Documents Gollan, Paul J. 15 results

"In the last decade, nonunion employee representation (NER) has become a much discussed topic in the fields of human resource management, employment relations, and employment/labor law. This book examines the purpose, structure, and performance of various types of employee representation bodies created by companies in non-union settings to promote collective forums for voice and involvement at the workplace.



This unique volume presents the first longitudinal evidence on the performance, success, and failure of NER plans over an extended time period. Consisting of twelve detailed, in-depth case studies of actual NER plans in operation across four countries, this volume provides unparalleled evidence on such matters as: the motives behind the initial establishment of NER, different organizational forms of NER in industry, key success and failure factors over the long-term, pro and con evaluations for employers and employees, and more. Voice and Involvement at Work captures an unequalled international and comparative perspective through a wide cross-section of different NER forms."

"This article examines how employee voice is understood by both scholars of labour law and of industrial relations. While there is a sophisticated literature on employee participation and involvement in employment relations scholarship, there is an absence of consideration of legal perspectives. The article addresses this gap in the literature by first examining how employee voice is used to explain and critique workplace practices in the dominant and emerging employment relations scholarship, and then critically considering how dominant legal theories refer to and confine understandings of employee participation. The article examines each field through its discipline, method, approach, content and limits. It concludes that the scope of these disciplines is very different, and that they might be regarded as fraternal rather than identical twins. Finally, some questions are raised about the challenges for research in developing an interdisciplinary scholarship of employee voice. "

"For many decades, employee representation and voice in the employment relationship were manifested mainly through unionism and collective bargaining, but that is no longer the case. Today most employees do not belong to unions, but they may be represented and exercise voice through a variety of other mechanisms and arrangements. This paper provides an overview of a special issue of Industrial Relations containing eight papers that analyze various types of non-union employee representation. These papers feature a wide variety of research designs as well as industry, company, and employee settings. Empirically, they draw upon data from the United States, the UK, Canada, and Australia. As a set, these papers provide the most comprehensive knowledge to date of employee representation in non-union firms, and also offer recommendations for future research to further enhance such knowledge."

"The critical problem in the relations of production for worker-owned and managed enterprises is not the exploitation of labor by capital, but processes homologous to free-riding on the collective provision of public goods. Market, constitutional and collegiality barriers fail to attenuate opportunism in such work relations because paradoxes in the logic of rational selfishness lead to contradictory applications for collective action. In order to be effective, symbols as safeguards to opportunism must operate within the actual work itself. One such safeguard, the symbol `help' performed as the willingness of workers to assist one another in their quotidian tasks in order to monitor each other's work performance tacitly, was found in three service sector worker cooperatives in Tokyo in 1993-4."

"There is little existing research on non-union voice structures of consultation and representation in call centres, or on the impact and influence of such structures on either organizational change or employee influence over managerial decisions. This article attempts to address these issues by examining non-union consultation and representative arrangements at the call centre operations at Eurotunnel, and assessing their effectiveness in representing the needs of employees. Overall, the evidence suggests that the non-union voice structures at the Eurotunnel call centre are used as devices for information and communication rather than true consultation mechanisms or bargaining agents; their effectiveness as bodies representing the interests of call centre employees in filling the lack of representation is questionable. The implications for organizations of not recognizing such limitations of non-union arrangements could result in increased union influence on workplace issues and greater employee dissatisfaction with management. The study concludes that communication between management and employees at the workplace may not be enough: voice and the right to be heard may be essential for achieving higher performance and employee commitment."

"This paper examines management strategies towards non-union representative arrangements at Eurotunnel and assesses their effectiveness in representing employees over a 5 year period. This period also allows for a review of consultation arrangements before and after union recognition and an examination of the outcomes from such arrangements. The findings show that the effectiveness of non-union structures in representing the interests of employees is questionable. However, union recognition through an employer–union partnership agreement has also raised important issues regarding the impact and legitimacy of unions at Eurotunnel. The findings show that employers wishing to encourage an alignment of interests with their employees need to place greater emphasis on addressing employee concerns and giving employees a greater say over decision-making processes."

"In this paper we present a conceptual analysis of the literature and research surrounding voice in the non-union workplace. The paper begins with a definitional discussion of non-unionism - what it is and what it is not, and then proceeds to unpick the concept of employee voice in the non-union workplace. The core of our analysis consists of a re-conceptualization of factors affecting non-union voice, and the potential outcomes as a result of external macro market pressures such as changing regulatory and market pressures for employee voice, and internal micro organizational dimensions such as management choice and strategy towards employee voice. From the analysis it is argued that more individualized and company-specific forms of employee voice are likely to increase. This poses new challenges for traditional collective representation and the institutional structures within which employee voice operates, which requires critical analysis and future empirical investigation."