Introduction

Abstract

In 2000 a new statutory trade union recognition procedure came into force, enabling unions to be recognised in the workplace if they could demonstrate majority support for collective bargaining. This book assesses this key provision of the Employment Relations Act 1999 (ERA99), the legislation designed to be the industrial relations’ settlement for the Labour government’s first term of office (Fairness at work, White Paper, 1998). The book builds upon, but crucially updates and widens, previous work evaluating the initial years of the procedure. It provides a comprehensive and more conclusive appraisal of the ten years of its operation, in the context of trade union decline and of the development of UK labour law. The book illuminates the relationship between industrial relations law and collective organisation through an in-depth socio-legal analysis of the recognition procedure, its operation and outcomes. It explores the impact of the procedure upon employment relations and its implications for the so-called UK ‘voluntarist’ approach to regulating industrial relations, moving beyond a purely legal interpretation, to place the law within the wider and changing context of work. In doing so the book is situated within two distinct but related literatures: one on industrial relations law and the other on worker mobilisation and trade union representation and organising.

The management at the time were Neanderthal, Jurassic, for want of a better word. The recognition agreement is working a treat for the direct workforce; where we once got dictated to and trampled on — I mean it might be a bit of a bloody cliché but that’s what the situation was — we’re now sort of listened to and to a certain degree I would like to think we were respected. (Steve, activist, interviewed following a recognition ballot)