Industrielle Relationer I Krise

Abstract

Changing industrial relations – practical and academic implications

Crises or no crises – that’s the question in the practical and academic field of Industrial Relations

Carsten Strøby Jensen, Department of Sociology, University of Copenhagen.

Industrial relations have changed dramatically during the last twenty to thirty years. This is the case both in respect to industrial relations as a practical field or area in modern society, and in respect to industrial relations as a theoretical and intellectual field.

As a practical field changes in industrial relations has mostly been related to the erosion of traditional industrial relations institutions and actors in a broad number of industrialized countries. As a theoretical and intellectual field changes has been related to the development of new types of intellectual disciplines like HRM that have challenged the way industrial relation theory conceptualized the relation between employer and employee.

The changes in the theory and practice of industrial relations have often been conceptualized as a situation of crises. Industrial relations as an intellectual and theoretical discipline have been very much driven by developments in the practical areas of industrial relations. New developments in the practical area of industrial relations have often led to new areas of interest in the academic industrial relations field. The erosion of institutionalized industrial relations in some countries and sectors has made some scholars fear a similar erosion of the industrial relations as an academic field.

In this paper we will try to identify how the changes – or crises – in the practical field of industrial relations has been interpreted and conceptualized in academic field of industrial relations. How has the academic IR-environment explained and identified the changes in the industrial relations systems? And how has this influenced the IR-theoretical agenda and the way industrial relations are understood in the academic field.

Crises or no crises – that’s the question in the practical and academic field of Industrial Relations

Carsten Strøby Jensen, Department of Sociology, University of Copenhagen.

1. Introduction

The changes in the theory and practice of industrial relations have often been conceptualized as a situation of crises. Industrial relations as an intellectual and theoretical discipline have been very much driven by developments in the practical areas of industrial relations.New developments in the practical area of industrial relations have often led to new areas of interest in the academic industrial relations field. The erosion of institutionalized industrial relations in some countries and sectors has made some scholars fear a similar erosion of the industrial relations as an academic field.

2. The crises of industrial relations – the erosion of collective institutions and actors

According to Hyman the study of Industrial Relations focuses on,“…the rules which govern the employment relationship, the institutions involved in this process and the power dynamics among the main agents of regulation…” (Hyman 2007: 29) and the researchers have especially been interested in the forms of regulation dominated by collective actors and institutions, “Their (auth: the researchers) central concern has typically been the collective and institutional regulation … of work and employment.” (Hyman 2007: 30).

The erosion of the collective and institutionalized forms of regulation is at the center of the crises or change in the IR-field. It relates to the very familiar observations of diminishing levels of unionization among workers, falling levels of collective bargaining coverage, reduced access to high political levels and authorities among labor market parties and other similar trends indicating disorganization, deregulation and deinstitutionalization of industrial relations (Edwards 2003).

The deinstitutionalization of the IR-field has been explained and conceptualized by IR-scholars in many different ways. In the coming section we will try to identify the dominating ways of explaining the erosion and crises of the traditional IR-systems.

Overall it is possible to identify a number of dominating types of academic discourses explaining the changes (or the crises) in the IR-field.

One type of discourse is influenced what we will call the critical IR-theory tradition with is focus on power and power relations between employers and employees. The other type of discourse seems more to be influences or inspired by functionalist ways of explaining changes in society and in the field of industrial relations (without necessarily being founded on a functionalistic theoretical basis).

3.Critical discourses about the erosion of industrial relations

If we look upon the first perspective (critical theory inspired positions) the crises and changes in the industrial relations systems are generally explained by reference to changes in the overall balance in access to different types of power resources among employees and employers. Employers and companies have developed and implemented a strategy toward organized labour that more or less explicitly tries to deinstitutionalize and deregulate the employment relationship. This has led to more market based and less institution based forms of regulation of the relation between employer and employees.The fundamental point in this position is that employers – all other things being equal – will prefer decentralized, non regulated and individualized forms of employment relations. Employers have – exactly because they are employers – an organizational and resource based advantage compared to the single employee. Individual bargaining between a company and a single employee favor the employer in the bargaining situation due to the fact that employers generally have better access to different types of resources.

The changing balances of power between employers and employees are usually explained with reference to a number of different situations.

