Partnership and militancy as a contradictory dialectic in the
labour process
Tony Dobbins (Bangor University),
Tony Dundon (National University of Ireland Galway),
Paper for 30th International Labour Process Conference
(ILPC)
University of Stockholm, March 27-29, 2012
1
Introduction
Much of the extant literature on workplace partnership has tended to focus on
managerial-sponsored forms of enterprise voice (Wilkinson et al., 2010; Dobbins and
Dundon, 2011). But there has been little contemporary scrutiny of employee
perspectives: for example how groups of workers engage in conflictual behaviors to
challenge employer-led partnership when employer power is in the ascendancy
(Darlington, 2001; Danford et al., 2009).
The paper utilizes an in-depth and longitudinal single case study to analyze the
contradictory dialectic of cooperation and militancy in the labour process. Many (but
not all) employees in the case organization actively opposed a union-management
partnership agreement. It adds to labour process theory by explaining the coexistence
of contradictory social relations at the point of production: workers not only actively
resisted management change but also opposed official union policy and agreement.
For reasons of confidentially the company is given a pseudonym of Omega and the
union is called Industrial Union (IU). The paper will address two research themes: i)
the dynamic interplay of moderate and conflictual labour relations, and ii), the
implications of these contradictory postures for workforce orientations.
The evidence shows that the dynamic interplay of moderation and militancy is more
nuanced than described in much of the literature. It is subsequently argued that radical
pluralist perspectives are best placed to address deficiencies in neo-Marxist and neopluralist conceptualization of the complexity of the effort-reward exchange. In doing
so, the contribution will be two-fold. First, the paper will explain that the dynamics of
moderation and militancy often co-exist rather than constituting either/or dichotomies.
Second, the evidence will show how workforce orientations contain a mixture of
multi-layered, uneven and fluid behaviours that shape the balance between militant
and moderate postures. It will add to knowledge on patterns of workforce behavior
and orientations in complex social workplace settings (Daniel, 1973). The theoretical
contribution is a greater and more refined understanding of the processes and
orientations affecting the balance as well as the tension endemic in the labour process.
This not only involves considering the contradictions facing management in
2
regulating employment relations, but also the contradictions of conflict and
accommodation facing union activists and workers when pursuing multiple interests.
Moderation and militancy: a brief overview
There remain key differences of opinion among scholars as to the interplay and
balance between moderation (cooperation) or militancy (conflict), and the
implications for workforce orientations. For analytical purposes, militancy and
moderation can be seen as two points on a continuum. Moderation is defined here as
an accommodation between employers, unions and employees, based on a realization
that their respective interests are best fulfilled by pragmatically cooperating in
response to uncertain economic conditions. In an employment relationship
characterized by moderation, management engage employees, both directly as
individuals and indirectly through representatives, in a cooperative and integrated
relationship to pursue mutual gains such as participation, employment security and
productivity (Dobbins and Gunnigle, 2009; Rittau and Dundon, 2010). With regard to
militancy, conceptualizations remain imprecise and often tied to political forms of
left-wing activist-led conflict. A broader definition of militancy is provided by
Edwards (1986:226): “‘Militant’ does not mean politically left-wing, but refers to the
extent to which workers perceive themselves as having interests opposed to or
inconsistent with the interests of management, and act accordingly”. For Edwards
(1986:7), “conflicts in work relations carry no necessary connotations for wider class
conflict”. Resistance and a challenge to managerial prerogative can therefore be
understood as the extent to which confrontational methods are adopted or deployed in
advancing worker interests over particular concerns. This broad conceptualization
allows for a more nuanced appreciation of the varieties of militant behaviour, and how
such behaviours interact and mediate with various consensual actions.
