The

The “Disorganized Paradigm” “Disorganized

British Industrial Relations in the 1990s Paradigm”

Ed Rose
Liverpool Business School, Liverpool John Moores University, 27
Liverpool, UK

Introduction: The “Disorganized” Paradigm

It is, perhaps, a tautology to state that change in industrial relations reflects wider
economic, political and social changes, while, academically, change in industrial
relations mirrors (and arguably distorts) the prevailing orthodoxies of the disciplines
which it comprises. Nevertheless, there has been considerable comment concerning
the causes and nature of change in industrial relations during the 1980s and into
the 1990s. Much of the debate is concerned with the extent and depth of these
developments as regards the themes of continuity and change[1]. There is some
disagreement regarding the permanence of recent industrial relations change.
Poole and Mansfield[1] argue that these changes have been overemphasized,
stressing the continuing and enduring features of the industrial relations system,
while others[2,3] speculate about a more fundamental rift or rupture. However,
the debate is of considerable significance since it: juxtaposes in almost dialectical
fashion the “old” and the “new”, suggests that the latter has challenged the former
and possibly supplanted it, and argues that political and economic policy shifts
have rendered the “old” industrial relations impotent, if not obsolete.
The use of metaphor as an illustrative construct, however, is ultimately unhelpful
as it does not necessarily focus on processes or causes of change, and may
oversimplify and obfuscate their inherent complexity. For instance, is “trench
warfare” really the ineluctable image of the “old”, or is “progressive flexibility”
really a sufficient summary of the “new”?
It is a major contention of this article that fundamental, and possibly irreversible,
transformations are taking place which cannot be explained solely by reference
to paradigm shifts and metaphorical allusion which are specific to industrial
relations. Nor can they be seen as the outcome of political, economic and legislative
developments alone. Rather, it is argued that these transformations are a result
of the disaggregation of what Lash and Urry[4] call “organized capitalism” and
the move towards “disorganized capitalism”. Lash and Urry[4] go on to argue
that the “disorganization” of capitalism has already had profound consequences
for British industrial relations.
The framework for analysis adopted in this article is partly based on the
organization/disorganization paradigm and includes the following changes which

