IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/woemps/v36y2022i4p683-700.html

Conflictual Complementarity: New Labour Actors in Corporatist Industrial Relations

Author

Listed:
  • Assaf S Bondy

Abstract

Liberalisation of industrial relations entails the weakening of unions and a respective rise of alternative, ‘new labour actors’, altering traditional class representation by introducing new strategies. Research on this phenomenon has focused on decentralised contexts, where new actors are seen to pursue both independent strategies as well as cooperation with unions to contest rising employers’ discretion. Drawing on multiple qualitative methodologies, this article analyses the roles and contributions of new actors in the context of corporatist industrial relations, to find rising conflicts between them and unions. Combining social movement theories of strategic change with industrial relations theories of power and theories of institutional complementarity, reveals conflictual forms of complementarity between new actors and corporatist unions. Through interacting with new labour actors, corporatist union strategies are seen to change in a ‘spin-off’ form, reforming unions’ traditional power and dominance to (partially) counter previous liberalisation of industrial relations.

Suggested Citation

  • Assaf S Bondy, 2022. "Conflictual Complementarity: New Labour Actors in Corporatist Industrial Relations," Work, Employment & Society, British Sociological Association, vol. 36(4), pages 683-700, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:woemps:v:36:y:2022:i:4:p:683-700
    DOI: 10.1177/0950017020981557
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0950017020981557
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/0950017020981557?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Guy Bellemare, 2000. "End Users: Actors in the Industrial Relations System?," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 38(3), pages 383-405, September.
    2. Denise Currie & Paul Teague, 2016. "Economic Citizenship and Workplace Conflict in Anglo-American Industrial Relations Systems," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 54(2), pages 358-384, June.
    3. Maite Tapia, 2013. "Marching to Different Tunes: Commitment and Culture as Mobilizing Mechanisms of Trade Unions and Community Organizations," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 51(4), pages 666-688, December.
    4. Ida Regalia & Marino Regini, 2018. "Trade Unions and Employment Relations in Italy during the Economic Crisis," South European Society and Politics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 23(1), pages 63-79, January.
    5. Kurt Vandaele, 2013. "Union responses to young workers since the Great Recession in Ireland, the Netherlands and Sweden: are youth structures reorienting the union agenda? 1," Transfer: European Review of Labour and Research, , vol. 19(3), pages 381-397, August.
    6. Peter Sheldon & Raoul Nacamulli & Francesco Paoletti & David E. Morgan, 2016. "Employer Association Responses to the Effects of Bargaining Decentralization in Australia and Italy: Seeking Explanations from Organizational Theory," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 54(1), pages 160-191, March.
    7. Edmund Heery & Carola Frege, 2006. "New Actors in Industrial Relations," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 44(4), pages 601-604, December.
    8. Hyman, Richard & Gumbrell-McCormick, Rebecca, 2017. "Resisting labour market insecurity: old and new actors, rivals or allies?," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 84658, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    9. Anke Hassel, 2007. "The Curse of Institutional Security - The Erosion of German Trade Unionism," Industrielle Beziehungen - Zeitschrift fuer Arbeit, Organisation und Management - The German Journal of Industrial Relations, Rainer Hampp Verlag, vol. 14(2), pages 176-191.
    10. Guy Mundlak, 2009. "Addressing the Legitimacy Gap in the Israeli Corporatist Revival," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 47(4), pages 765-787, December.
    11. Gabriella Alberti, 2016. "Moving beyond the dichotomy of workplace and community unionism: The challenges of organising migrant workers in London’s hotels," Economic and Industrial Democracy, Department of Economic History, Uppsala University, Sweden, vol. 37(1), pages 73-94, February.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Assaf S Bondy & Jonathan Preminger, 2022. "Collective labor relations and juridification: A marriage proposal," Economic and Industrial Democracy, Department of Economic History, Uppsala University, Sweden, vol. 43(3), pages 1260-1280, August.
    2. Laura William & Ian Cunningham, 2021. "Evaluating the role of trade unions and civil society organisations in supporting graduate educated disabled workers," Economic and Industrial Democracy, Department of Economic History, Uppsala University, Sweden, vol. 42(3), pages 648-666, August.