Notwithstanding oversimplification, contemporary Marxist scholars (Darlington,
1994, 2001; Kelly, 1996, 1998; Gall, 2003; Danford et al., 2009) focus on how
workers come to define their interests via politically motivated left-wing activists
committed to a radicalized adversarial agenda in opposition to management. NeoMarxist contributors retain the belief that the role of activists in fermenting class
consciousness and spearheading workplace class struggles can provide fertile ground
for the potential mobilization of broader challenges to capitalism. For example, Kelly
3
(1996) suggests militant unions are defined by a willingness to engage in industrial
action and have an ideology of conflicting interests. As a staunch critic of
management-union partnership, Kelly’s (1996) argument for militancy is predicated
on a number of assumptions: employers are increasingly hostile to unions; there are
irredeemable conflicts of interest between employers and workers; union moderation
has achieved negligible benefits for workers; and the institutionalization of
partnership reduces workers’ capacity to mobilize and resist employer proposals. In
subsequent work Kelly (1998:60) outlines the key components of alternative militant
and moderate union postures, summarized in Table 1.
Table 1: Components of militant and moderate posturing
Component
Militancy
Moderation
Goals
Ambitious demands with few
concessions
Moderate demands with some
or many concessions
Membership resources
Strong reliance on
mobilization of union
membership
Strong reliance on employers,
third parties, law
Institutional resources
Exclusive reliance on
collective bargaining
Willingness to experiment
with/support non-bargaining
institutions
Methods
Frequent threat or use of
industrial action
Infrequent threat or use of
industrial action
Ideology
Ideology of conflicting
interests
Ideology of partnership
Source: Kelly (1998:60)
In contrast to Marxist perspectives are a variety of pluralist interpretations of
industrial relations. Again notwithstanding oversimplification, a core assumption here
is that assertive and more adversarial methods are unsuitable for generating the deeper
consensus required under new competitive work regimes. Accordingly, workforce
orientations are assumed to gravitate towards preference for cooperative relations over
militancy (Kochan and Osterman, 1994; Bacon and Storey, 1996; Guest and Peccei,
2001; Ackers, 2002, 2005). Faced by competitive pressures, collaborative
employment relations are viewed as producing mutual gains outcomes for employers,
unions and workers (Kochan and Osterman, 1994; Donaghey and Teague, 2007).
Positive workforce orientation outcomes for employers include higher commitment
4
and productivity and less conflict. Kochan and Osterman claim that workers also
benefit, principally through enhanced employment security and opportunities for
direct participation and representative voice, which, in turn, can promote consensual
workforce orientations. Donaghey and Teague (2007) assert that accommodation
through social partnership remains the most attractive option for unions seeking a
voice, despite the potential diminution in union influence and power as a result of the
general shift towards moderation.
Ackers (2002) argues that neo-pluralism offers a superior theoretical paradigm to
what he calls the narrow Marxist theory of economistic workplace militancy. Ackers
(2002:5) criticizes the “obsession of the British sectarian left with economic
workplace militancy” and their expectation that major societal change can grow “from
the germs of purely workplace grievances”. Individual workers are supposedly led
into collective action by a politicized cadre, but Ackers suggests scant regard is paid
to other societal influences shaping workforce orientations, notably the role of the
community and family. For Ackers (2002:3-15) there is a better way of reviving IR
theory in that neo-pluralism “revives Durkheim’s fundamental question about how
moral communities and social institutions can bond work and society together”, and
thereby rejuvenate the institutional pluralist analysis of Clegg (1979) and Flanders
(1970). In this way the dynamics of moderation focus on the problem of order, not
conflict. This, argues Ackers (2002:16-17), provides “a new justification for old IR
concerns, such as strong trade unions, effective channels for employee ‘voice’, good
wages and stable working conditions” and “furnishes an explicit ethical foundation
for policies like social partnership which have been too easily dismissed as shortterm, opportunist accommodations to business power”.
