Department of Management
Conflict: Trends and Forms of
Collective Action
John Kelly, Birkbeck
The Changing Face of Employment Relations
Over the Last 50 Years
Manchester IRS, 21 Nov 2014
Traditional questions about strikes
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Trends over time: cycles and waves? quiescence?
Strikes and non-strike sanctions: changing balance?
Variation across countries: pattern stability? Links to VoC?
Sectoral variation: tertiarization and feminization?
Major causal factors?
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labour and product market competition
institutional erosion
union density and organization
actor policies
• Reliability of strike statistics.
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Median WDL/1000 workers
N=14 W Europe 1980-2006
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Non-strike actions GB 1980-2004
(% workplaces, WERS)
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What we know of strike patterns
• Steep decline in strike days (Gall 2012; van der Velden 2007).
• But no evidence of corresponding rise in non-strike actions in
GB, apart from strike ballots (Dix et al 2009; Godard 2011;
ONS 2012).
• Cross-national convergence and country rankings fairly stable
(Vandaele 2011).
• Manufacturing/services balance variable e.g. Germany vs UK
(Vandaele 2011).
• Causal factors? Question marks about unemployment.
• Continuing doubts about labour statistics e.g. exclusions, large
strikes, resource cutbacks (Gall 2012; Lyddon 2007).
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Shifting repertoires of contention?
• Decline of union density and organizational capacity = fewer
resources for both strikes and traditional actions short of a
strike e.g. overtime ban, work to rule.
• Reduced bargaining coverage = shrinking opportunity
structures through which to pressure employers.
• But declining conflict at work does not entail decline in
conflict about work.
• Are we seeing a shift to different forms of action? By different
actors? And targeted at different adversaries?
Sources: Gall & Hebdon (2008); Kelly (1998).
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Varieties of collective action
• Coalition building between unions and civil society
organizations e.g. Living Wage campaigns (Holgate, Wills).
• Political lobbying of key decision makers e.g. anti-academy
protests in education (Muna); anti-austerity protests in local
government (Joyce).
• Online petitions and social media
• https://www.change.org/p/john-lewis-jlcustserv-pay-cleaners-theliving-wage
• https://www.coworker.org/petitions/let-us-have-visible-tattoos
• Occupations of public spaces in austerity protests.
• General strikes and demonstrations (Hamann et al 2013).
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General strikes, W Europe, N=17
countries, 147 strikes, 1980-2014
N=17
N=16 minus Greece
40
35
30
25
20
15
10
5
0
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Research questions
• What forms of action are undertaken by which
groups around which issues and against which
adversaries?
• Do recent varieties of collective action represent a
recession-induced shift in behaviour? Or a longerterm response to union decline and/or to neoliberalism?
• What do we know about, and how do we explain,
the outcomes of these, and traditional forms of
collective action?
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Strikes: from DV to IV
• Strike as social pathology: hence studies of causes,
incidence, variation and trends.
• Strike as collective action: what are the outcomes for
the strikers and consequences for their adversaries?
• Outcomes: substantive; bargaining power;
organizational capacity (Weil 1997).
• Substantive strike outcome data UK ceased in 1935.
• General strikes: concessions in 35% of 92 strikes
1980-2013 BUT concession rate significantly lower
since 2008.
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Strikes: from DV to IV
• Bargaining power: strike effects on subsequent
negotiations.
• Capacity: membership, activists, structure.
– PCS: regression analysis of strikes and membership 200713 shows significant +ve impact of strikes on membership.
Net recruitment c28% higher in strike months compared to
non-strike months BUT effect is weakening over time
(Hodder et al 2014).
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Strike consequences
• What are the links between strike and protest waves
and the restructuring of class representation in the
political system?
– Early and late 1970s strike waves UK: polarization of
Labour and Conservative parties and Labour split.
– Mid-late 2000s upsurge of general strikes in Italy and
fragmentation and decline of the Left.
– Late 2000s general strikes and protests in Greece: the
collapse in vote share of PASOK and New Democracy and
the rise of SYRIZA.
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Sources
Strikes
• AU, DK, FIN, FR, GE, IRL, IT, NE, NO, POR, SP, SWE, SWITZ, UK
• Bird, D. (1991) International comparisons of labour disputes in 1989 and 1990, Employment
Gazette, 99(12): 653-658, Table 1.
• Davies, J. (2001) International comparisons of labour disputes in 1999, Labour Market Trends,
109(4): 195-201, Table 1.
• Hale, D. (2008) International comparisons of labour disputes in 2006, Economic and Labour
Market Review, 2(4): 32-39, Table 1.
General strikes
• EU15 plus NO, SWITZ
• Hamann, Johnston, Kelly database.
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