"The tension is noted between trade union activism and involvement in employee participation schemes. It is shown why, in the United Kingdom's offshore oil and gas industry, a participation scheme--the safety representative system--may be expected to promote union activism in an industry which has resisted union encroachment. It is explained why and how safety representatives have, nevertheless, tended to deny unions a role in the system by reference to the conditions in which representatives acquire their definition of their function. This leads to a categorization of safety representative motivation and role performance and a clarification of how those definitions which associate the representative with management functions rather than union activism receive institutional support. "

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