employee-employer relationships

• Employment law in the UK requires employers to involve employees in the following

  • Proposed redundancy programmes

  • When employees are transferred from one employer to another (e.g. the sale of the business)

  • On changes to pension arrangements

  • Proposed changes to working time arrangements
• Advantages of employee representation

  Increased empowerment and motivation of the workforce

  Employees become more committed to the objectives and strategy of the business

  Better decision-making because employee experience and insights taken into account

  Lower risk of industrial disputes
• Disadvantages of employee representation

  Time-consuming – potentially slows decision-making

  Conflicts between employer and employee interests may be a block to essential change

  Managers may feel their authority is being undermined
• Role of Trade Unions

  • Protect and improve the real incomes of their members

  • Provide or improve job security

  • Protect workers against unfair dismissal and other issues relating to employment legislation

  • Lobby for better working conditions

  • Offer a range of other work-related services including support for people claiming compensation for injuries sustained in a job
• key reasons for declining trade union membership

  • Decline in employment in manufacturing

  • Increased employment in the service sector where unions are less well established

  • Growth in the number of small firms which tend not to recognise trade unions

  • Significant growth in flexible working where employees see less need for union protection

  • Improved employee involvement in the workplace
• Industrial Action

  Work-to-rule

  Overtime ban

  Go-slow

  Strike
• How to avoid industrial disputes

  • Regular consultations with a trade union - pick up problems before they escalate

  • A staff forum or joint working group to pass on information and collect ideas from workers and consult with workers

  • An employee consultative body to discuss major issues as they arise

  • Team and group meetings and feedback sessions
• Works Councils

  formal a group of employees representing a workforce in discussions with their employers.
• Settling Industrial Disputes

  Conciliation • Used when an employee is making, or could make, a specific complaint against their employer to an employment tribunal

  Arbitration • An alternative to a court of law

  Mediation • Involves an independent, impartial person helping two or more individuals or groups reach a solution that's acceptable to everyone