IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ehl/lserod/20111.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Influences on trade union organising effectiveness in Great Britain

Author

Listed:
  • Charlwood, Andy

Abstract

This paper brings together data from the 1998 Workplace Employee Relations Survey, National Survey of Unions and TUC focus on recognition survey to investigate influences on union organising effectiveness. Organising effectiveness is defined as the ability of trade unions to recruit and retain members. Results suggest that there are big differences in organising effectiveness between unions, and that national union recruitment policies are an important influence on a union''s ability to get new recognition agreements. However local factors are a more important influence on organising effectiveness in workplaces where unions have a membership presence. There are also important differences in organising effectiveness among blue and white-collar employees. These differences suggest that unions will face a strategic dilemma about the best way to appeal to the growing number of white-collar employees.

Suggested Citation

  • Charlwood, Andy, 2001. "Influences on trade union organising effectiveness in Great Britain," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 20111, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    • Handle: RePEc:ehl:lserod:20111
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/20111/
    File Function: Open access version.
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Paul Willman, 2001. "The Viability of Trade Union Organization: A Bargaining Unit Analysis," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 39(1), pages 97-117, March.
    2. Stephen Machin, 2000. "Union Decline in Britain," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 38(4), pages 631-645, December.
    3. Kelly,John & Heery,Edmund, 1994. "Working for the Union," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521383202.
    4. Stephen Wood & John Goddard, 1999. "The Statutory Union Recognition Procedure in the Employment Relations Bill: A Comparative Analysis," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 37(2), pages 203-245, June.
    5. Green, Francis, 1990. "Trade Union Availability and Trade Union Membership in Britain," The Manchester School of Economic & Social Studies, University of Manchester, vol. 58(4), pages 378-394, December.
    6. Metcalf, David, 1991. "British Unions: Dissolution or Resurgence?," Oxford Review of Economic Policy, Oxford University Press and Oxford Review of Economic Policy Limited, vol. 7(1), pages 18-32, Spring.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. A Charlwood, 2001. "Why Do Non-Union Employees Want To Unionise? Evidence from Britain," CEP Discussion Papers dp0498, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. John H. Pencavel, 2004. "The Surprising Retreat of Union Britain," NBER Chapters, in: Seeking a Premier Economy: The Economic Effects of British Economic Reforms, 1980–2000, pages 181-232, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. A Charlwood, 2001. "Why Do Non-Union Employees Want To Unionise? Evidence from Britain," CEP Discussion Papers dp0498, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    3. Charlwood, Andy, 2001. "Why do non-union employees want to unionise? Evidence from Britain," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 20116, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    4. Metcalf, David, 2001. "British unions: dissolution or resurgence revisited," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 20124, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    5. Alex Bryson & Rafael Gomez & P Willman, 2003. "Why Do Voice Regimes Differ?," CEP Discussion Papers dp0591, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    6. Alex Bryson & Richard Freeman & Rafael Gomez & Paul Willman, 2017. "The Twin Track Model of Employee Voice: An Anglo-American Perspective on Union Decline and the Rise of Alternative Forms of Voice," DoQSS Working Papers 17-13, Quantitative Social Science - UCL Social Research Institute, University College London.
    7. Jo Blanden & Stephen Machin, 2003. "Cross‐Generation Correlations of Union Status for Young People in Britain," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 41(3), pages 391-415, September.
    8. Zagelmeyer, Stefan, 2003. "Die Entwicklung kollektiver Verhandlungen in Großbritannien: ein historischer Überblick," Discussion Papers 17, Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nuremberg, Chair of Labour and Regional Economics.
    9. Bryson, Alex & Gomez, Rafael, 2003. "Why have workers stopped joining unions?," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 20022, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    10. Blanchflower, David G., 2006. "A Cross-Country Study of Union Membership," IZA Discussion Papers 2016, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    11. Dribbusch, Heiner, 2005. "Trade Union Organising in Private Sector Services : Findings from the British, Dutch and German retail industry," WSI Working Papers 136, The Institute of Economic and Social Research (WSI), Hans Böckler Foundation.
    12. Martyn Andrews & Robin Naylor, 1994. "Declining Union Density in the 1980s: What Do Panel Data Tell Us?," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 32(3), pages 413-432, September.
    13. David Metcalf, 2001. "British Unions: Dissolution or Resurgence Revisited," CEP Discussion Papers dp0493, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    14. Bryson, Alex, 2001. "Union effects on managerial and employee perceptions of employee relations in Britain," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 4957, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    15. A Charlwood, 2001. "Influences on Trade Union Organising Effectiveness in Great Britain," CEP Discussion Papers dp0504, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    16. Olivier Guillot & Magali Jaoul-Grammare & Isabelle Terraz, 2019. "Union Membership in France: An Empirical Study," Working Papers of BETA 2019-04, Bureau d'Economie Théorique et Appliquée, UDS, Strasbourg.
    17. Lommerud, Kjell Erik & Meland, Frode & Straume, Odd Rune, 2009. "Can deunionization lead to international outsourcing?," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 77(1), pages 109-119, February.
    18. Alex Bryson & P Willman, 2007. "Union Organization in Great Britain," CEP Discussion Papers dp0774, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    19. Manquilef-Bächler, Alejandra A. & Arulampalam, Wiji & Smith, Jennifer C., 2009. "Differences in Decline: Quantile Regression Analysis of Union Wage Differentials in the United Kingdom, 1991-2003," IZA Discussion Papers 4138, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    20. David G. Blanchflower & Alex Bryson, 2022. "Union Membership Peaks in Midlife," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 60(1), pages 124-151, March.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Trade union objectives and structures; organising effectiveness;

    JEL classification:

    • J51 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Labor-Management Relations, Trade Unions, and Collective Bargaining - - - Trade Unions: Objectives, Structure, and Effects

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ehl:lserod:20111. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: LSERO Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/lsepsuk.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.