Employee Relations

Frontmatter

1. What is Employee Relations?

Abstract

Employee relations is an important feature of modern life, yet there is no generally agreed definition of what it is. The purpose of this chapter is to show why that is the case. But it should also enable you to explain the definition of employee relations that we will be using, if only by implication, throughout the book.

Chris Brewster

2. Management

Abstract

This chapter examines one of the parties to employee relations — management. By the end of the chapter you should appreciate the key role that management plays in employee relations. To do that you need to understand the differences within management and the variety of ways that they can be involved, and to have at least a brief acquaintance with the organisations that represent management in employee relations. We will discuss too the complicated position that managers, who are also employees, find themselves in.

Chris Brewster

3. The Trade Unions

Abstract

You have seen the headlines:

UNION TELLS CHANCELLOR, SPEND MORE

WILL THE UNIONS SAVE LABOUR?

CAR UNIONS IN ALL OUT STRIKE

UNION VOTES FOR CND

UNION SUPPORTS TORY COUNCILLOR

and a thousand more like them. What precisely are these unions? Are they all the same? What do they aim to achieve? How do they operate? How powerful are they? This chapter aims to help you answer these questions.

Chris Brewster

4. Employee Relations and the State

Abstract

When we discussed definitions of employee relations we found that one of the parties that would often be involved was the state (see p. 3). To understand the way the state is involved we need to appreciate:

• the state as a major employer;
• the state as economic manager;
• the state as law-maker;
• the state as the provider of specialist services.

Chris Brewster

5. The Law and Collective Bargaining

Abstract

Compared to most countries, the law plays a small part in British employee relations. Even in Britain, however, the law is an important element in the relationship between managements and trade unions and between managers and employees. This chapter concentrates on the collective relationships: the way the law structures employee relations at the management-union level.

Chris Brewster

6. Individuals and Employment Law

Abstract

Whilst the law has in general stayed out of the collective side of employee relations, at least until recently, it has been much more active in the relationship between individuals and their employers.

Chris Brewster

7. Workplace Employee Relations

Abstract

So far we have considered what employee relations is (in Chapter 1), looked at the main groups involved — management, unions and the state — and at the legal basis of employee relations. But how does it all fit together? What are employee relations like in British workplaces?

Chris Brewster

8. Negotiating

Abstract

In this chapter we look at the practice of industrial relations negotiating. You will, if only through reading the newspapers, know something about this already. This chapter could, if you work through it carefully, make you a better negotiator. This is important because, although there are many subjects which management claims to be non-negotiable, there is an increasing number of topics which are being negotiated. Ten years ago management generally did not expect unions to be interested in a new sales campaign or pensions provisions. At present they are involved with pensions but not with the sales campaign. In ten years time, who knows?

Chris Brewster

9. Management Policies

Abstract

It has been a theme through this book that, of the three main parties to employee relations — management, unions and the state — it is management which has the major responsibility for developing and maintaining employee relations at the workplace. At this point we should look at managerial policies in industrial relations, to see what it is that managements are, or could be, trying to achieve and how they are, or how they could be, planning to meet those objectives.

Chris Brewster

Backmatter