Employee Relations, Vol. 16 No. 1,

The author would like to thank the Editor of Employee Relations for making comments on and 1994, pp. 27-40. © MCB University
contributions to the article in its formative stages. Press, 0142-5455
Employee typify the transition from “organized” to “disorganized” capitalism. It is adapted
Relations and developed from Lash and Urry[4, pp. 5-7] and centres on the following points:
16,1 (1) There is a continuing trend towards globalization of markets and an
increase in the scale of operations of large, multinational organizations,
on the one hand, and a lessening concentration of capital in national internal
markets, on the other. For Britain and Western countries generally, this
28 implies a continuing erosion of the traditional manufacturing and extractive
industrial base, with well-documented industrial relations consequences,
such as the decline in union membership and density together with the
consequent erosion of union power bases.
(2) The fragmentation and eclipse of “class” politics and, hence, of the (now
passé) notion of “working class solidarity”. In an industrial relations sense
this means the increasing “individualization” of industrial conflict and its
counterpart, the individualization of managerial strategies of employee
relations[5,6]. It is partly consequent on (1) above, and partly due to the
disorganizing effect of “an educationally-based stratification system
comprising the salariat which fosters individual achievement and the
growth of new ‘social movements’, (e.g. anti-nuclear groups,
ecological/environmental lobbies, women’s movements, etc.), which deflect
from class politics”[4, p. 5].
(3) A rapid decline in the manual “core” working class as economies are
deindustrialized. This has been a particularly significant ongoing trend
during the 1980s, and has two consequences: first, the development of a
permanently-unemployed and increasingly-unemployable underclass; and,
second, the condemnation of employed labour to an industrial diaspora
of low-paid, under- or non-unionized and casualized work.
(4) The uncritical adoption of capitalism by Third World countries which
become primary producers, and the consequent “servicization” of First
World economies.
(5) The decline in relevance and class character of political parties. In the UK,
this has been characterized and exemplified by the shift in the centre of
political gravity towards the right which, in turn, has compelled the Labour
Party to adopt previously unthinkable social and economic policies in
order to seek to become electable, thereby alienating much of its individual
and institutional support as witnessed, for example, by the debate in 1993
concerning “one person one vote”, and the status of union representation
at party conference.
(6) The decline in the number of people employed in, and the importance of,
extractive and manufacturing industry already referred to, together with
the growing prominence of service industries. The result has been the
restructuring of social/industrial relations within smaller plants using, in
particular, flexible labour processes and a labour force which is increasingly
feminized and casualized.
 (7) Reduction of the spatial division of labour and the consequent demise of The
occupational communities and regional economies based on relatively few “Disorganized
centralized extractive/manufacturing industries. This trend is also associated Paradigm”
with the complementary decline in average plant size, together with the
advent of labour-saving investment, subcontracted activities and the export
of labour-intensive activities to world-market factories in the Third World,
and to rural (green field) sites in the First World. 29
(8) The emergence of a “post-modernist” culture which affects the symbols
and discourse of everyday life. The “post-modernist” tendency has been
neglected within the industrial relations literature, but is particularly
relevant to the “disorganized paradigm”. What is being suggested here is
that the disorganization of contemporary industrial relations, initially to
the decentralized shopfloor “radicalism” of the late 1960s, and then in later
years to the shift from national to enterprise bargaining and the decline
of “neo-corporatism”, has also been accompanied by a fragmentation of
working class collective identity. Collective identity is partly a cultural
matter, in that mass culture, advertising, information and communication
technologies not only have an impact on production and economic
management, but also on socialization, education, leisure and the acculturation
process itself. Contemporary society is now experiencing a fundamental
work and leisure transformation as, for example, in the shift from “Fordist”
to “post-Fordist” work patterns, and in the general transformation of the
employment relationship[7], which have significant implications for
contemporary industrial relations.

Industrial Relations Consequences of “Disorganization”

These changes, which in their totality represent a move towards a “disorganized”
capitalist system of industrial relations, have their origins in the decades prior
to the 1980s. The latter decade is variously regarded as a temporal benchmark
for industrial relations; a watershed or a rupture which distinguishes and contrasts
the “old” industrial relations from the “new”. But, as Lash and Urry[4, p. 209]
point out, while the politics of industrial relations has “disorganized sooner, more
abruptly and more profoundly (in Britain) than in other European nations”, the
transformation, such as it is, began to unfold during the 1960s when the loci of
industrial relations shifted from industrial/national levels to the shopfloor and
then to the level of the individual enterprise. It is ironic that the initial impetus
for this shift came from within trade unions: for instance, the Transport and
General Workers’ Union (T & GWU) led the way as a means of incorporating
shop steward power into national decision making in a constitutional manner.
The General and Municipal Workers’ Union (G & MWU) reformed its structure
in a search for more democratic mechanisms and procedures. Employers, sensing
in the early 1980s that economic advantage could be thereby extracted, shifted
negotiations to the level of the firm, with “open books” tactics and an emphasis
on the survival of enterprises. This movement was, of course, further reinforced
Employee at national political levels by the failure of British neo-corporatism in the 1970s
Relations and the advent of Thatcherism.
The shift in the locus of industrial relations had already been commented on
16,1 as early as the 1960s when, for reasons rather different from those which prevail
today, its consequences were described as “anomic”[8]. Flanders’ contribution
will be considered more fully later in this article.
30 One of the most empirically rigorous analyses of contemporary industrial
relations change is the 1990 WIRT survey[9]. This survey has commented upon
significant workplace industrial relations developments during the 1980s, which
include the erosion of multi-employer representation in collective bargaining and
a reduced role for employers’ associations; a decline in collective bargaining as
fewer workplaces recognize trade unions; and a reduction in the number of
employees affected by collective bargaining. Another development symptomatic
of the “disorganization” of industrial relations structures and processes is the
continuing trend towards decentralization of pay determination, a phenomenon
also commented on earlier by Flanders[10]. Evans et al.[11], for example, argue
that labour market deregulation was accompanied by a move towards decentralization
of pay bargaining within both private and public sectors, whereby employers
considered more closely the conditions operating within local labour markets,
while existing national comparability claims were increasingly ignored. The
trend away from national and industry-wide machinery towards single employer
arrangements was consolidated, particularly within large private sector organizations.
Millward et al. point out that devolution is often limited to the level of the
firm/enterprise and does not normally filter down to plant level[9, p. 355]:
Rather than lead to more plant level negotiations, the move away from multi-employer negotiations
was accompanied by an increase in negotiating structures at enterprise or company level.

