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Trade Unions and Redundancy J Oetosition TRADE UNIONS AND REDUNDANCY J OETOSITION AND ACQUIESCENCE A thesis prepared for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, at the London School of Economics and Political Science, in the Economics Faculty of the University of London. Christopher James Ball London 1990 UMI Number: U048730 All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. Disscrrlation Publishing UMI U048730 Published by ProQuest LLC 2014. Copyright in the Dissertation held by the Author. Microform Edition © ProQuest LLC. All rights reserved. This work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. ProQuest LLC 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 US2 POLITICAL AND I. ■ . \ ' r F 6 7 0 6 , ^ 1 ' ■■ ' ' 3 I : ■ -I : : ^ y r ; '... - i r.. : -7 C t ' ' : c- iT . ^ r .♦ r cr Z) . '. r i .1 > - ; a ■’ , - !> I x<0 l|0df^S32-9 i I 6 a a Q m, B L 1 ^ 7 q o 3 ^ r j 0^91 no b c3,1 For Marya, Jonathan, Hannah and Alex Thi copyright of this thesis rests with the author and no quotation from it or information derived from it may be published without the prior written consent of the author. ABSTRACT. QF THESIS Trade Unions and Redundancy: Opposition and- Aeguie seenee This thesis focuses on the collective responses of union members and unions to redundancy. It adopts a theory of trade union action based on the idea that workers react to violations of what they perceive to be "rights" in the employment context. "Rights" are to a degree inculcated into the minds of workers by "union cultures", which condition moral and ethical judgements of behaviour. Connections are drawn between "cultures", "ideologies" and "world views". Workers' responses to redundancy it is suggested should show evidence of the influence of union cultures in a sequence of events over long periods of time. This is borne out in the empiri­ cal chapters; Chapter 4 (which describes the historical background to the 1965 Redundancy Payments Act) quotes developments in union responses to redundancy since the 1930s. In a further section, Chapter 5, a case study of a series of redundancy events in the computer company, ICL, is provided, covering union responses to redundancy in the period 1969 to 1979. The evidence also calls into question the view ex­ pressed in some academic and policy work on redundancy, that the 1965 Redundancy Payments Act has defused union opposition to redundancy. The period before 1965, the evidence suggests, could not be characterised as a period of strong union opposition, and the years since the passing of the Act have not seen a predominance of union acquiescence. On this basis, too, Hardy's argu­ ment that managements have managed redundancy and closure by a process of legitimisation, is called in to question. Also, the work of neo-classical labour econo­ mists, who see workers and union attitudes towards re­ dundancy in terms of the decisions of "economic man", is refuted by the evidence and the argument in the thesis, which emphasises the moral influence of unions and the practice of unionism. CQHIEaTS Page Acknowledgements ....................................... 9 Introduction ........................................... 15 1^ Literature on Redundancy .......................... 21 1.1 Research on the Wider Aspects of Redundancy ....................................... 22 1.2 References to Trade Union Action in Redundancy ................................... 27 1.3 Research on the effects of the Redundancy Payments Act ........................ 33 1.4 Wood's Criticism of the OPCS Survey ........... 36 1.5 Fryer's Critique of Public Policy and "Managerialism" ......................... 38 1.6 Differences between Wood and Fryer in Approaches to Study of Redundancy ......... 41 1.7 Wood's and Dey's Case Studies of Redundancy Processes ........................... 43 1.8 Salmon's Historical Survey of Redundancy and Trade Union Action ............ 51 1.9 More recent work on Redundancy ................ 54 References .............................................. 59 2. Towards a Theory of Unions and Redundancy ....... 62 2.1 Introduction ..................................... 63 2.2 Plant Closure Studies ........................... 65 2.3 Power, Legitimacy, and the Management of Closures ...................................... 78 2.4 Theoretical Writings on Trade Unions ......... 90 2.5 Implications for a Theory of Redundancy and Trade Unions ................... 106 2.6 Economic Theories of Union Behaviour ......... 109 2.7 Conclusions ...................................... 118 References .............................................. 123 6 3. A Theory of Union Cultures ........................ 