Employment relations legislations over a quarter of a century
During the year Linda Dickens and Mark Hall completed the analysis and writing of a
commissioned chapter on ‘Legal Regulation and the Changing Workplace’ for a book The
Evolution of the Modern Workplace, to be published in 2009 by Cambridge University Press.
The book, edited by William Brown (Cambridge), Alex Bryson, John Forth (both NIESR) and
Keith Whitfield (Cardiff), is the culmination of an ESRC-funded project in which invited scholars
analysed different aspects of employment change in Britain as revealed by the five major
workplace employment relations surveys (WIRS/WERS) conducted regularly since 1980. Paul
Edwards also contributed to an overview chapter, co-authored with Brown, and Keith Sisson a
chapter on the changing pattern of conflict at work, co-authored with Gill Dix and John Forth.
Dickens presented the chapter at a conference on ’25 years of WERS’ held at Darwin College
Cambridge in December.
The chapter discusses the relationship between legal regulation and industrial relations, tracing
a trajectory from legal abstention under the traditional British voluntary system which existed
before the first WIRS survey, to juridification, where management policy is increasingly shaped
and informed by law, and legal norms and values permeate industrial relations practice. It
discusses the use and nature of law under different administrations pre and post 1997 and
seeks to assess how the substantial changes in the State’s use of the law shaped the evolution
of the modern British workplace. While emphasising that statute law is only one factor in
accounting for the changes outlined by other contributors to the volume, Dickens and Hall
provide a nuanced account of how and where legislation has played a role (for example in the
individualization of employment relations in the 1979-1997 period). They give some examples
of direct impact but argue that in some areas the role played by legislation may be symbolic or
rely on the ‘shadow effect’ of law more than its actual use in practice. The impact of statutory
enactment may be indirect and diffuse rather than directly ascertainable. This applies most
obviously to behavioural and substantive impacts of legislative intervention. Impact may come
gradually by effecting attitudinal change and helping shape the climate of employment relations.
Legislation may provide levers, legitimacy and impetus for those wishing to act. They note that
establishing a direct link between legal regulation and changes in procedures and espoused
policies to comply with legislative requirements (as for example in the area of dismissal), and in
the setting up of required institutions (as in the field of health and safety), is often easier than
demonstrating a consequential change in employment practice or behaviour.