Undoubtedly, the changing population of workplaces and employment restructuring

during the 1980s provided a further impetus towards devolution of bargaining
structures and processes but, more importantly, and particularly within those
areas of the private sector where trade union organization was traditionally
sparse, terms and conditions of work for an increasing number of employees
were more likely to be determined unilaterally by employers. Within the public
sector, privatization and deregulation programmes have[11]:
increased employment fragmentation and casualisation (while) competitive tendering forced
many workgroups to accept real and relative pay cuts and more intensive work routines in
order to remain viable in the face of low wage competition from private sector firms.

Following on from this, it is one of the contentions of this article that “employer
initiatives”, in the guise of human resource management (HRM) developments
during the 1980s, constitute an array of often unco-ordinated management
responses to the growing “disorganization” of industrial relations at
enterprise/organizational level. Would, for example, HRM practices have been
as popular with employers, and arguably as effective, if collective bargaining
structures and processes had not been disaggregated? Or if the labour market
profile had not changed so drastically? Or if government policy and legislation
had not been so favourable to employers? It is possible that industrial relations The
researchers may be ascribing too much importance to the HRM phenomenon, “Disorganized
and that HRM itself is often an haphazard, quasi-spontaneous response to the Paradigm”
“firefighting” needs of organizations within a harsh economic climate. As Kerfoot
and Knights state[12]:
The development of HRM in practice could never be as rational, consciously planned and
cohesive as intimated in some of the literature… There is no necessary continuity between a 31
commitment of HRM and the kind of practices operating in the organization as a whole.

While, therefore, HRM may not necessarily be part of an integrated corporate

policy and strategy for many organizations, the opportunities for exercising
greater management control over workforces have never been so great as at
present, with examples ranging from wholesale lack of recognition of unions, on
the one hand, through to formalization of procedures, on the other. Nevertheless,
there are some examples of a more judicious use of HRM as part of an organizational
strategy for change[5,13], which aims to seek and maintain the co-operation of
employees by introducing changes to the mutual benefit of both parties as, for
example, through the implementation of employee involvement schemes.

The Flanders’ Legacy

We have briefly considered some of the main industrial relations consequences
of the shift from an “organized” to a “disorganized” form of capitalism. In
attempting to provide further theoretical underpinning for this assertion, the
contribution of Flanders, whose analysis also embraces a period of industrial
relations change, will now be examined.
Flanders’ contribution to our understanding of industrial relations institutions
and processes remains highly significant. His essays, “Collective Bargaining: A
Theoretical Analysis”, and “From Donovan to Durkheim”[10] have endured the
test of time, and one cannot take issue with Clegg[14] who states:
These were the two most important contributions to the theory of collective bargaining that
had appeared for many years: and no one has significantly advanced the theory since he wrote.
Consequently everyone who sets out to understand the subject today must reckon with these
two essays, whether to build on them or to refute them.

