Edmund Heery - Academia.edu (original) (raw)
Papers by Edmund Heery
Industrial and Labor Relations Review, 1991
An academic directory and search engine.
The focus of this paper is on a significant ‘new actor’ within British industrial relations, civi... more The focus of this paper is on a significant ‘new actor’ within British industrial relations, civil society organizations (CSOs) that play an increasingly active role in representing the interests of workers. CSOs include identity-based organizations that project interests grounded in gender, ethnicity, age, sexual orientation, belief and disability, issue-based organizations that campaign on particular workplace problems such as work-life balance or health and safety, and advocacy organizations that provide information, advice and representation to working people. Prominent examples in the United Kingdom include Age Concern, The Age and Employment Network, Arthritis Care, Carers UK, Citizen’s Advice, the Fawcett Society, the Free Representation Unit, the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants, London Citizens, MacMillan Cancer Support, RNID and Stonewall. Organizations of this stamp are active in shaping public policy and employment law, formulating standards of good practice f...
e paper evaluates the increasing focus on organizing activity within British trade union movement... more e paper evaluates the increasing focus on organizing activity within British trade union movement and its main purpose is to draw attention to the wider reasons why organizing is important. Contrary to a dominant the authors claim that organizing is more than simply recruiting members; it is about mobilizing members so that they have greater in" uence over their working lives. Outcomes of organizing campaigns can only be understood within a much broader evaluation of the purpose, strategies and context in which they take place. in the paper the authors evaluate the impact of the ‘turn’ to organizing in the United Kingdom trade union movement, especially a# er launching of the Organising Academy in 1998. While there are a lot of accomplishments resulting from organizing activities, they cannot overshadow less optimistic phenomena within the union movement such as stagnation in membership, failed attempts to reach new sectors of the economy, and worsening climate around organized...
There is increasing interest in the role of civil society organizations (CSOs), advocacy, identit... more There is increasing interest in the role of civil society organizations (CSOs), advocacy, identity and single-issue organizations, in representing the interests of workers. The purpose of this article is to describe the form of representation developed by national-level CSOs in the United Kingdom. To this end, it examines which groups within the working population these organizations seek to represent, the interests upon which they offer representation and the methods they use. Throughout there is a comparison with the form of interest representation offered by UK trade unions. The aim is to identify the specificity of CSOs as institutions of worker representation but also the characteristics they share with trade unionism, the default form.
Work, Employment and Society, 2017
Focusing on employers’ organizations in the United Kingdom, this article contributes to the liter... more Focusing on employers’ organizations in the United Kingdom, this article contributes to the literature on employer interest representation by advancing three interrelated arguments, which reflect how the methods, structure and interests of employer representation have evolved. First, the primary method of collective interest representation has shifted from collective bargaining, nowadays only pursued by a minority of employers’ organizations, to political representation, now the most frequent form of collective interest representation. Second, the structure of employer interest representation has evolved and is fragmented between a small number of large, general employers’ organizations, a large majority of sectoral employers’ organizations, regional interest representation in the devolved nations, which has become more important, and a new type of employer body, the employer forum, which focuses on corporate social responsibility. Third, the shift in collective interest representat...
Purpose – This paper presents an account of the UK campaign for the voluntary Living Wage, an exa... more Purpose – This paper presents an account of the UK campaign for the voluntary Living Wage, an example of civil regulation. The purpose of this paper is to identify and characterize the actors involved in the campaign, describe methods used and examine direct and indirect consequences of the campaign. Design/methodology/approach – A mixed-method design is employed, reflecting the broadly framed purpose of the research. The research used semi-structured interviews with campaigners, union representatives and employers, observation of campaign activities and the creation of a database of Living Wage employers. Findings – The campaign originated in the community organizing movement, but has involved a broad range of labor market actors, both “new” and “old.” A continuum of campaigning methods has been used, stretching from community mobilization to appeals to employer self-interest and corporate social responsibility. The campaign has recruited 3,000 employers, led to wage increases for ...
Journal of Industrial Relations
The abstract contributes to the literature by identifying a new form of voluntarism, the employer... more The abstract contributes to the literature by identifying a new form of voluntarism, the employer-led voluntarism of Employer Forums in the United Kingdom. Forums carry out private voluntary regulation to raise labour and social standards within their member firms through introducing codes of conducts and implementing norms through assessments, benchmarking, and certification. The article compares this new form with the traditional approach where unions and employer associations regulate jointly through collective bargaining. While the scope, scale, and impact of new and traditional voluntarism diverge, both are underpinned by the regulation of Employment Relations by non-state actors. Voluntarism is not in secular decline, but instead continues through the emergence of new employer-led forms.
