Documents Dundon, Tony 34 results

"This article examines the responses of the industrial relations actors to the economic crisis in Ireland and the impact on collective bargaining. The data were collected at national, sectoral and workplace levels. We find the existence of both change and continuity, with increased diversity in collective bargaining in manufacturing, including a distinct shift to enterprise bargaining shaped by the capacity of management and local union representatives to adapt to wider pressures. We consider the implications for government, employers and unions."

"The transposition of the 2002/14/EC Directive, establishing a general framework for information and consultation (I&C), has proven contentious in largely voluntarist systems of employment regulation. Receiving particular criticism is the employee ‘opt-in' mechanism as a means to access I&C rights. For non-union employees in particular, the ability and potential to negotiate rights for I&C is widely seen to be problematic. This article uniquely examines the opt-in mechanism in the context of non-unionism, considering how non-union employers respond to non-union employees invoking their legislative rights to I&C. Drawing upon a case study conducted over four years in a large non-union multinational, the evidence shows how the opt-in and negotiation process function to the advantage of the employer rather than the intended regulatory impact to advance employee rights. "

"This book explores how power operates in workplace settings at local, national and transnational levels. It argues that how people are valued in and out of work is a political dynamic, which reflects and shapes how societies treat their citizens.
Offering vital resources for activists and students on labour rights, employment issues and trade unions, this book argues that the influence workers can exert is changing dramatically and future challenges for change can be positive and progressive."

"Purpose
The purpose of the article is to outline the insights provided by Alan Fox in Man Mismanagement in relation to the rise of the New Right political economy and the spread of unitarist managerialism. The article assesses the contemporary work and employment relations implications of mismanagement arising from a “second wave” of the New Right ideology from 2010 in the UK.

Design/methodology/approach
Responding to the Special Issue on Alan Fox, the article focuses on Alan Fox's book Man Mismanagement, considering industrial relations developments arising between the 1st (1974b) and 2nd (1985) editions relating to the political rise of the New Right. It reviews various literature that illustrates the contemporary IR relevance of the book and Fox's insights.

Findings
The New Right's ideology has further fragmented work, disjointed labour rights and undermined collective industrial relations institutions, and macho mismanagement praxis is even more commonplace, compared to when Fox wrote Man Mismanagement. The stripping away of the institutional architecture of IR renders the renewal of pluralist praxis, like collective bargaining and other forms of joint regulation of work, a formidable task.

Originality/value
The value of the article relates to the identification of dramatic historical industrial relations events and change in the UK in Alan Fox's book Man Mismanagement, most notably relating to the rise to power of the Thatcherite New Right in 1979. Originality is evidenced by the authors' drawing on Fox's ideas and assessing the implications of the “second wave” of the New Right in the contemporary industrial relations (IR) context of the 2020s under the conceptual themes of fragmented work, disjointed labour rights and undermined collectivism."

"The sociological understandings of both cooperation and resistance at work are complex. This article contributes to knowledge about dialectic tensions concerning both collaborative and conflictual workforce orientations in the context of a ‘pre-arranged' union-management partnership agreement. It reports unofficial workforce militancy in opposition to both management and union policy regarding a socially constructed cooperative work regime. The article advances a ‘radical pluralist' analysis to understand the formation of worker interests and attendant workforce orientations within capitalism."

"Active employer resistance to trade union recognition is often explained through the rubric of the unitary ideology. Yet, little attention has been devoted to an examination of unitarism as an explanatory construct for active employer hostility. This paper contributes to current knowledge and understanding on contemporary ideological opposition to unions, by placing unitarism under analytical scrutiny. Using empirical data from the Republic of Ireland, the paper applies a conceptual framework to a sample of non-union employers who actively resisted unionisation. The paper concludes by examining the ideological commitments uncovered and relevant implications."

"Interest in ‘mutual gains' has principally been confined to studies of the unionised sector. Yet there is no reason why this conceptual dynamic cannot be extended to the non-unionised realm, specifically in relation to non-union employee representation (NER). Although extant research views NER as unfertile terrain for mutual gains, the paper examines whether NER developed in response to the European Directive on Information and Consultation (I&C) of Employees may offer a potentially more fruitful route. The paper examines this possibility by considering three cases of NER established under the I&C Directive in Ireland, assessing the extent to which mutual gains were achieved."

"This article shows how both employers and the state have influenced macro-level processes and structures concerning the content and transposition of the European Union (EU) Employee Information and Consultation (I&C) Directive. It argues that the processes of regulation occupied by employers reinforce a voluntarism which marginalizes rather than shares decision-making power with workers. The contribution advances the conceptual lens of ‘regulatory space' by building on Lukes' multiple faces of power to better understand how employment regulation is determined across transnational, national and enterprise levels. The research proposes an integrated analytical framework on which ‘occupancy' of regulatory space can be evaluated in comparative national contexts."

"One of the major obstacles, if not the major obstacle, unions face in building their influence in the workplace is the opposition and resistance from those that own those workplaces, namely, the employers. Global Anti-Unionism examines the nature and form of this anti-unionism, and in doing so explains the ways and means by which employers have successfully maintained their right to manage. The role of the state is also considered at length as part of the process by which employer domination has been maintained. Set in the context of the global north and south, this volume provides an introduction to the key theories and concepts, followed by historical and contemporary sections examining different countries."