The essay, “Collective Bargaining: From Donovan to Durkheim” (with Allan

Fox)[8], applies the Durkheimian concept of “anomie” to a post-Donovan analysis
of industrial relations. The anomie concept may, of course, be used retrospectively
to analyse the pre-Donovan era. In essence, “anomie” is defined by Durkheim as
a state of “normlessness” resulting from a breakdown in social regulation (or
social breakdown). The effects of social breakdown or disintegration can manifest
themselves at individual, social (group), and societal levels, in angst at individual
level, and “chaos” at societal level. The British industrial relations system of the
1950s and 1960s was, according to Flanders[10, p. 247]:
A normative system regulating employment (as) a system of job regulation which embraces
both substantive and procedural norms. The coverage of these norms extend from a single
Employee work group, to a department (of an enterprise/establishment), to a company, to an occupation
nationally to a whole industry and beyond.
Relations
16,1 In applying this definition and analysis to the immediate post-war period, it
would probably to too simplistic to argue that the normative system of industrial
relations was relatively intact. Its survival owed much, however, to the beneficial
effects of post-war reconstruction, political party consensus, and a Keynesian-
32 inspired economic policy geared towards full employment and economic growth
within a pluralist political context. To be sure, a consensual quasi-corporatist
framework had emerged, with the TUC virtually co-opted as a partner in the
determination of economic and industrial strategy. All these arrangements were
buttressed by increasing union membership and extensions of bargaining and
union recognition. Dunlop’s[15] systems perspective tended to reinforce the notion,
if not the ideology of consensus, of normative regulation and orderly industrial
relations. The almost universal acceptance amongst pluralists that “a system of
industrial relations is a system of rules” provided an intellectual legitimation and
a perception of the “reality” of industrial relations that was far from accurate.
For the first time, industrial relations as an academic subject had a theoretical
underpinning which brought together its constituent disciplines and which
purported to “express the subject’s inherent unity”[10, p.85].
The criticisms applied to systems theory generally can be applied to Dunlop;
a “utopian” orientation, de-emphazising the reality of conflict, and so on. In
seeking to apply Dunlop’s model, we would be making normative assumptions
about the (unreconstructed) reality of British industrial relations. Flanders seemed
to recognize this epistemological pitfall and preferred instead to focus on the
normative breakdown already taking place.
By the 1950s, the seeds of normative breakdown had already been sown; the
extension of union recognition and collective bargaining, and the maintenance
of full employment during the 1950s and 1960s, were also accompanied by
inflationary pressures within the economy and rising expectations of unionized
workforces, the latter being largely confined to the rather parochial concerns of
the locality, industry and occupational community. Already during this period,
the “challenge from below” (nothing particularly novel for British industrial
relations) was manifesting itself in conflict at national and workplace levels. In
addition, the “challenge from above” which could be interpreted as representing
attempts at normative reconstruction (e.g. incomes policies) eventually gave rise
to the corporatist ideology of the 1970s. In Flanders’ terminology[10, p. 103]:
The system has been challenged from above and below: from above by governments acting in
response to practical economic difficulties and strong public pressures; and from below in the
workplace, by the rise of shop stewards and an upsurge of bargaining outside the scope of
national regulation. In both respects, something of the order that once prevailed has been
disturbed by a “growing chaos”.

It would seem, therefore, that the gradual slide of British industrial relations into
“anarchy” and “chaos” during this period represented just as much a change in
the nature of industrial relations at this time as did the consequences of what
may euphemistically be described as normative and legislative reconstruction The
during the 1980s. Indeed, Flanders recognized this in relation to the former “Disorganized
period[10, p. 113]: Paradigm”
The silent revolution initiated by the transition from mass unemployment to full employment
has forced us to consider new values for judging the system’s methods and results.

In retrospect, Donovan resolved little. Dunlop’s systems perspective had been 33

internalized as the academic orthodoxy of the then dominant “Oxford School”
of industrial relations. The intellectual strait-jacket imposed by the then fashionable
narrowly defined systems theory could have only one outcome in prescriptive
terms – the reform of industrial relations from within, or, as Flanders argues[10,
p. 276]:
We need to promote a widespread conviction that there is no evading this massive challenge
of reconstructing new normative systems of collective bargaining.