Other scholars who adopt what might regarded as a ‘radical pluralist perspective’
(Fox 1985; Edwards, 1986, 2003; Wenman, 2003; Watson, 2008) focus on both the
organization of conflict and cooperation, and the often ambivalent and diverse
implications for workforce orientations. While Marxists have a default tendency to
question pluralism per se because antagonistic class relations between labour and
capital is their analytical concern, radical pluralists acknowledge the diversity of
interest groups in work and society and seek to explain why conflict and cooperation
have deeper structural roots underlying power relations and inequality in the
5
employment relationship (Wenman, 2003; Watson, 2008).
Edwards (2003) has theoretically outlined how conflict and cooperation are
contradictory and complex elements inherent in the employment relationship.
Distinguishing radical pluralism from Marxism, Edwards (1986:26) argues that “It is
certainly necessary to criticize the pluralist notion that there is an automatic sharing of
interests and that no interest group will pursue its aims beyond some limit set by what
is socially acceptable. But all groups plainly have some interest in the continued
operation of society so the means of subsistence continue to be available”.
Accordingly, managers and workers are locked in a relationship that is contradictory
and antagonistic: “It is contradictory not in the sense of logical incompatibility but
because managements have to pursue the objectives of control and releasing
creativity, both of which call for different approaches” (Edwards, 2003: 16-17).
Management face the continuous problem of trying to reconcile the contradictions of
control and cooperation in the people management process, and the search for
solutions will likely encompass a combination of policies, none of which can be
permanently successful. Edwards (2003) explains that the employment relationship is
underlain by a basic ‘antagonism’ between capital and labour over ways in which
workers’ capacity to work is transferred into actual effort. Workers do not usually
determine how their labour is deployed, Edwards argues, because authority over most
workplace decisions resides with employers. Employers and workers are thus locked
together in a relation of ‘structured antagonism’: they enter into an employment
relationship because they depend on each other, but they also have divergent interests.
At the most basic level an element of cooperation is necessary because each side
ultimately depend on the other for the future success (or survival) of the firm.
Importantly, ineradicable antagonism does not directly dictate outcomes and
workforce orientations at the surface level, which depends on the actual work regime
in a given context. In sum, conflict and accommodation are in contradiction and the
balance can vary over time and space. Significantly, whereas the Marxian use of the
concept of contradiction fixates on socialist revolution and capitalism’s possible
collapse, radical pluralist interpretations use the concept in a broader less-politicized
way to describe a constant and evolutionary dynamic that generates adaptation,
variability and uncertainty.
6
Research context
Using a case study research method, this research explores the dynamics of workplace
moderation (cooperation) and militancy (conflict) at a single company, which we call
Omega. Following Yin (2008) the data provides a rich and unique context to test the
two core research themes considered above for several reasons. First, it is a new
Greenfield location and therefore the employer could design the work regime from
scratch. Second, and even before employees entered the organization and commenced
work, a ‘pre-employment’ collective agreement was signed between Omega
management and Industrial Union (IU). Significantly, this agreement sought to
socially engineer mutuality by regulating for a no strike clause, binding arbitration,
single union recognition and, importantly, a partnership forum to promote cooperative
behaviours. However, the attempt to design a social structure around moderate or
expected cooperative behaviours was fractured by post-employment issues. In
particular, two unofficial work groups sought to challenge the Omega-IU collective
agreement by advocating distinct oppositional postures to those of expected
cooperative behaviours. The two unofficial work groups were also in opposition to
one another as well as resisting the official union (IU) and management.
Given the dynamics and interplay of cooperative and oppositional behaviours, from
the outset we felt it was critical to use a context-sensitive research method. We were
afforded access to employees and managers with an important longitudinal element,
which involved follow-up contacts with different respondents. In-depth semistructured interviews were held with 18 informants, which amounted to a total of 18
interviews. Additional data sources included scrutinizing extensive documentary
material including collective agreements, a short employee attitude survey completed
by all employees, company policies, the personnel handbook, and newsletters and
press statements issued by militant groups.
