Industrial relations in britain

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* All such percentages are estimates; measuring union density is not an exact science!

Trade Union Congress (TUC)

• The TUC was established in 1868 and is Britain’s one main union confederation
• 58 unions representing almost 6.5 million workers are affiliated with the TUC (2008)
• The TUC is not directly involved in collective bargaining but instead primarily:
• lobbies governments on union issues
• provides services to affiliated unions
• adjudicates disputes between affiliated unions
• In response to declining membership, the TUC has focused on organising strategies and establishing partnerships with employers in recent years, but with only limited success

The Union Movement and the Labour Party

• British unions were instrumental in the establishment of the Labour Party in 1906
• Since the mid-1980s the Labour Party has increasingly distanced itself from unions, as it increasingly secured funding from the business sector and elsewhere
• Individual unions choose whether to affiliate themselves with the Labour Party; some unions do not affiliate

Employers’ associations in Britain

• The Confederation of British Industry (CBI) was formed in 1965 and is the peak organisation of employers in Britain
• The CBI does not participate in collective bargaining, but lobbies the government and EU on employer-related issues and claims to represent the views of 200 000 employers, who employ approximately half of the UK workforce
• There are 80 employers’ associations in the CBI. They typically offer one or more sets of services to their members including IR advice, training and lobbying services
• Whilst once prominent in the voluntarist system of industrial relations, employers’ associations no longer play a central role due to the enhanced power and autonomy of individual employers

Employers in Britain

• Since the 1980s, British employers have exercised greater managerial power driven by higher levels of competition in product markets and reductions in unionism
• There is diversity in the mix and balance of individual employer strategies to achieve control, productivity increases and cost reduction, for example:
• pragmatic/opportunistic approach (cost-driven strategy), vs.
• high-commitment approach (flexibility and employee commitment)