The decline of consensus, and the process of normative breakdown, accelerated

during the 1970s. Attempts at normative reconstruction were piecemeal and
contradictory, alternating between a market forces ideology, within a legislative
framework of the early period of the Conservative Government of 1970-74, to
incomes policy and the neo-corporatist Social Contract of the Labour Government
of 1974-79. Flanders’ warnings of the consequences of continued “anomie” in
industrial relations have gone largely unheeded. It is, however, salutary within
the context of the 1980s to repeat it in full[10, p. 275]:
For the keynote of the age is unquestioningly continued and accelerating change, and a congruent
order must…embody above all, agreed procedural norms which provide for its accommodation
and orderly regulation. Failure to evolve them through agreement with representative voluntary
institutions will mean that consequent stresses and strains will increasingly seem to call for
imposed solutions. Already we see the search for imposed solutions. Already we see the search
for ever increasing anomie in industrial relations, the more tempting it is to claim and to believe
that in some way legal compulsion could re-establish order. If the preceding analysis is correct,
these short cuts are blind alleys. The law has a part to play, but it cannot enforce a normative
order where none exists.

The industrial relations legislation enacted during the 1980s represented a highly
interventionist approach, designed to restore some normative reordering of trade
union activities. At the same time, the legislation has provided employers with
unprecedented opportunities to reassert managerial prerogatives and to refashion
the character of the employment relationship. Thus, the “challenge from below”,
which was so characteristic of the period pertaining to Flanders’ analysis, has,
as a result of the shift in the frontier of control in the employers’ favour, been
replaced, it must be reiterated, by the “challenge from above”, and has in turn
resulted in a displacement of the anomic relationship from employee to employer.
The legislation as a whole has resulted in a progressive diminution of collective
employee rights, which included the removal of statutory underpinning for trade
union recognition, including key aspects such as the undermining of the closed
shop[16], and the relaxation of immunities in the event of dismissals during the
course of industrial action[17]. The purposes for which industrial action could
Employee be taken were narrowed; detailed provisions for pre-strike ballots were introduced
Relations and restrictions imposed on unions’ ability to organize sympathetic and secondary
16,1 action[18]. Failure to comply could result in employer-initiated injunctions and
court proceedings, and probably sequestration of union funds.
At the same time, legislation was enacted to deregulate individual employment
laws by, for example, removing statutory and administrative protections of terms
34 and conditions of employment, the abolition of wages councils, repeal of Truck
Acts, and the removal of statutory restrictions on the employment of women and
young people.
Labour market deregulation also became increasingly anomic, not only as a
result of the removal of statutory restrictions referred to above, but also by
government determination to encourage the move towards decentralization of
pay bargaining (already referred to) and the dismantling of national collective
bargaining machinery in the public sector.

The Disaggregation of Marxism?

