the importance of elections and release