The employment relationship

Industrial relations varies in nature between industries, sectors, businesses and countries over time; however there are constants that exist between all of these variables. Groups of situations are maintained throughout all industrial relations activity and provide an arena for analysis to operate within a set framework:

“The story of British Industrial Relations is the story of how voluntary commitment to work has been developed and how the institutions which support it have been established within a framework of values.”

(Thomason, 1984:1)

The relationship between the employer and the employee has changed considerably since the middle of the nineteenth century, with the commencement of the Industrial Revolution and with the emergence of capitalism facilitating this change. Burgess (1980) commented that this has resulted in the change of relationship between employer and employee, shifting from traditional forms based on status e.g. servitude, to one that forms the notion of a contractual relationship. Thomason (1984:2) adds that:

“Although workers were not as ‘free’ as portrayed, they were clearly emancipated compared to conditions suffered under previous regimes.”

Historically, the demands of the markets had not penetrated the pre- industrial skilled trades, which worked on a customary basis of wage bargaining. Therefore traditional craft workers had more control over their own wage bargaining process, e.g. less exploitation of their labour, due to the customs and practice of the trade over the decades. The increase in factory- based production within key sectors, such as textiles and engineering, enabled employers to reframe the principles of determination of pay, based on market conditions (Burgess, 1980).

There have been many studies into industrial relations and the employment relationship, but it was not until the 1900’s that this topic area could be discussed in theoretical terms rather than purely a descriptive one. Dunlop (1958) identified three actors within the industrial relations system: 1- The hierarchies of managers

3- The specialised agencies of government or of the parties concerned with workers enterprises and relationships between them.

Dunlop (1958) argued that although all of the actors would have some form of presence at any one time, they would not all appear in a highly organised form, nor would they have an equal role to play in the operation of the system. The actors within this setting are influenced by a number of environmental features, which constrains their ability for decision and action taking.

Thomason (1984:5) argued that the following environmental features are decisive in shaping the roles established by the actors in an industrial relations system, although these vary according to a point in time and space:

 The technology

 The market or budgetary constraints

 The statuses and power relations associated with them

To complete Dunlop’s (1958) system, he identified a further requirement, which centred on an ideology or set of ideas and beliefs commonly held by the actors that helps to bind or to integrate the system together as an entity. Therefore to create a stable industrial relations system, it is vital that each actor holds a common set of ideas towards the other actors and their role/function within the system. They will then act or behave within

them in accordance with the ‘game’. All of this would have produced the set of

agreed rules required to function properly. The system was therefore thought to exist and operate to produce the substantive and procedural rules, by which the quantities to be determined within the employment relationship and the norms of conflict governing the interaction of the parties would be determined. Thomason (1980:6) argued that:

“This was the output of a system which took in the differences, disputes and disagreements which might arise within the contractual relationship between employer and employees and processed them through the machinery for discussion and agreement making.”

A platform for both employers and employees to work through their differences and interests would therefore be provided (Dunlop, 1958:16).

The employment relationship has been transformed considerably over recent decades, as a result of the development of the economy and the changing nature of employment (Williams and Adam-Smith, 2010). The latter part of the twentieth century saw the UK undergo a process of de- industrialisation, with a decline in the traditional industries such as coal mining, iron and steel making as well as shipbuilding and other manufacturing industries. Although the UK has relied on the manufacturing sector (Ackroyd and Proctor, 1998), there has been a considerable shift in employment towards the service sector, which includes banking, finance, retailing, leisure and hospitality and also public services (Gennard and Judge, 2010).

Table 2.1 demonstrates this shift through the labour force survey, which highlights the dramatic reversal in employment within the manufacturing and service sectors:

Table 2.1 - The proportion of UK jobs in manufacturing and service

industries, selected years 1979-2011

Year Proportion of jobs in manufacturing (%) Proportion of jobs in services (%) 1979 26.0 61.4 1984 20.5 67.5 1989 18.4 70.0 1994 15.8 74.2 1999 15.0 76.0 2004 11.6 80.0 2008 9.9 80.1 2011 9 81

The service sector has always been viewed as a less dependable and less protective environment compared with traditional areas of work with

Harley (1994) warned that before long, having a ‘proper’ job inside an

organisation will be a minority occupation. Bridges (1995:45), worried about

the very essence of work and the traditional nature of a ‘job’ by stating that:

“Today’s organisation is rapidly being transformed from a structure built out of jobs to a field of work needing to be done. Jobs are artificial units superimposed on the field…what is disappearing today is not just a certain number of jobs, but the very thing itself-the job.”

In retrospect these comments seem somewhat patronising and condescending, as the service sector has provided a large proportion of the country’s income and also provided employment for people who would have ordinarily been employed in the diminished traditional industries (Hollinshead,

Nicholls and Tailby, 2002). The removal of a ‘job for life culture’ has also

removed the traditional framework of the employment relationship. Employees have had to embrace a new psychology of work and be more emotionally mobile (Overell, Mills, Roberts, Lekhi and Blaug, 2010). The employment relationship has not only been affected by the shift from traditional to non-traditional employment, it has also been affected by the change in the labour market.

(Source: Labour Force Survey, 2009) As highlighted in Fig 2.1, there have been changes, albeit slight, in the pattern of contractual relationships, e.g. agency, seasonal, contractor etc.

A along with countries such as Denmark, the UK has a flexible

workforce (Overall et al., 2010). According to Bauman (1998:30) there are

many consequences of a flexible workforce, in particular:

“The flexible labour market neither offers nor permits commitment and dedication to any currently performed occupation. Getting attached to the job in hand, identifying one’s place in the world with the work performed is neither very likely not to be recommended given the short lived nature of any employment.”

Sennett (1998) also concurred by stating that there was an insistence on departure and that to stay put is to be left behind.

The recent issues raised by Unite the union (2013) regarding zero hours contracts highlight the continued natural disparity of flexible employment. Unite have argued that zero hours contracts offer no guarantee of weekly income or hours, and are used by employers to avoid paying holiday entitlements and other benefits, and which can lead to increased bullying and harassment of staff. However, the CIPD (2013) have carried out research, which suggests that while there are negative issues with zero hours contracts, they have been unfairly demonised and can be mutually beneficial.