Thus far, it has been argued, utilizing the contributions of both Lash and Urry[4],
and Flanders[10], that post-war British industrial relations has become increasingly
“anomic”, or “disorganized” in nature, and that this change reflects the increasingly
“disorganized” character of Western capitalism. The Radical, or Marxist (these
terms will be used interchangeably) critics of industrial relations have assumed
that eventually capitalism, having entered its “late” stage will eventually disintegrate
under the weight of its own internal contradictions. Clearly this has not yet
happened, and, if anything, capitalism as an economic system seems to have
consolidated its position; indeed, it has arguably been given a new impetus due
to political and economic changes within Eastern European countries. Pluralists,
inspired by Flanders, while recognizing the disorganizing characteristics of
contemporary industrial relations, nevertheless argue that instabilities which
inevitably occur within a system can be dealt with via accommodatory mechanisms,
and the reconciliation of countervailing interests by, for example, institutionalizing
industrial conflicts.
Within the context of our theoretical framework, it is necessary to acknowledge
the importance of radical perspectives in providing possible explanations for
Britain’s post-war industrial relations problems, and in refuting “consensus-
oriented” systems approaches within the pluralist context. Much contemporary
discussion has focused on the concept of power, a concept which systems theorists
tend to de-emphasize. In this sense, industrial relations is interpreted as a
manifestation of “class struggle”, representing social inequalities within the socio-
economic class structure which, in turn, reflect inequalities in power distribution[19].
Power is vested within the by no means homogeneous “dominant” group which
espouses a “dominant ideology”[20].
The dominant ideology debate suggest that there is a clearly defined locus of
power residing within a dominant stratum which helps to maintain social
(normative) order. The debate is based partly on Gramsci’s[21] ideas concerning
hegemony: class domination, he argues, is maintained not only through coercion,
but also through the active consent of dominated groups. This is a crucial issue
for industrial relations, since what is being suggested here is that hegemony has The
enabled the dominant/ruling class to deal with any actual or potential threats to “Disorganized
its authority principally through the incorporation of the working class within
capitalist society. This case is also posited by Marcuse[22] and others. Gramsci’s
Paradigm”
argument finds support from Habermas[23], whose central concept is that of
legitimation, defined as the acceptance by the population of a particular social
system. Habermas argues further that any strain on the political system requires 35
ideological solutions. The most effective of these solutions are those mechanisms
of formal democracy which can create the illusion of participation in decision
making. This illusion is based on “civil privation” – that is, individuals should
mainly be preoccupied with their own private interests without engaging in
broader social communication and resolution of problems. (It would appear that
this important point has not been lost upon the “New Right”.)
The Marxist view concerning the dominant ideology shares some similarities
with the conception of the role of the central value system, espoused by functionalist
sociologists such as Parsons[24]. According to the latter argument, the central
value system holds together a structurally differentiated society, dominated by
a pluralist orthodoxy which subsumes the industrial relations system. What
Marxists call “late capitalism” implies a differentiated, if not disaggregated,
society characterized by a process which Abercrombie et al.[20] call the “pluralism
of like worlds” or systems. There is a degree of congruence with Flanders’
essentially pluralist stance in that, for Flanders, the reconstruction of normative
order in industrial relations requires re-incorporation within a pluralist central
value system. The “disaggregated” Marxist approach, referred to above, becomes
essentially “radical pluralist” in nature, particularly when attempting to explain
why the (now fragmented but incorporated) working class has not taken
revolutionary action. The pluralist would argue that competing and conflicting
interests are resolved institutionally by recognized and legitimate means, particularly
should those interests pose a threat to society. This is testament to the durability
of the dominant ideology or central value system which, although battered, has
remained intact and, if anything, has been selectively reinforced by Thatcherism
and the “New Right” despite the underlying trend towards disorganization.
Both radical (Marxist) and pluralist (systems) approaches have contributed
useful debates concerning both the status of industrial relations as a discipline,
and industrial relations as praxis. But both perspectives now suffer the handicap
of being linked to the “old” industrial relations. Pluralism is now seen as underpinning
corporatism. Marxism is viewed traditionally as offering some false hope, whatever
the validity of the analysis, and having been provided with a mantle of legitimacy
by the continued survival of East European socialism. Both corporatism and
East European socialism have waned dramatically, but not disappeared, even in
newly democratic states such as Poland. A new, confused world order exists and
within it a new, confused industrial relations.
The remainder of this article will deal with two examples which underline the
growing disorganization of industrial relations. The first considers the impact
of the HRM onslaught on industrial relations, and the second will focus on the
more specific phenomenon of union derecognition.
Employee The HRM Onslaught: Challenge from Above?
Relations Human resource management (HRM) and related developments are well
16,1 documented[5,25,26]. It should be stressed, as Storey does, that there is no single,
consistent approach to HRM in most organizations which have, by their own
admission, adopted such practices. The main reason for this, Storey goes on to
argue, is that HRM is subject to different interpretations, both theoretically and
36 operationally. For example, HRM is often synonymous with personnel management;
a label change is often considered sufficient, but this merely masks the same old
practices and policies. Many organizations go further and attempt to integrate
the various personnel management techniques (including industrial relations),
in a systematic way. Guest[27] identifies the former as a weak version of HRM,
and the latter as a stronger interpretation which has a philosophical underpinning,
setting it apart from Taylorism/Fordism, on the one hand, and from pluralistic
conventions of industrial relations orthodoxy, on the other. In essence, the strong
approach involves interventions at strategic level within an organization to foster
employee commitment and “resourcefulness”, where these interventions are
designed to utilize labour resources to the full and are integrated within an overall
business/corporate strategy. As Sisson[28] states, invoking Kanter[29], it means
“doing more with less”.
According to Storey, very few organizations fully co-ordinated their industrial
relations within an HRM strategy. His research indicated that[5, p. 259]:
While the old-style industrial relations “firefighting” was disavowed, or even scorned, there
was hardly an instance where anything approaching a “strategic” stance towards unions and
industrial relations could be readily discerned as having taken its place.