The first militant group we call the ‘Opponents’, who are the more active and possibly
larger of the two unofficial worker-led groups. The second or rival unofficial work
group we call the ‘Masked Resisters’ after the workers who picketed company
premises wearing masks to protect their identity. The Masked Resisters group became
vociferously anti-union after the IU entered a partnership/cooperative agreement with
management.
7
Findings
Under the first research theme noted above, the data shows how moderation and
militancy co-existed in tandem and was refined and mediated over time. Prior to the
commencement of Omega operations in the Greenfield site, management and IU
officials negotiated a five-year pre-employment collective agreement in the early
2000s. The objective was to establish the rules of the game prior to commercial
operations and have in place formal policies of how work relations would be
conducted. By their very nature, pre-arranged collective agreements exclude
enterprise-level employees from the terms of the bargain. The IU negotiated a single
(closed shop) agreement for staff at three grade levels: operators, controllers and
supervisors. The collective agreement stipulated that it is “a condition of employment
that each employee covered by this agreement becomes and remains a member of
[IU] for the duration of his/her employment with the company”. The agreement
provides recognition for 5 shop stewards who are elected by the workforce.
Workplace representatives conduct their role primarily through an enterprise
committee and are supported by the IU full-time official.
The five-year collective agreement contained a highly controversial continuity of
service, or no strike clause; which sparked almost immediate dissent among workers.
The Managing Director admitted it was controversial but defended the idea on the
basis of commercialization:
It is fair to say that it caused tension in the workforce. They say they wouldn’t go on strike but
would like the right.
Meanwhile, the IU official remarked:
To this day we come in for an awful lot of criticism for signing the industrial peace/continuity
of service clause. But the negotiators were right to do the deal.
The no strike deal, coupled with limited utilization of structures for cooperative
dialogue through the partnership forum, provided fertile ground for the emergence of
oppositional values and attitudes among pockets of employees. For some workers,
managements’ application of discipline, the manner in which attendance patterns were
implemented, and health and safety concerns, galvanized momentum for what can be
8
identified as more militant orientations amidst a system pre-designed to elicit
cooperative behaviours. For these employees, the attribution of blame for a growing
number of concerns was also directed towards the official IU machinery. Importantly,
as the withdrawal of labour or other forms of action short of a strike were prohibited,
one manifestation of conflict was increased absenteeism. One shop steward explained:
I was representing people who were going off sick because they felt they were being pushed
by the company. They felt they were being harshly dealt with in disciplinaries. Your last
alternative is not to come to work.
Aside from absenteeism, another manifestation of alternative, non-cooperative actions
was found in the emergence of (unofficial) workgroup militancy among some
elements of the labour force. That action was not, as is reported in other literatures,
based on politicized left-wing union-led militancy espousing a discourse of class
struggle. The emergence of oppositional postures here seemed to emerge initially
from a growing sense of disillusionment relating to changes to employment terms and
conditions agreed by management and the IU. These included, for example,
attendance patterns, rest days and overtime. On one occasion, a group of employees
demonstrated at the new company facility unofficially, masking themselves with
balaclavas in the process.
Crucially, what these secretive underground workforce movements do is important,
and how they impact on worker orientations is equally significant in understanding
the interplay between what are prima facia oppositional positions. The second group
had its roots in the masked workers who picketed company premises a number of
years previous. In contrast the Opponents, regarded as the main militant protagonists,
became active later on. The two groups are rivals but both are anti-partnership and
share collective grievances around the wage-effort bargain relating to work attendance
patterns and hours, work intensity, health and safety, pay, and the no strike clause.
The main channel through which the Opponents group objects to moderate industrial
relations has been though its own regular newsletter. This is sent to management, the
union, and distributed among employees. Its first edition was written in late 2007 and
subsequent editions articulated perceived employee grievances that a number of
workers felt were not being addressed through partnership, such as concerns over
health and safety, stress and increased work pressures.