Firstly changing political environments is often used to explain shifts in the balance of power. This type of explanation is for example used in connection with the developments in the British and American (US) systems of industrial relations since the late 1970’ies. Thatcher and Regan changed the political balances during the 1980’ies in advantage of the employers. Neoliberal ideas penetrated the political systems in a number of Western countries and led to a negative political attitudetoward trade unions and institutionalized employment relations. Employers and employers association used the new political environment and support, to put pressure on trade unions and organized labour in order to get rid of or at least loosen the implications of collective agreements and bargaining[1].

A second type argument used to explain changes in the balance of power between employers and employees relates to changes in the economic environment. Economic internationalization and globalization- it is often argued - tends to favor companies and employers vis a vis employees. In a globalized world companies have the ability to move to areas where working conditions and labour expenses are much lower than in countries with developed and organized industrial relations systems. Labour on the other hand has only limited access to the same kind of mobility and is more geographically bounded. All in all it is argued that globalization tends to increase the overall bargaining power of the employers and decrease the bargaining power of the employees. Threats and talks about possible outsourcing of production facilities etc. are used by employers to strengthen their bargaining position in order make employees and trade unions accept less organized industrial relations systems.

A third type of observation in this critical oriented academic discourse relates to arguments about more fundamental changes in the productions structure (or in the mode of production). Regulation theory oriented scholars – but also others - argue, that the fundamental structures in the capitalist mode of production changed in the 1970ies implying a shift in production regime from Fordism to post-Fordism. And they argue that the two different types of productions regimes corresponds to different types of industrial relations systems. Organized industrial relations correspond to the Fordist regime, while disorganized industrial relations correspond to the Post-Fordist mode of production.

4. Functionalist discourses about the erosion of industrial relations

A second type of academic discourse explaining the changes in the industrial relations field focuses more on what could be called underlying changes in late-modern society related to a number of different factors. Scholars working within this discourse argue inwhat could be called a more functionalistic way (without being theoretically embedded in functionalism), when they explain tendencies of disorganization and deregulation of the practical field of industrial relations. In this discourse arguments about fundamental changes in the employment relation are some times put forward in order to explain the diminishing influence of the collective actors in the IR-regulation.

It is argued that the post-industrial society and the post-industrial labour market (especially the parts dominated by a highly educated labour force) demand other types of regulatory mechanisms than those dominating in the classical industrial society. Employee-employer relations are changing and becoming more individualized as a result of the development of more complex and differentiated work processes.

A first type of explanation to the changes in the industrial relations systems deals with what could be called overall changes in the class structure in the industrialized (or post-industrialized society). Some scholars argue that we can observe changes in the overall class structure in industrialized societies which influences e.g. trade unions ability to recruit new members.The traditional industrial working class, whichcould be seen as the core basis for recruitment in the trade union movement, is reduced both relatively and in absolute numbers due to changes in the composition of the occupational structure. More employees are employed in the service sector and less in the industrial sector. This has – as is well documented (Ebbinghaus & Visser 2000) – implicated falling level of unionization among workers in a number of European countries. Workers employed in the service sector are less unionized than workers employed in the industrial sector.

Another factor relating to changes in the class structure in the late modern societies that has lead to more disorganized industrial relations has to do with changes in the overall importance of classes in the society. Some argue that classes are no longer as important as they used to be, when we try to explain values, ideology or life perspectivesamong people in late modern society. Ulrich Bech talks about individualization in what he calls the second modernity (Bech 1992, 2000) and argue that the structuring influences of classes for developing common values in a society has diminished. Pakulski & Waters argue that economic position in a society no longer determines values and political views. The classes are death and new types categories relating to subjects like ethnicity, gender, style, taste etc. are becoming the structuring determinants in the society. Pakulski and Waters ague that the formation of norms, values and ideologies aredisconnected from the economic sphere (Pakulski & Waters 1996). The cultural sphere has established itself as a more or less autonomous area in the society. Observations like these are by some observers used to explain disorganizing tendencies in the IR-field.

A second type of explanation in the more functional oriented discourse about disorganized industrial relations relates to observations about changes in the work processes and to changes in the management attitudes toward labour. Some scholars argue for example, that the use of new types of technology haschanged the relationship between management and employees. In contrast to the classical manufacturing industries with its assembly line production and its fragmentation of the work process, the use of new types of technology imply a less fragmented use of labour. The need for a qualified workforce increases when new technologies are used, in contrast to what was foreseen by Bravermann and others. As Daniel Bell observed in his ‘Coming of the Post-Industrial Society’ (1973), pre-industrial society was dominated by a human-nature relation, industrial society is/was dominated by a human-machine relation and post-industrial societies is dominated by a human-human relation. The fact the dominating working relations are structured round human-human relations changes not only the object work process (from machines to humans), but also the relation between management and employees.

