Employee Relations: An International Journal

Marchington, Mick

1990 Employee Relations: An International Journal

doi: 10.1108/01425459010003105

Discussions about the position of British tradeunions under Thatcherism continue to interestscholars and practitioners in the UK, and a varietyof theories have been put forward which suggestthat unions are becoming increasingly marginal toworkplace employee relations. Three of these arefocused on, namely, the rollback of unionorganisation, the separation of collective bargainingfrom strategic decision making, and the impactof employee involvement on union activity. Theseideas are evaluated against data from a longitudinalstudy of four multiplant private sectororganisations, each of which has high levels ofunion density and some forms of employeeinvolvement. The data, which were collected inthe late 1980s, suggest that simple monocausalcorrelations such as employee involvement isdirectly undermining trade unions are notrobust enough to cope with the reality oforganisational life. Much more credence needs tobe given to the environmental and more broadermanagerial context within which employeerelations takes place.