9
It is not clear if the ‘Opponents’ or the ‘Masked Resisters’ are shop steward-led
entities, but it seems likely they have shop stewards (or former stewards) as
associates. What is more ambiguous, as noted earlier, is how many workers were
involved in these underground-type groupings. What is known, nonetheless, is that
the Opponents group had initially been mostly pro-union in the early days of
partnership, and then switched to become anti-union, perceiving that IU negotiators
betrayed workers in accepting a new collective agreement. In subsequent newsletters
the IU were criticized and the enterprise-based shop stewards committee described as
the “lite committee”, implying little bargaining capacity or influence over decisionmaking owing to the reliance on partnership and cooperation.
Clearly, these groups of employees, opposed to partnership and cooperative
bargaining, emerged as a result of some shared collective identity among themselves.
As a result of some of the highly derogatory and personalized insults made by some
of these militant factions, management instigated an investigation of their activities.
Given the actions and language used by these opponent workgroups amounts to
potential gross misconduct and possibly summary dismissal for anyone found to be
associated to any unofficial militant faction, the organization of these workers went
further underground and their secretive nature intensified. Whilst this makes analysis
difficult, one way of assessing the interplay of oppositional posturing is to review
how they articulate their message and seek to mobilize workers around perceived
grievances.
Partly as a counter-mobilization against the challenge from below, management and
IU sought to recast and strengthen the objective of a cooperative mutual gains
employment relations regime. As might be expected, certain issues did not find favour
among the militant worker groups, notably replacing the no strike clause with a
comprehensive dispute resolution procedure. The new agreement negotiated between
management and IU officials proposed a staged process to forestall industrial action:
in-house negotiating machinery, including a company Dispute Resolution Tribunal;
joint training requirements for management and union; subsequent referral to third
party dispute resolution institutions; new union balloting procedures; and finally
extended union notification of an intended industrial action. In all, the new collective
10
dispute resolution procedure has seven stages. While the no strike clause would
ostensibly go, the actual ability to strike would still seem to remain difficult in
practice.
Despite endorsement of the proposed new partnership agreement by management and
IU officials, the proposals were (initially) rejected by a two thirds majority of
workers. The scale of the rejection would suggest that the impact of oppositional
postures is not insignificant. Over two thirds of those voting were not happy with the
agreement reached by their union representatives. Following the reject result, union
members were again balloted by IU on whether to conduct a final reassessment of the
proposed agreement in local talks. From these local negotiations some modifications
were made - primarily by enhancing bonuses and management endorsing a
commitment to review attendance schedules. On a second ballot the agreement was
eventually accepted by a very narrow margin in favour.
Summary and discussion
This paper argues that partnership and adversarial militancy can and do coexist as a
fundamental (contradictory) dialectic in the employment relationship. This dialectic is
often neglected or forgotten during economic crisis, austerity or when employer
power is assumed to be ascendant. The paper contributes to knowledge in two ways.
First, it suggests that the dynamics of partnership and militancy can and do co-exist.
Moreover, these alternative opposing postures are much more nuanced than is often
espoused by either pluralist moderation or Marxist militancy perspectives. Secondly,
workforce orientations were found to contain a mixture of multi-layered and uneven
behaviours which shape the interplay between discrete orientations. Arguably,
workforce attitudes and behaviours are likely to change over both time and space, and
remain subject to various internal and external contextual factors, including
management ideology, prevailing union systems of governance, the way workers
pursue their interests, informal inter-workgroup dynamics, and both formal and
informal leadership.
References
Ackers, P. (2002). ‘Reframing employment relations: the case for neo-pluralism’,
Industrial Relations Journal, 33(1): 2-19.
11
Ackers, P. (2005). ‘Theorizing the Employment Relationship: Materialists and
Institutionalists’, British Journal of Industrial Relations, 43(3): 537-543.