Employers and management have changed – would some scholars argue – their fundamental attitude toward employees due to e.g. increased international competition and their need for a committed workforce. This is the basic argument in parts of the HRM literature. Employer-employee relations are – it is sometimes argued - more and more characterized by mutual commitment and common interests in developing competitive work processes in the interests of both parties. The death classes are partly replaced by the company as a community.Traditional systems of industrial relations with its focus on collective actors and conflicts of interests between management and labour are in this new reality becoming more and more obsolete. There is no need for a system of industrial relation in a society characterized by these new types of employer-employee relations. And even if we can observe employments relations dominated by tayloristic forms of management we must expect them to play - in the long run - only a marginal role at the labour market. This is even a trend supported by the developments in the international division of labour and the outsourcing of manufacturing production to e.g. China.

A third type of argument of this more functionalistic type relates to the history of the industrial relations systems in the 1970’ies. The crises of the industrial relations systems have developed dramatically in the periods after the 70’ies. It is e.g. from the 1980’ies and onwards that we have seen tendencies toward deregulation or at least decentralization of the collective bargaining structurein a number of Western countries. One way of explaining this tendency is with reference to the economic problems of the 1970’ies. One could argue that the industrial relations systems were capable of producing or establishing solutions to central conflict (in society and on the labour market) during the 1950’ies and 1960’ies. Organized industrial relations seemed to be an adequate answer to the challenged of the post-war period, at least in a number of countries. In the 1970’ies, however, the organized system of industrial relations was not in the same way capable of establishing compromises that was an adequate answer to the Oil crises and the economic crises of the late 1970’ies. At least in some countries – UK and Denmarkcan be seen as examples – decentralization of the industrial relations was seen as a possible answer to the fact that centralized forms of collective bargaining did not lead to solutions on the labour market, but to major conflicts between trade unions and employers associations.

Compared to the critical discourse about the erosion of industrial relations the more functionalist oriented discourse will argue that it is not due to changes in balance of the political or economic power that we can observe changes in or erosion of the classical industrial relations systems. It is all in all due to the lack of functionality or ability to produce solutions that the systems erode.

One might even argue that the power balance between employers and employees move in a direction benefitting the employees. Individuals increases their market value (or market changes to use a Weberian expression) because of employers increased need for a committed and qualified workforce. To this type of argument a critical oriented discourse on the other hand would argue, that although one might be able to argue that some employees might have increased their market based value due to changed demands on the labour market, other parts of the labour force would experience a worsening of the labour market status due to the disorganization of the industrial relations.

Csj: Forandringer i klassestruktur, forandringer i familiestruktur, forandringer i forholdet mellem produktion og konsumtion.

5. How to answer the crises and erosion of industrial relations

If some of the above observations about trends in the practical and academic discussions about explaining and conceptualizing the erosion of industrial relations are correct, then we can also ask: What is the answer to this crises or erosion in both the practical and academic field?

In the academic circles the crises both in the practical and the scholarly field has been observed by a number of different authors. Bruce Kaufman wrote in an introduction to a book on the theme of theoretical perspective on industrial relations (Kaufman 2004) the following about his motivation for the book: “The second motivation came from the long-term decline in the academic fortunes of industrial relations and my desire to reverse this trend. As numerous people in the field have observed, industrial relations in this country (auth: in US) – and to some substantial degree in many other countries of the world – has the last two decades suffered a significant loss of intellectual energy and scholarly participation.” (Kaufman 2004: vii).

Kaufman (and others) has argued that industrial relations need to be ‘employment relations’ in order to conceptualize new trends in the industrial relations field. This has especially been an argument put forward in an American context. The erosion of industrial relations has been especially dramatic in both academic and practical industrial relations in US[2]. One way to deal with this situation – especially in the academic field - is according to Kaufman to rename the field and make it more comparable with a postindustrial labour market. The concept of employment relations is therefore preferable to the concept of industrial relations as it makes the field more eatable to a broader academic audience.