The Impact of High Unemployment on Bargaining Structure

Abstract

The rise in unemployment in Western industrialised countries might be expected to have major consequences for the structure of their collective bargaining. The paper addresses the question through a consideration of the British private sector. Since the Second World War this has movedfrom a reliance on multi-employer, industry-wide agreements, superficially similar to those still prevailing in the rest of Western Europe, to a mixed system in which single-employer agreements dominate, similar to that existing in the United States. The coming of high unemployment might be expected to lead to a reversion to multi-employer bargaining. It would provide employers with the opportunity to develop greater solidarity and trade unions would be able to fall back on the security of a minimum wage at a time when shop steward organisation is weak. In fact no such reversion is occurring. The explanation lies in the alternative strategy adopted by employers of using company bargaining to isolate their workforces from the labour market and the labour movement.

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