Employee Relations

AC219
Perspectives on the Employment
Relationship:
Unitarist and Pluralist Approaches
Structure

 Reminder: The Employment

Relationship
 What are organizations?

 Different perspectives on the

employment relationship
 Unitarism, Pluralism, Marxism
What are Organizations? What
is Employment Relationship?
 Generally happy and harmonious places,
people work towards common goal, work is
seen as fulfilling
 Generally sites of come conflict, people
have different interests and goals
depending on group membership, class or
professional status, work is necessary
 Generally sites of exploitation, where
interests of capital owners are served, work
is alienating
Unitarism and Pluralism
 Complex terms with long histories
 Offer very different perspectives on
organizations and employment relationships
 Often seen as opposite ends of a continuum
 In practice many shades within each
approach
 Different positions within unitarism can be
located on a continuum
Unitarism
 Work organizations are an ‘integrated and
harmonious whole existing for a common purpose’
(Farnham and Pimlott 1991)
 Absence of conflict between capital and labour –
members of the same team
 Conflict is ‘pathological’
 Organisation single source of authority, unitary in
structure and purpose
 Employees loyal to the organization
 Emphasises organizational culture, organizational
values, norms and common interests
Unitarism
 Assumed to be perspective most commonly held by
many managers
 See reflected in focus on ‘managerial prerogative’
 Managers’ ‘right to manage’ emphasises managers
acting in the interests of all in the organisation
because they know best
 See Purcell’s work on corporate management styles
– differences within unitarism (traditional,
paternalist, sophisticated paternalism) and
 Guest and Hoque’s (1994) classification of non-
union companies – good, bad, ugly and lucky
Unitarism
Public policy issues
 State to support and reinforce managerial
prerogative
 Removal of rights/power base to trade unions
through legislation
 Restore property and decision-making rights to
managers
 Removal of support for collective bargaining to widen
basis of support for managerial decision-making
 More active role for legislation to curb and in
extreme cases outlaw strikes and other industrial
action
Unitarism and ‘New Right’

 In 1980s unitarism associated closely with ‘New

Right’
 Commitment to free markets and removal of
obstacles to the operation of free markets –
market imperfections
 Trade unions, collective bargaining - major
market imperfections
 Restrictive legislation to restore power of
employers and managers
 Managers to be allowed to manage their
enterprises as they see fit
Unitarism
But
 Why should managers’ values be accepted
unquestioningly?
 Why should we assume values of organisation =
those of individuals and groups? Values of unitarism
are superficially appealing but much more difficult to
turn into practice
 How sensible is an approach which assumes an
unquestioning acceptance of managerial
prerogative?
 Problems with more active role of law in ER
 We know that conflict does exist in organizations,
how do unitarists explain this?
Pluralism
 For many (particularly academics) pluralism
represents more appropriate and accurate
description of organizations and
employment relationships

 Fox (1966) organization defined as;

‘a democratic state composed of sectional
groups with divergent interests over which
the government tries to maintain some kind
of dynamic equilibrium’
Pluralism

 Organizations characterised by competing interests

 Conflict inevitable and legitimate and structured into
employment relationship
 For pluralists conflict is manageable and resolvable
 Focus on resolution of conflict – order, stability –
rather than how generated
 Tends to assume balance of power between parties
with different interests
 Legitimacy of trade unions as representing employee
interests and countervailing power to management
Pluralism
 Major influence on Public policy in employment
relations
 Legalisation of trade unions and rights to
ensure that independent unions can operate to
defend and further employee interests
 Encouragement and legal support for collective
bargaining
 New Deal in US in 1930s
 Donovan Commission in Britain in 1960s and
influence of ‘Oxford School’
Pluralism
 Traditionally, pluralism linked to economic
interests – employees, employers
 Interests more complex and identity linked to
age, gender, race, ethnicity, religion, sexuality
 Increasing wish to extend pluralism beyond the
workplace (work of Ackers 2002)
 Stakeholder model a classic example of
pluralism – different interest require means to
resolve interest differences
Pluralism
But
 Balance of power rarely exists in employee
relations
 Assumes some common ideology and an
acceptance of ‘Marquis of Queensbury’ rules –
willingness to ‘trust’ institutions and a moral duty to
compromise
 Assumes all conflict is manageable and resolvable
 Assumes that parties are rational
 Assumes a consensus on ‘truth’ and the values of
outcomes
And Finally? Fox’s Journey
 Alan Fox – leading pluralist IR academic in 1960s
member of ‘Oxford School’
 Research report for Donovan Commission (1966)
 By early 1970s – major questioning of pluralist
position
 Questioned legitimacy and sustainability of
outcomes where ‘agreed’ in context of major
power imbalances
 Argued that trust and commitment to agreements
only possible under a radically different economic
system
 Moves closer to radical and Marxist position