129 3.1 Introduction ...................................... 130 3.2 Cultures, Ideology and World Views ............ 132 3.3 Sources of Popular Protest ...................... 139 3.4 Rights and Moral Claims ........................ 151 3.5 Contractual Rights ............................... 153 3.6 Access to and Control of Work ................... 159 3.7 Trade Union and Collective Rights .............. 164 3.8 Rights to Work ................................... 179 3.9 Trade Union Cultures ............................ 189 3.10 Summary of Theory ............................... 198 3.11 The Theory applied to other studies ............ 201 3.12 Conclusions ....................................... 213 References .............................................. 219 4. A History of Redundancy,Payments Legislation .... 228 4.1 Introduction ...................................... 229 4.2 Earliest Compensation Provisions: the Nineteenth Century to the Nineteen Thirties .. 231 4.3 The Loss of Employment (Compensation) Bills from 1930 onwards ............................... 238 4.4 Professional Workers' Campaigns for Redundancy Legislation .............. 248 4.5 Policies of the TUC and NFPW between 1930 and 1936 ......................................... 257 4.6 The Cotton Industry Act 1959 ................... 267 4.7 Union and TUC Policies on the Cotton Crisis: A comment ............................... 273 4.8 Attempts to Legislate in the Nineteen Sixties.. 284 4.9 The Emerging Concept of a "Redundancy Problem" 288 4.10 The Midlands Motor Industry Disputes .......... 298 4.11 Divisions in Trade Union Policies on Redundancy from the Nineteen Fifties to 1965 ............ 308 4.12 Conclusions ....................................... 321 References .............................................. 336 5. Redundancy and Trade Union Action: A Case Study 344 5.1 Introduction ..................................... 345 5.2 Redundancies in ICL to 1979 ...................... 352 5.3 Discussion of Twenty Redundancy Events ........ 364 5.4 The "Right to No-involuntary Redundancy" ...... 375 5.5 The "Right to Timely Consultation" ............. 390 5.6 Collaborative Deals and "Product Patriotism" .. 409 5.7 Closure of CADC Cambridge "Product Patriotism" again ............................... 419 5.8 Conclusion ....................................... 433 References .............................................. 441 6. Summary and Conclusions.......................... 446 6.1 Introduction ..................................... 447 6.2 Main Findings .................................... 446 6.3 Cultural Influences on Opposition and Acquiescence ................................ 457 6.4 Influences on "Rights" and "Cultures" ........ 467 6.5 Future Prospects ................................. 475 References .............................................. 487 Tables and Figures 3.1 Graph of Redundacy Stoppages and Redundancy Payments ............................. 212 4.1 Summary of Main Finding of Redundancy Pay Surveys ...................................... 292 5.1 Causes of Redundancy in ICL 1968-79 ........... 365 5.2 Union Approaches and Successes in Redundancy Bargaining in ICL .................. 369 5.3 Summary of Opposition/Non-opposition .......... 370 5.4 Breakdown of Non-opposition Events ............ 371 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS All writers of doctoral theses it seems, accumulate multifarious debts to those who have sustained and supported them during the fulfilment of their tasks. This has been particularly so in my own case, notably for two reasons. First, it has taken me a long time to realise my objectives and bring this study to a state of completion. Hence, those who have had cause to suffer my distractions and bouts of irascibility, or have been » called upon for other indulgences, have been obliged to bear with me for longer than might be considered normal (in what is anyway a most abnormal state of being). Second, the fact that I have been in full-time employ­ ment during the entire research and writing up periods that this work has entailed, has meant that I have tended to call on help from unorthodox and utterly unwarranted quarters. Numerous colleagues, and no doubt some members of the union for which I have worked, must at times have been puzzled by my somewhat inquisitorial line of questioning in respect of some marginal point occurring in the course of conversation, doubtless blissfully unaware of my secret neurosis and abiding concern, to accumulate factual information or test the veracity of my theoretical concepts of trade union responses to redundancy. I take this opportunity to thank all who have assisted
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