This paper explores the link between employee perceptions of working conditions and the desire for worker representation in Britain and the US. We find that the distribution of employee perceptions of poor working conditions is similar in Britain and the US; similar factors affect the number of...

Using nationally representative workplace data for Britain we show that over the last quarter century union voice – especially union-only voice – has been associated with poorer climate, more industrial action, poorer financial performance and poorer labour productivity than nonunion voice...

In this paper we seek to explain the emergence of different voice regimes, and to do so by using approaches from institutional economics. In particular we analyse the emergence of different voice regimes as a contracting problem; a ¿make¿ or ¿buy¿ decision on the part of the employer. A...

Using data from the Workplace Employment Relations Survey 1998, this paper shows that unionisation increased the probability of within-workplace job cuts and the incidence of job security guarantees. As theory predicts, both are more prevalent among market-sector workplaces with higher union...

We explore the effects of management innovations on worker well-being using private sector linked employer-employee data for Britain. We find management innovations are associated with lower worker well-being and lower job satisfaction, an effect which becomes more pronounced when we account for...

This paper investigates the demise of unionisation in British private sector workplaces over the last quarter century. We show that dramatic union decline has occurred across all types of workplace. Although the union wage premium persists it is quite small in 2004. Negative union effects on...

A national survey makes it possible to examine employees’ awareness of net overall reductions in the size of the workforce along with their awareness of employer policies that promise ‘no compulsory redundancies’. Differences are investigated between union and nonunion workplaces, and...

There is a consensus among European trade unions that economic integration should be complemented by a strong ‘social dimension’. What is far less clearly agreed is what ‘Social Europe’ means, and how it should be defended against the challenges inherent in a neoliberal approach to...

China has, apparently, more trade union members than the rest of the world put together. But the unions do not function in the same way as western trade unions. In particular Chinese unions are subservient to the Partystate. The theme of the paper is the gap between rhetoric and reality. Issues...

In 2000 the UK government introduced, under the Employment Relations Act of 1999, a new statutory union recognition procedure, while in 2003 it published a consultation document on its Review of the Act. The document concluded that th eunion procedure was broadly working and confirmed that the...