Semi-institutionalisation in Non-union Industrial Relations: Challenges and Opportunities for Labour

• Author: Alexander Colvin
• Pages: 358-369

358 HUMAN RESOURCE DEVELOPMENT

Semi-institutionalisation in Non-union

Industrial Relations: Challenges and

Opportunities for Labour*

Among the factors leading to recent declines in union membership in various

countries is employer adoption of human resource management policies,

such as non-union dispute resolution procedures that provide partial substitutes

for the traditional benefits of union representation. These pose a particular

challenge for unions and require a rethinking of their representational strategies.

Whereas one possible strategy for unions is to simply attack such non-union

dispute resolution procedures as sham versions of institutions that genuinely

enhance workplace justice, an alternative strategy is for unions to attempt to

subvert the procedures by offering assistance to employees as they attempt to

use the procedures and employ this as a springboard to more comprehensive

representation of employees. To be successful, this strategy requires an

understanding of the respects to which the procedures do partially substitute

for union representation, but also where they contain weaknesses that unions

can exploit.

American-style human resource management practices provide an

archetype for companies around the world seeking to manage their workforces

in the absence of union representation. A common picture of this non-union

approach to management of the workforce views it as taking a “strategic”

human resource management initiative in which the employer adopts policies

focused on the maximisation of the productivity of the workforce. In this

picture of the new non-union workplace, management is freed from

institutional constraints to focus on the challenges of economic

competitiveness. In this chapter, I will argue that even in the paradigmatic

American example, this picture of non-union industrial relations based solely

on managerial discretion is incorrect. I will also focus on the development of

dispute resolution procedures in non-union workplaces, thus providing a

window to understanding how the employment relationship is governed in

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