This paper focuses on the changing prevalence and activities of workplace employee representatives over the period 1980-2004. The broad changes that affected industrial relations in Britain over this period had profound effects for trade unions. How did these changes affect employee...

There was a time before the first Workplace Industrial Relations Survey (WIRS80) in 1980 when what we knew of industrial relations was based primarily upon small scale surveys and case studies. WIRS80 marked a radical departure in the study of industrial relations for two reasons. First,...

The increased use of practices to facilitate direct communication between management and employees in the private sector was one of the more striking developments in employment relations during the 1990s. This report uses data from the major Workplace Employee Relations Survey to establish what...

Inside the Workplace provides an in-depth exploration of the findings from the 2004 Workplace Employment Relations Survey (WERS 2004), the fifth in the series of surveys conducted by the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI), the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), the Advisory,...

It has long been argued that equality of opportunity brings business benefits and that it is in employers’ interest to implement policy to promote equality of opportunity. Our analysis of the Workplace Employment Relations Survey 2004 found neither large and widespread business benefits, nor...

This chapter describes and seeks to explain the changes in employment relations and human resource management in the public sector over the period 1980-2004

This report investigates how workplace union organisation varies in its effectiveness and assesses the impact that effective unions have on the quality of workplace employment relations. Theories of union activity suggest that unions can heighten tension and conflict at the workplace by bringing...

Web-site providing support for users of the 1998 Workplace Employee Relations Survey.