Moreover, industrial relations is often regarded as low priority and almost irrelevant
to serving the needs of the market and subordinate to new or recently introduced
methods of dealing with the human resource. HRM initiatives have tended, at
least initially, to focus on managerial grades with only a piecemeal and haphazard
extension of these initiatives to the remainder of the workforce. Edwards et al.[30,
p. 60] reinforce the argument by stating that:
There is little evidence that British firms have developed a strategic approach to industrial
relations.

Edwards et al. cite as examples, poor training records, adoption and then
abandonment of “fads” such as quality circles, and little interest shown by
employers in co-ordinating pay bargaining “so that the system of wage determination
remained anarchic”[30, p. 60].
As a result of the changes identified earlier in this article, it is suggested that
the (albeit unco-ordinated) HRM onslaught, itself symptomatic of employers
gaining the upper hand in industrial relations, has had a disorganizing effect
on both internal and external labour markets. For example, HRM raises the
spectre of “individualization” of industrial relations through the inception of
performance-related pay, individual appraisals, the steady erosion of collective
bargaining involving decentralization of bargaining structures and the supplanting
of collective regulation by other means such as direct communication structures
and employee involvement practices which de-emphasize union representation. The
A further example is the “Japanization” effect, which provides opportunity and “Disorganized
greater scope for HRM interventions to take place, albeit in an unco-ordinated Paradigm”
fashion and which poses empirical difficulties in terms of inter-organizational
comparisons contrasts. Finally, the continued bifurcation of the labour market
has resulted in the emergence and growth of a “peripheral” workforce with
little job security and employment protection and, in the public sector, the 37
ongoing process of competitive tendering has led to a further deterioration in
conditions of service and reductions in wages.

Derecognition: Strategy or Opportunism?

According to WIRT[9], fewer employers recognized trade unions for the purposes
of collective bargaining than in the earlier surveys in 1986 and 1982. From 1984-
90, trade union density declined from 58 to 48 per cent and, in workplaces where
trade unions were recognized, there was a decline in the number of shop stewards
and other lay representatives from 82 per cent in 1984 to 71 per cent in 1990.
Derecognition became an important factor during the second half of this period;
support for trade unions weakened amongst employees, and there was increased
hostility towards unions on the part of a growing number of employers. A recent
unpublished paper[31] suggests that the extent of derecognition is greater than
previous studies have hitherto indicated.
Derecognition of unions may or may not be part of a broader HRM strategy.
While it could be argued that the practice of HRM is inconsistent with collective
approaches to the management of the employment relationship, it could equally
be argued that[32]:
It is not collectivism per se that HRM appears to oppose, but rather that form of collectivism
which is embodied in the representation of employee interest through independent trade unions
and collective bargaining.

