Players

Abstract

This chapter examines the primary institutions of employee representation (without regard to their processes or outcomes in terms of the relationship between capital and labour). Union organisations have continued to weaken in their presence and influence within the sector, and now no longer have a significant presence (let alone influence) outside of a few companies. This is despite the occurrence of various union mergers being premised upon the beliefs in ‘unity is strength’ and ‘economies of scale’—indeed, the concentration of their organisational form has not led to any concentration or maintenance of influence. The atrophy in staffing levels has led to older workers leaving the sector through redundancy (overwhelmingly voluntary) and these are predominantly the more unionised workers and the more active members. Furthermore, new entrants to the sector bring with them less propensity to be union members and union activists and this trajectory is reinforced by the organisational cultures which they encounter for the first time. This disorganisation has taken place despite a number of unions investing heavily in the employment of union organisers to recruit, retain and organise members. Yet put another way, the situation would be much worse without these efforts. Within the major union, Unite which was established in 2007, its finance sector membership has experienced a loss of identity and coherence within what amounts to a much larger and more general union (than Amicus was). Unite no longer has the benefit of a wide cadre of leaders for the sector which were grounded and experienced in that sector as was the case prior to one of its main constituent unions, Unifi, joining Amicus. This phenomenon has been compounded by the dissolution of an occupational identity within the sector and not constrained by the weak set of institutional rights existing under various partnership agreements between unions and employers. Indeed, the proliferation of partnership agreements has undermined the ability of the unions to respond robustly to the employers’ initiatives to retrench and restructure organisations. Staff forums and work councils amongst a small handful of non-unionised organisations have fared no better, and in some cases, much worse than their union counterparts in influencing the actions and attitudes of management.