Human Resource Management Journal
Journal of Industrial Relations
This article examines the collective, member-based employers’ associations in the UK that regulat... more This article examines the collective, member-based employers’ associations in the UK that regulate the employment relationship by participating in collective bargaining. The main empirical contribution is to provide, for the first time, a longitudinal dataset of employers’ associations in the UK. We use archival data from the UK Government’s Certification Office to build a new dataset, identifying a decline of 81% in the number of employers’ associations between 1976 and 2013–2014. We also find that political agency and reducing levels of collective bargaining undermined employers’ associations by reducing employers’ incentives to associate, although changes within the UK’s system of employment relations enabled other types of collective employer organisation to survive.
Transfer: European Review of Labour and Research
Tactics and Tensions in UK Organizing, 2012
The vocabulary and assumptions of social partnership and social movement unionism are strikingly ... more The vocabulary and assumptions of social partnership and social movement unionism are strikingly different and they can be regarded as alternative choices for revitalising British labour (see Kelly 1996). What is striking, however, is that elements of both are occasionally fused in union policy. The central confederation of British labour, the Trades Union Congress (TUC), for example, has simultaneously sought to develop a ‘culture of organising’ across the British union movement and established an Organising Academy, while it advocates ‘partnership’ in relations with employers and has sought an integrative relationship with the new Labour Government elected in 1997 (Heery 1998). Accordingly, the paper concludes by considering the extent to which partnership and movement are genuine alternatives or whether they may prove mutually compatible and even reinforcing elements within a complex strategy for union renewal.
Routledge Studies in Employment Relations, 2000
The proportion of the British workforce who are members of trade unions has fallen continuously s... more The proportion of the British workforce who are members of trade unions has fallen continuously since 1979. By 1998 it was estimated that only 30 per cent of the total workforce was unionised and that in the private sector union membership was confined to ...
British Trade Union Officers, 1994
Industrial and Labor Relations Review, 1991
An academic directory and search engine.
The focus of this paper is on a significant ‘new actor’ within British industrial relations, civi... more The focus of this paper is on a significant ‘new actor’ within British industrial relations, civil society organizations (CSOs) that play an increasingly active role in representing the interests of workers. CSOs include identity-based organizations that project interests grounded in gender, ethnicity, age, sexual orientation, belief and disability, issue-based organizations that campaign on particular workplace problems such as work-life balance or health and safety, and advocacy organizations that provide information, advice and representation to working people. Prominent examples in the United Kingdom include Age Concern, The Age and Employment Network, Arthritis Care, Carers UK, Citizen’s Advice, the Fawcett Society, the Free Representation Unit, the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants, London Citizens, MacMillan Cancer Support, RNID and Stonewall. Organizations of this stamp are active in shaping public policy and employment law, formulating standards of good practice f...
e paper evaluates the increasing focus on organizing activity within British trade union movement... more e paper evaluates the increasing focus on organizing activity within British trade union movement and its main purpose is to draw attention to the wider reasons why organizing is important. Contrary to a dominant the authors claim that organizing is more than simply recruiting members; it is about mobilizing members so that they have greater in" uence over their working lives. Outcomes of organizing campaigns can only be understood within a much broader evaluation of the purpose, strategies and context in which they take place. in the paper the authors evaluate the impact of the ‘turn’ to organizing in the United Kingdom trade union movement, especially a# er launching of the Organising Academy in 1998. While there are a lot of accomplishments resulting from organizing activities, they cannot overshadow less optimistic phenomena within the union movement such as stagnation in membership, failed attempts to reach new sectors of the economy, and worsening climate around organized...
There is increasing interest in the role of civil society organizations (CSOs), advocacy, identit... more There is increasing interest in the role of civil society organizations (CSOs), advocacy, identity and single-issue organizations, in representing the interests of workers. The purpose of this article is to describe the form of representation developed by national-level CSOs in the United Kingdom. To this end, it examines which groups within the working population these organizations seek to represent, the interests upon which they offer representation and the methods they use. Throughout there is a comparison with the form of interest representation offered by UK trade unions. The aim is to identify the specificity of CSOs as institutions of worker representation but also the characteristics they share with trade unionism, the default form.