Bacon, N. and Storey, J. (1996). ‘Individualism and collectivism and the changing role of
trade unions’, in Ackers, P. , Smith, C. and Smith, P. (Eds), The New Workplace and
Trade Unionism. London: Routledge.
Clegg, H. (1979). The Changing System of Industrial Relations in Great Britain. Oxford:
Blackwell.
Danford, A., Durbin, S., Richardson, M., Tailby, S. and Stewart, P. (2009), ‘'Everybody's
talking at me': the dynamics of information disclosure and consultation in high-skill
workplaces in the UK’, Human Resource Management Journal, Vol 19 (4): 337-354
Daniel, W.W. (1973) ‘Understanding employee behaviour in its context’, in J. Child (ed)
Man and Organisation. London: Allen & Unwin.
Darlington, R. (1994). The Dynamics of Workplace Unionism. London: Mansell
Publishing.
Darlington, R. (2001). ‘Union militancy and left-wing leadership on London
Underground’, Industrial Relations Journal, 32(1): 2-21.
Dobbins, T. and Gunnigle, P. (2009) ‘Can voluntary workplace partnership deliver
sustainable mutual gains?’, British Journal of Industrial Relations, 47(3): 546-570.
Dobbins, T. and Dundon, T. (2011), ‘Workplace Partnership and the Future Trajectory of
Employment Relations within Liberal Market Economies’, in A. Wilkinson and K.
Townsend (eds), The Future of Employment Relations. Basingstoke and New York:
Palgrave and Macmillan.
Donaghey, J. and Teague, P. (2007), ‘The Mixed Fortunes of Irish Unions: Living with
the Paradoxes of Social Partnership’, Journal Labor Research, Vol XXVIII (1): 19-41.
Dundon, T., Wilkinson, A., Marchington, M. and Ackers, P. (2004). ‘The meanings and
purpose of employee voice’, International Journal of Human Resource Management,
15(6): 1149-1170.
Edwards, P. (1986). Conflict at Work. Oxford: Blackwell.
Edwards, P. (2003). Industrial Relations (2nd edition). Oxford: Blackwell.
Flanders, A. (1970). Management and Unions. London: Faber and Faber.
Fox, A. (1985). Man Mismanagement. London: Hutchison.
Gall, G. (2003). The Meaning of Militancy: Postal Workers and Industrial Relations.
London: Ashgate.
12
Guest, D. and Peccei, R. (2001). ‘Partnership at Work: Mutuality and the Balance of
Advantage’, British Journal of Industrial Relations, 39(2): 207-236.
Kelly, J. (1996). ‘Union Militancy and Social Partnership’. In P. Ackers, C. Smith and P.
Smith (eds), The New Workplace and Trade Unionism. London: Routledge.
Kelly, J. (1998). Rethinking Industrial Relations. London: Routledge.
Kochan, T. and Osterman, P. (1994). The Mutual Gains Enterprise. Cambridge, MA:
Harvard Business School Press.
Oxenbridge, S. and Brown, W. (2004). ‘Achieving a new equilibrium? The stability of
cooperative employer-union relationships’, British Journal of Industrial Relations, 35(5):
388-401.
Rittau, Y. and Dundon, T. (2010), ‘The roles and functions of shop stewards in workplace
partnership: evidence from the Republic of Ireland’, Employee Relations, 32 (1): 10-27.
Teague, P. and Donaghey, J. (2009), ‘Why has Irish Social Partnership survived?’,
British Journal of Industrial Relations, 47 (1): 55-78
Watson, T. (2008). Sociology Work and Industry, 5th Edition. London/New York:
Routledge.
Wenman, A. A. (2003). ‘What is Politics? The Approach of Radical Pluralism’, Politics,
23(1): 57-65.
Wilkinson, A., Gollan, P., Marchington, M. and Lewin, D. (2010). The Oxford Handbook
of Participation in Organizations. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Yin, R. (2008) Case Study Research: Design and Methods, 4th Edition. London: Sage.
13