    3. Jonathan Preminger, 2018. "Creating a multilayered representational ‘package’ for subcontracted workers: the case of cleaners at Ben†Gurion University," Industrial Relations Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 49(1), pages 34-49, January.
    4. Edmund Heery, 2018. "Fusion or replacement? Labour and the ‘new’ social movements," Economic and Industrial Democracy, Department of Economic History, Uppsala University, Sweden, vol. 39(4), pages 661-680, November.
    5. Jane Holgate, 2018. "The Sydney Alliance: A broad-based community organising potential for trade union transformation?," Economic and Industrial Democracy, Department of Economic History, Uppsala University, Sweden, vol. 39(2), pages 312-331, May.
    6. Christine A. Riordan & Alexander M. Kowalski, 2021. "From Bread and Roses to #MeToo: Multiplicity, Distance, and the Changing Dynamics of Conflict in IR Theory," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 74(3), pages 580-606, May.
    7. Benjamin Hopkins & Chris Dawson, 2016. "Migrant workers and involuntary non-permanent jobs: agencies as new IR actors?," Industrial Relations Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 47(2), pages 163-180, March.
    8. Fang Cooke, 2014. "Chinese industrial relations research: In search of a broader analytical framework and representation," Asia Pacific Journal of Management, Springer, vol. 31(3), pages 875-898, September.
    9. Jane Holgate, 2015. "An International Study of Trade Union Involvement in Community Organizing: Same Model, Different Outcomes," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 53(3), pages 460-483, September.
    10. Marco Marrone & Paolo Borghi, 2023. "Ai margini del sindacato, il sindacato nei margini: democratizzazione, demercificazione e disinquinamento tra alleanze possibili e nuove pratiche," ECONOMIA E SOCIET? REGIONALE, FrancoAngeli Editore, vol. 2023(3), pages 35-52.
    11. Şafak Tartanoğlu, 2015. "Beyond informality: effectiveness of a new actor for representing call centre workers in Turkey," Industrial Relations Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 46(5-6), pages 381-397, November.
    12. Paul Blyton & Jean Jenkins, 2013. "Mobilizing Protest: Insights from Two Factory Closures," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 51(4), pages 733-753, December.
    13. Bas A. S. Koene & François Pichault, 2021. "Embedded Fixers, Pragmatic Experimenters, Dedicated Activists: Evaluating Third‐Party Labour Market Actors’ Initiatives for Skilled Project‐Based Workers in the Gig Economy," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 59(2), pages 444-473, June.
    14. Ian Kessler & Stephen Bach, 2011. "The Citizen‐Consumer as Industrial Relations Actor: New Ways of Working and the End‐user in Social Care," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 49(1), pages 80-102, March.
    15. David J Bailey, 2024. "Worker-Led Dissent in the Age of Austerity: Comparing the Conditions of Success," Work, Employment & Society, British Sociological Association, vol. 38(4), pages 1041-1061, August.
    16. Stephen Mustchin & Mathew Johnson & Marti Lopez‐Andreu, 2023. "Civil society organisations in and against the state: Advice, advocacy and activism on the margins of the labour market," Industrial Relations Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 54(2), pages 117-131, March.
    17. Danijela Dolenec & Daniela Širinić & Ana Balković, 2022. "Resisting the Great Recession: Social movement unionism in Croatia and Serbia," European Journal of Industrial Relations, , vol. 28(1), pages 105-121, March.
    18. Davide Però & John Downey, 2024. "Advancing Workers’ Rights in the Gig Economy through Discursive Power: The Communicative Strategies of Indie Unions," Work, Employment & Society, British Sociological Association, vol. 38(1), pages 140-160, February.
    19. Fitzenberger Bernd & Sommerfeld Katrin, 2016. "A Sequential Decomposition of the Drop in Collective Bargaining Coverage," Journal of Economics and Statistics (Jahrbuecher fuer Nationaloekonomie und Statistik), De Gruyter, vol. 236(1), pages 37-69, February.
    20. Constantine Manolchev & Richard Saundry & Duncan Lewis, 2021. "Breaking up the ‘precariat’: Personalisation, differentiation and deindividuation in precarious work groups," Economic and Industrial Democracy, Department of Economic History, Uppsala University, Sweden, vol. 42(3), pages 828-851, August.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    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:sae:woemps:v:36:y:2022:i:4:p:683-700. 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: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.britsoc.co.uk/ .

    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.