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Book Review
| John Campling and Paul Gollan, Bargained Out: Negotiating Without Unions in Australia, Federation Press, Annandale, NSW, 1999. pp. v + 143. $49.50 paper.
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| Although the study of non-union employment relations is growing, it nonetheless remains relatively under-researched. Traditionally, researchers either ignored nonunion firms because they were considered atypical; an aberration that would pass once unions started to recruit unorganised workers, or perceived as unworthy of investigation given their peripheral status to that of many larger unionised organisations. The conventional wisdom often eschewed non-unionism in the belief that the likes of IBM or Hewlett Packard simply provided an alternative employment package that removed any immediate worker demand for unionisation. However, we now know that not all non-union firms are the same. Some do utilise a variety of so-called sophisticated HRM-type policies to avoid potential unionisation, but others don't. Some are non-union by accident, while many more are blandly hostile towards the idea of collective worker representation. Perhaps even more important is that non-union employment relationships now prevail as the dominant form in most westernised economics. Yet our understanding of relations and management strategy inside these firms remains a neglected area. Campling and Gollan help to plug the gap by charting the patterns of worker representation among lightly and non-unionised organisations in Australia. On the whole this book is commendable. The data is comprehensive and the arguments whet the appetite for future debate and discussion — a point I return to later. |
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The book is structured in three parts. Part I is an overview of the factors surrounding the growth of non-union employee relations in Australia, as well as providing an explanation of the research methodology. This study seeks to shed light on the 'processes and outcomes' of alternative forms of worker representation and the content of workplace agreements among selected 'lightly unionised and nonunionised' organisations in Australia. A number of 'themes' form the backdrop to the study: flexibility, training, culture, workplace productivity and performance, and equity. In addressing the book's objective the authors claim to provide multi-level analysis and draw on a number of macro-level surveys (the Workplace Bargaining Surveys, 1992 and 1994; and the Australian Workplace Industrial Relations Survey 1995) along with micro-level data from 12 case studies. It appears that a total of 144 people were interviewed (on average, 12 interviewees for each organisation), including managers, union officials and employees, plus additional documentary evidence from some of the companies. The methodology is pretty solid and both sets of data (survey and case studies) are integrated in each of the chapters as the book presents a journey about employee relations in these specific types of firms. Of course definitions and details matter. It is certainly curious as to what is actually meant by a 'lightly unionised' enterprise. The authors define 'lightly unionised' organisations as those with 'little active union presence, or with union membership levels between zero and 35 percent' (p. 11). Yet for some unions, 20 or 30 per cent membership might be a respectable achievement, especially if the company in question is hostile to the prospect of unionisation. |
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Part II comprises three chapters about employee relations 'processes'. Chapter two tackles the vexed issue as to whether employees really can influence management decision-making through various forms of employee involvement and consultation, while Chapter three reviews the incidence of representative channels, drawing on both the Australian evidence and occasional reference to other international data. In Chapter four the issue of 'bargaining power' is addressed. Even in non-union organisations the Australian system provides the potential for some union involvement in the negotiation of enterprise agreements. Here the authors illustrate quite well the tactics and options used by many non-union organisations to marginalise union influence. It shows how non-union employers formalise the informal by promoting individual rather than collective/union employee relations processes in workplace agreements. |
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Part III then evaluates a range of possible employee relations 'outcomes'. Chapter five provides a content analysis of workplace agreements. This is informative in that it shows how managers often elevate the notion of performance as a pre-requisite for employee voice. The authors pick up this issue in Chapter six, suggesting that the important issue of equity is often ignored when companies address performance issues. While the general message is fairly robust — that employee consultation matters for things like job satisfaction — what is meant by performance and productivity really needed to be spelt out more clearly. For example, there is no real systematic analysis of any company performance data, or how organisations differed in terms of profit or employee output. What Campling and Gollan do show, nonetheless, is that many non-union managers simply imposed performance targets on employees and pushed through change more easily without the need to involve unions. While the aggregate data for the economy as a whole suggests that pay tends to be better in unionised establishments, evidently some of the key non-union employers have to pay a premium to workers to remain union-free. |
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Part IV presents the concluding chapter, and brings together the themes and evidence from the previous chapters. It claims to present a 'general overview of developments in the lightly and non-unionised enterprises', alluding also to the pattern and character of bargaining arrangements, employee consultation and Australian Workplace Agreements (AWAs). While the generality of the claims are reasonable, the substance to some of the overarching themes is a little thin. For example, the concluding thematic sub-sections (impact on productivity and performance; training; functional flexibility; bargaining outcomes; and impacts on culture) are for the most part very short and could have been further explored. |
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The main points I want to return to are some of the concluding arguments of the book. It seeks to contribute to a form of analysis that ascribes equal weight to both the role of the environment and agency. At one level it is clear from the evidence presented that non-union companies engage in various employment relations strategies, and adopt these with diverse underlying motives shaped very much by contextual factors. Appealing as all this sounds, the detail underpinning such synthesis is at times found wanting. As the authors note, employee consultation matters. However this is not because it might be part of a performance rationale, but because it ought to be a human right in a modern economy. In this regard workers are key agents, yet there is no use of employee quotes from the case study companies. A dose of good old-fashioned workplace sociology, appreciative of the workers' side of the story, would have added a deeper qualitative dimension to the overall analysis. When employee views are presented, the reader is left with periodic citations to published survey results, and even then it is not clear they are all nonunionised employees (for example, use of Department of Industrial Relations and AWIRS tables in chapter four). |
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More debatable are the broader policy implications and arguments about performance, consultation and management choice. Campling and Gollan suggest that individualistic-type HRM practices foster an employment relations culture based on mutual interests. The authors underpin this with what are, for me at least, imprecise assumptions about unitarism and culture as vehicles to 'remove the need for unions or the collective representation of employees' interests' (p. 124). Here in lies the bone of contention. Managers are bred on a unitarist ideology but that does not make it real, effective or persuasive. To further imply that a unitarist culture allows 'companies the opportunity to introduce culture change consistent with their corporate strategy' (p. 124) is stretching both the conceptual understanding and the policy implications of what are quite complex social phenomena. Even for an 'outsider' of Australian politics, this all strikes a chord with the current Howard government's neo-liberal assault on collective worker representation. One corollary is that if employee voice is later shown to add little or nothing to shareholder value, this opens the door for business leaders and politicians to dismiss the objective as unprofitable. I have no doubt that many managers and consultancy gurus believe the rhetorical fads and buzzwords of culture change, mutual interests and strategic performance alignment. However, what I find less convincing is the empirical logic presented in this book for such a case. To me, the evidence resonates much more strongly with a view that very diverse non-union employee relations processes are fraught with tensions and ambiguities, and it is how these tensions are managed that presents a challenge to managers and policy-makers. On the plus side this is the sort of debate that such books should provoke. Indeed, given the current political landscape in Australia then these issues are likely to remain debatable and contentious, unless (or until) there is a political shift at federal level. |
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Overall, there is a lot to commend in this book. Non-union companies are notoriously difficult to research, and Campling and Gollan provide an important resource for researchers and students of employment relations and management studies. The book is obviously more relevant to an Australian audience, although students of international and comparative employment systems would find value in the evidence it presents, and hopefully engage in the debates it ignites. |
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| National University of Ireland, Galway |
TONY DUNDON | |
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