From monopoly to voice effects? British workplace unionism and productivity performance into the new millennium
From monopoly to voice effects? British workplace unionism and productivity performance into the new millennium
Britain has featured prominently in debates about unionism and productivity. This article suggests a recent revolution in the productivity effect of British unionism. A thorough review of extant evidence at various levels of aggregation indicates that whatever the broader cost to employee welfare and well-being, the hollowing and erosion of workplace unionism under Thatcherism delivered a one-off productivity dividend. However, by the turn of the millennium, extant Workplace Employment Relations Survey (WERS) analysis shows that workplace unionism, where it remained, was no longer robustly linked to poorer productivity performance. Our private sector analysis of WERS2011 confirms this, while our analysis of the WERS2004–2011 panel indicates that stronger workplace unionism now positively promotes private sector productivity. A thorough contemplation of the shifting concomitants of modern British unionism suggests a variety of processes which may underlie our striking panel findings, underscoring the suggestion that there has been a revolution in British unionism's productivity implications, but also indicating mechanisms which may underlie positive productivity effects of joint regulation already apparent in other countries.
574-594
Veliziotis, Michail
e43806b3-fdb5-494b-a624-04a5227d2fad
Vernon, Guy
07d124b8-c898-476e-b342-bd2bacc4107d
September 2023
Veliziotis, Michail
e43806b3-fdb5-494b-a624-04a5227d2fad
Vernon, Guy
07d124b8-c898-476e-b342-bd2bacc4107d
Veliziotis, Michail and Vernon, Guy
(2023)
From monopoly to voice effects? British workplace unionism and productivity performance into the new millennium.
British Journal of Industrial Relations, 61 (3), .
(doi:10.1111/bjir.12726).
Abstract
Britain has featured prominently in debates about unionism and productivity. This article suggests a recent revolution in the productivity effect of British unionism. A thorough review of extant evidence at various levels of aggregation indicates that whatever the broader cost to employee welfare and well-being, the hollowing and erosion of workplace unionism under Thatcherism delivered a one-off productivity dividend. However, by the turn of the millennium, extant Workplace Employment Relations Survey (WERS) analysis shows that workplace unionism, where it remained, was no longer robustly linked to poorer productivity performance. Our private sector analysis of WERS2011 confirms this, while our analysis of the WERS2004–2011 panel indicates that stronger workplace unionism now positively promotes private sector productivity. A thorough contemplation of the shifting concomitants of modern British unionism suggests a variety of processes which may underlie our striking panel findings, underscoring the suggestion that there has been a revolution in British unionism's productivity implications, but also indicating mechanisms which may underlie positive productivity effects of joint regulation already apparent in other countries.
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Main text From monopoly to voice FINAL ACCEPTED
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Accepted/In Press date: 15 December 2022
e-pub ahead of print date: 5 January 2023
Published date: September 2023
Additional Information:
Funding Information:
The authors acknowledge the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, the Economic and Social Research Council, the Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service, and the National Institute of Economic and Social Research, as the originators of the 2004 and 2011 Workplace Employment Relations Survey data, and the Data Archive at the University of Essex as the distributor of the data. They would like to thank the two anonymous reviewers and the Editor for their useful and constructive feedback. The two authors have contributed equally to the article and are listed in alphabetical order.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2023 The Authors. British Journal of Industrial Relations published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
Identifiers
Local EPrints ID: 473625
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/473625
ISSN: 0007-1080
PURE UUID: 4aede983-a5bb-41b8-885f-9c7bea79c0a8
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Date deposited: 25 Jan 2023 17:40
Last modified: 06 Jun 2024 01:55
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