Employee Relations: An International Journal

Joyce, Paul; Woods, Adrian; Hayes, Michael

1986 Employee Relations: An International Journal

doi: 10.1108/eb055085

In July 1985 the government decided in favour of major reform of wages councils. It restricted their scope to setting minimum hourly and overtime rates of pay and removed people under 21 completely from their coverage. This raises questions about the functions of wages councils within the British industrial relations system. There is a need to adopt an industrial relations perspective on wages councils. Contemporary debate on the continued usefulness of wages councils is biased against them by virtue of failing to recognise that they exist not only to protect workers from low pay, but also represent state attempts to create collective bargaining and industrial democracy in situations where the capacity of workers for collective organisation has been too low to support voluntary developments. All these different identities of wages councils need to be understood and combined to achieve a comprehensive conception of their actual significance. There is a need for more research based on appropriate methodologies, studying the wages council sector itself and for studies to measure the effects of wages councils on efficiency and productivity.

Enderwick, Peter

1986 Employee Relations: An International Journal

doi: 10.1108/eb055086

Although it is widely held that multinational collective bargaining MCB may represent the most effective labour response to the multinational enterprise MNE, its appearance is sporadic and ephemeral. Examples appear to be confined to situations where factors and conditions highly conducive to international union cooperation exist. The constraints and incentives for the development of MCB are examined in the context of the 1970s and 1980s and their changing economic environments. The analysis uses a framework based on the economic theory of bargaining cartels. It is explained why MCB has occurred in unrepresentative cases and prospects for labour responses to the MNE are examined.

Scarbrough, Harry; Moran, Peter

1986 Employee Relations: An International Journal

doi: 10.1108/eb055087

Technical change and industrial relations are becoming inextricably linked together. There is a need for a clearsighted understanding of all the effects of technical change at the workplace. This would entail a conceptual framework in which the interaction between social and technical factors could be properly identified. At establishment level the innovation process typically involves a balancing of the social, economic and technological vectors of change. Three short case studies into the innovation process at one of the key manufacturing plants of a major British vehicle producer are presented, examining a Machine Monitoring System, Team Working and Maintenance Function. It is clear that the linked issues of work practices and labour productivity which are to the forefront of workplace industrial relations exert a significant impact on the economic consequences of technical change. Where technological innovation involves significant change in work practices, such change will be facilitated when the forms of cooperation it demands and the costs and benefits it creates are congruent with the respective power and policies of management and unions.

Warner, Malcolm

1986 Employee Relations: An International Journal

doi: 10.1108/eb055088

To cope with changing market requirements firms have had to invest in advanced manufacturing systems. By combining the benefits of flexibility and specialisation, new manufacturing systems have produced a shift in production with important implications for labour and product markets. These systems may lead to flexibility in organisation, management and labour, as well as technology. In order to cope with the relative shortage of skilled workers in the microelectronics industry, there is a need to expand training programmes and make them available on a massive scale. This is justified on economic and social grounds, as this shortage is increasing faster than the growth in technical sophistication.