Individual contracts, collective bargaining and trade unionism: a case for the union voice

Abstract

The Government White Paper, Fairness at Work, offers the opportunity for a statutory procedure for the introduction of collective bargaining when a majority of trade union members within a workplace require it. Within this proposal assumptions are made concerning the nature of individual contracts and the wishes of employees covered by them. The article indicates that the extent of derecognition in the 1980s and 1990s has underestimated the number of employees denied collective bargaining through transfer to personal contracts. Based on research covering trade unionists who have remained in membership despite transfer to personal contracts, their motives for membership and attitudes to representation and recognition are explored. While increasingly accommodated to determination of their pay and conditions on an individual basis, the trade union members in this sample remain concerned about the opacity of procedures and the lack of voice. Recognizing that this does not infer a return to the collective bargaining of the past, an alternative structure which recognizes individual contracts within collective relations is recommended.

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