Introduction

For many years, relations between managers and workers at the frozen food works had been turbulent. But, facing stiff competition, management came to the view that a new approach to industrial relations should be an integral part of a broader reorganisation of manufacturing activities. Senior managers drew up radical plans to bring about a fundamental change in the ‘quality of working life’, with a view to transforming adversarial relationships into co-operative ones. They sought to bring the disagreements of the past to an end by moving away from a traditional ‘one person, one job’ way of organising production to a system based upon autonomous work groups responsible for organising most aspects of their own work.

This chapter is an account of the introduction of new working arrangements and their consequences on the shop floor. It explores the way in which managers identified and analysed their industrial relations ‘problems’, and contemplates the thinking behind their new approach and how it differed from traditional management methods. The way in which the new working arrangements were practised on the shop floor is described, and their impact upon workers and their relations with managers is analysed. Workers' attitudes towards the local union, and the influence of the shop stewards upon the development of the new working practices, are also examined.

Introduction

The employment policies of prominent non-union companies continue to arouse keen interest. Widely regarded as highly sophisticated, they are often seen as leading the way towards a new style of co-operative industrial relations. The practical appeal of these policies stems from a belief in their potential to resolve differences of interest between management and employees. The innovations made by such companies may have provided the blueprint for the practical development of ‘human resource management’ in a growing number of businesses.

Several distinctive features of management policy have emerged from the existing accounts of these ‘model’ organisations. Independent commentators have often identified a ‘company philosophy’ extolling values which bind members of the organisation together in a common culture (see, for example, Cressey et al. 1985). From the point of view of management, Peach (1983) has emphasised the importance of eliminating collective grievances over wages and job security through the provision of excellent salaries and employment prospects, and coping effectively with individual complaints through extensive procedures. Such an approach comprises a series of measures, the combined purpose of which is the creation of a high degree of commitment on the part of workers to the goals of their employer.

Since current thinking in industrial relations may owe an increasing debt to organisations which have pioneered such approaches to their employees, it has become correspondingly more important to cast an enquiring eye over their achievements.

Market pressures and the growth of ‘realism’

The incompetent manager and the bloody-minded shop steward were for many years the stock-in-trade characters in ‘tales of the shop floor’. Their disappearance from stories of more recent times may reflect a transformation in industrial relations. Many people believe that British workers are now working harder and more effectively than in the past. For some, these changes are evidence of a radically altered balance of economic power. For others, they are proof that managers and workers have arrived at a new level of understanding in their relations. What is certain is that changes in workplace behaviour have caused people to think afresh about the orthodoxy which permeated labour relations since the Second World War.

Many British industrial relations experts once placed their faith in collective bargaining to build constructive and co-operative relations on the shop floor. In Britain, the Donovan Commission (1968) concluded that collective bargaining could address and reconcile the inevitable differences of interest that arose between employers and their employees. It put forward the view that encouraging comprehensive workplace agreements could not only reduce adversarial behaviour but unite workers and managers in a common purpose. During the 1960s and 1970s such ideas were put into practice, and the proportion of British workers covered by collective bargaining increased.

Introduction

Companies which have publicised their ‘new industrial relations’ have often captured a good deal of attention in recent years. Enthusiastic accounts of new developments have often portrayed previous methods of working as old-fashioned and uncompetitive. Some advocates of the ‘new industrial relations’ have implied that the spread of new approaches will be inevitable and universal on account of their potential for improved efficiency, achieved both through a reduction in supervisory overheads and the liberation of workers' individual talents. Yet in the search for something new, commentators have perhaps been too ready to set aside the lessons and ideas of the past. The biscuit works which is the subject of this chapter provides an opportunity to examine the extent and means by which a decidedly orthodox approach to industrial relations can be reconciled with modern competitive pressures.

One might suppose that even in corporations where high levels of trust have been established for many years, changing external circumstances have placed harmful stress upon long-established relationships and practices (Fox 1974 p.307). For this reason it is interesting to examine what degree of co-operation is nowadays sustainable within traditional approaches. As many companies have increasingly preferred to appeal to workers directly, without the involvement of trades unions, the biscuit works provides an opportunity to review whether consultation with worker representatives and careful adherence to formal agreements can bring forth the co-operation and flexibility necessary for competitive production.

Introduction

It is impossible to capture a complete account of relations between managers and workers from the details of employment contracts or formal collective agreements: these relations often depend upon unwritten expectations or obligations. Illuminating these expectations, and examining the extent to which they receive practical expression and are reconciled, is the purpose of this book.

In many respects, the debate over the ways in which industrial relations is changing has never been so well informed. Evidence from large scale interview surveys, notably the ED/ESRC/PSI/ACAS Workplace Industrial Relations Surveys has enabled scholars and commentators to make deductions from extensive data of high quality. Yet the type of information which can be collected in large scale surveys is not best suited to our present purpose. For example, Millward et al. (1992) have charted a decline in the coverage and scope of collective bargaining, and suggested that traditional approaches to industrial relations are on the wane. But large scale surveys which rely upon highly structured questionnaires are an insensitive instrument with which to uncover and explore the new ideas which may be taking the place of past orthodoxy. Such enquiries depend upon systematically identifying particular kinds of institutions and practices, at a time when they may not have found their own distinctive means of expression.

Introduction

There can be little doubt that British industrial relations have changed in recent years. Two distinct attempts to explain the course of recent developments were sketched in chapter 1. The first, traditional in orientation, suggested that the recent absence of overt industrial conflict might have been little more than a temporary phenomenon, a reaction to unfavourable external conditions in which managers and workers had created an ‘alliance of insiders’. Moreover, according to this view, cooperation between managers and workers has rarely extended beyond the barest minimum necessary to avoid enterprises being bankrupted by the forces of competition. In short, beneath a thin veneer of industrial peace, managers and workers have continued to regard each other as adversaries. The second, alternative point of view, argued the possibility that innovations in management policy may have given rise to the development of a ‘new industrial relations’, in which managers and workers have learned to co-operate in the pursuit of common goals. In this more optimistic account, adversarial attitudes have been displaced by a constructive approach based upon joint problem-solving.

Beneath their obvious differences, however, the traditional and the ‘new industrial relations’ accounts share certain ideas about how and why the world has changed. Indeed, it is their common assumptions which provide the starting point for a broader understanding of contemporary developments. Both accounts reflect the belief that market forces have become increasingly powerful, and now constitute the most important influence upon workplace behaviour.