In this sense, the apparent opposition to trade unions would appear to be

ideological in nature; if this is the case, then one would expect a far greater
number of organizations to have a derecognition strategy as part of a hidden
agenda for HRM change. Initial research data[33], reveals that a surprisingly
large number of organizations on Merseyside are actively considering derecognition
as a major policy option in the medium term. It was found that organizations
in sectors as diverse as insurance, NHS trusts, telecommunications and some
local authorities have derecognition as an agenda issue. Should this data be
replicated nationally, and assuming that only a proportion of employers put
this option into practice, then within the next five years the trickle of derecognitions
could become a flood.
While derecognition is not yet a major problem facing trade unions, it is quite
obvious that the impetus for derecognition and decollectivization will be sustained,
and that conditions within organizations will be increasingly favourable to their
development.
Employee Conclusion
Relations It has been argued throughout that the movement from organized to disorganized
capitalism is reflected in the current state of industrial relations in Britain. Many
16,1 of the contemporary theoretical contributions (e.g.[2]), while not referring to
disorganization as such, are unanimous in the view that significant changes have
occurred within British industrial relations. The nature of these changes, many
38 of which have been identified in WIRT[9], point to important disorganizing trends
which have been considered and commented on in this article. It is not sufficient
merely to state that the old has been supplanted by the new; British industrial
relations continues to demonstrate many enduring features which suggest that
continuity of themes and traditions remain highly significant despite these
changes.
What is, perhaps, more contentious is that the disorganizing trends identified
earlier in this article are largely irreversible; that conditions favourable to the
development of union organization in Britain and in most Western countries (e.g.
the establishment of the “traditional” manufacturing/extractive base) no longer
exist.
Flanders’ contribution has been considered, perhaps rather perversely, to
provide support for the “disorganization thesis”, and in relation to the challenge
from above rather than from below. In this connection, normative breakdown or
anomie has direct application, both conceptually and empirically, to the haphazard
deployment of HRM practices now in widespread use. There is enough evidence
to suggest that HRM initiatives are often taken without reference to any wider
or integrated corporate strategy, and that these initiatives are expedient and seek
to take advantage of an already collectively weakened workforce. The disorganization
thesis is therefore crucial in two respects: first, as manifested in the consequences
of HRM initiatives (such as the individualization of industrial relations); and,
second, in relation to the widened scope and opportunities for employers to impose
unilateral change within their organizations. This has given rise to a growth in
fragmentation of industrial relations at enterprise level.
The Marxist thesis relating to the dominant ideology debate is relevant here
as it suggests a locus of power and control mediated by processes of legitimation
and authority relationships whereby, to deflect “social revolution”, a disorganizing
strategy is adopted which fosters conflicting and competing individual and group
interests at societal and organizational levels. In the industrial relations context
this expresses itself in competition between unions (“beauty contests”), competition
between core and peripheral labour, and the subjection of the collective relationship
to market forces – to suggest but a few examples.
The other side of the anomie coin is normative reconstruction. Flanders advocates
this within a pluralist context, and no doubt would be highly disappointed at the
extent to which this has taken place during the 1980s. The consequences of
Thatcherism and “New Right” policies within the industrial relations arena point
to an ideologically-motivated form of reconstruction through the imposition of
a legal framework which, in zero-sum terms, reduces the power and collective
voice of unionized workforces while enhancing the powers of individual employers
within a framework of economic policy which unashamedly extols the virtues
of market forces. In effect, employers have been virtually provided with a carte The
blanche to take advantage of their new, discretionary freedoms to such an extent “Disorganized
that the quality of industrial relations is increasingly subject to whim and
determined by the employer rather than the employee.
Paradigm”
If there is a way forward, this will depend on employers who wish to retain a
favourable, collectively-based and regulated industrial relations climate. Fortunately,
many examples of organizations whose managements are willing to continue 39
“good” industrial relations practices still exist[34]. But, given the trends outlined
within the body of this article, it may not be too pessimistic to conclude that these
examples are all too often the oases within an encroaching desert of disorganization.

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