Industrial Relations

Industrial relations have undergone significant and extensive change over the last fifteen years. The combined impact of government legislation, international competition, and organizational restructuring has affected union organization and membership; the scope and content of collective bargaining; and the organization, objectives and nature of work. The extent of these changes raises important questions about industrial relations and human resource management in contemporary Britain and demands fresh analysis. In Contemporary Industrial Relations leading authorities address these issues with a detailed and comprehensive analysis of current trends. Topics covered include: HRM and the New Industrial Relations The Role of the State Trade Union Law Industrial Relations and Economic Performance Public Sector Unionism Union Recognition The New Unionism Japanization The contributors are: Ian Beardwell; David Guest and Kim Hoque; Ian Clark; Stephen Dunn and David Metcalf; Peter Nolan; Rachel Bailey; Tim Claydon; Ed Heery; and David Grant. The book will be vital reading for students, researchers and HR professionals wanting to get to grips with current changes in the workplace.

This book is a wide-ranging, radical and highly innovative critique of the prevailing orthodoxies within industrial relations and human resource management. It contains a detailed examination of the evolution of industrial relations, arguing that the area is often under-theorized and influenced by the policy agenda of the state or employers.

This book explores the prospects for the emergence of a distinctly European pattern in industrial relations, in which European-level organizations representing employers and trade unions gain in importance.

In this volume Mayo discusses the Hawthorne experiments, relating the findings about human relations within the Hawthorne plant to the social environment in the surrounding Chicago area. The Chicago School of Sociologists were studying aspects of social disorganization and this was a topic pioneered by Emile Durkheim.

The behavior of trade unions, employers, and governments varies widely across the countries of western Europe. Colin Crouch tries to explain these differences and assess their significance. He considers 120 years of industrial relations history in 15 countries and ends by seeking explanations much further back in time than is usually considered necessary.

This book examines the legacy of economic and political aims and objectives formulated by the British government during, and immediately after the second world war. It examines contemporary patterns of regulation by the state, and reform in the industrial relations system as factors of these historically embedded influences. This book makes an important contribution to the history and theory of British post-war economics.

The focus of this book is to provide an introduction to the issues and procedures central to local government collective bargaining. There are many books which explain private sector labor relations but there are few books available which provide information pertinent to local governments. Consolidating the elements critical to public sector labor relations and collective bargaining, this book is written for public managers and employees. It defines terms, explains procedures, and provides examples of the legislation governing the mechanics of local government labor relations. Ideal as a supplemental book for courses in public personnel management and labor relations, it is also an important resource for local government administrators serving cities, counties, and school districts.

This volume provides detailed accounts of labour regulation, with a focus on law, in East Asian nations.

This study attempts to deal with how China's economic reforms have undermined the iron rice bowl system which since the 1950s has provided both lifetime employment and cradle tothe grave welfare for many workers.

This text provides an overview and concise introduction to labor relations in Europe. The author seeks to transcend nationalism in labor relations by focusing his discussion and analysis on the continent as a whole and on groups of countries. The national focus is to some extent given up, not for a concentration on differences within nations, but in favor of a discussion of common European developments. European labor relations have a number of basic features in common, not only in collective bargaining and conflict, but also in worker participation and in the role of national governments. And, in a number of ways, these features are strikingly different from the labor relations model seen in the United States. The text, therefore, offers an illuminating analysis of commonalities and differences within European labor relations, as well as between the United States and Europe.

The substantial political changes in Eastern Europe and Russia since 1989 have been accompanied by the attempted transfer, imposition, and imitation of labour relations practices and mechanisms from other market economies, primarily of Western Europe. This book addresses the extent to which these transferred labour-relations institutions are likely to take root. The authors offer a comparative analysis of changing labour relations at national level in a range of countries, and the role of governments, international institutions, trade unions, and other agencies. This is supported by in-depth case studies on the processes of transformation at enterprise level. Drawing on the findings of an international research team, analysis of the change process and recent developments is related to the legacies of the socialist system.

In this volume the authors reconceptualise the employment realtionship by focussing on the organizational dynamics of trust, attitude and identity. This framework is used to explain how the employment conditions of unorganised workers are made and influenced in the absence of a collective voice for employees.