Work, Employment and Society, 2017
Focusing on employers’ organizations in the United Kingdom, this article contributes to the liter... more Focusing on employers’ organizations in the United Kingdom, this article contributes to the literature on employer interest representation by advancing three interrelated arguments, which reflect how the methods, structure and interests of employer representation have evolved. First, the primary method of collective interest representation has shifted from collective bargaining, nowadays only pursued by a minority of employers’ organizations, to political representation, now the most frequent form of collective interest representation. Second, the structure of employer interest representation has evolved and is fragmented between a small number of large, general employers’ organizations, a large majority of sectoral employers’ organizations, regional interest representation in the devolved nations, which has become more important, and a new type of employer body, the employer forum, which focuses on corporate social responsibility. Third, the shift in collective interest representat...
Purpose – This paper presents an account of the UK campaign for the voluntary Living Wage, an exa... more Purpose – This paper presents an account of the UK campaign for the voluntary Living Wage, an example of civil regulation. The purpose of this paper is to identify and characterize the actors involved in the campaign, describe methods used and examine direct and indirect consequences of the campaign. Design/methodology/approach – A mixed-method design is employed, reflecting the broadly framed purpose of the research. The research used semi-structured interviews with campaigners, union representatives and employers, observation of campaign activities and the creation of a database of Living Wage employers. Findings – The campaign originated in the community organizing movement, but has involved a broad range of labor market actors, both “new” and “old.” A continuum of campaigning methods has been used, stretching from community mobilization to appeals to employer self-interest and corporate social responsibility. The campaign has recruited 3,000 employers, led to wage increases for ...
Journal of Industrial Relations
The abstract contributes to the literature by identifying a new form of voluntarism, the employer... more The abstract contributes to the literature by identifying a new form of voluntarism, the employer-led voluntarism of Employer Forums in the United Kingdom. Forums carry out private voluntary regulation to raise labour and social standards within their member firms through introducing codes of conducts and implementing norms through assessments, benchmarking, and certification. The article compares this new form with the traditional approach where unions and employer associations regulate jointly through collective bargaining. While the scope, scale, and impact of new and traditional voluntarism diverge, both are underpinned by the regulation of Employment Relations by non-state actors. Voluntarism is not in secular decline, but instead continues through the emergence of new employer-led forms.
Human Resource Management Journal
Journal of Industrial Relations
This article examines the collective, member-based employers’ associations in the UK that regulat... more This article examines the collective, member-based employers’ associations in the UK that regulate the employment relationship by participating in collective bargaining. The main empirical contribution is to provide, for the first time, a longitudinal dataset of employers’ associations in the UK. We use archival data from the UK Government’s Certification Office to build a new dataset, identifying a decline of 81% in the number of employers’ associations between 1976 and 2013–2014. We also find that political agency and reducing levels of collective bargaining undermined employers’ associations by reducing employers’ incentives to associate, although changes within the UK’s system of employment relations enabled other types of collective employer organisation to survive.
Transfer: European Review of Labour and Research
Tactics and Tensions in UK Organizing, 2012
The vocabulary and assumptions of social partnership and social movement unionism are strikingly ... more The vocabulary and assumptions of social partnership and social movement unionism are strikingly different and they can be regarded as alternative choices for revitalising British labour (see Kelly 1996). What is striking, however, is that elements of both are occasionally fused in union policy. The central confederation of British labour, the Trades Union Congress (TUC), for example, has simultaneously sought to develop a ‘culture of organising’ across the British union movement and established an Organising Academy, while it advocates ‘partnership’ in relations with employers and has sought an integrative relationship with the new Labour Government elected in 1997 (Heery 1998). Accordingly, the paper concludes by considering the extent to which partnership and movement are genuine alternatives or whether they may prove mutually compatible and even reinforcing elements within a complex strategy for union renewal.
Routledge Studies in Employment Relations, 2000
The proportion of the British workforce who are members of trade unions has fallen continuously s... more The proportion of the British workforce who are members of trade unions has fallen continuously since 1979. By 1998 it was estimated that only 30 per cent of the total workforce was unionised and that in the private sector union membership was confined to ...
British Trade Union Officers, 1994