THE ETHICS OF HRM 37bargaining purposes, in 1998, this figure had fallen to 42 per cent. Whereas
in 1984, 71 per cent of employees were covered by collective bargaining, in
1998 the figure had declined to 41 per cent. What emerges clearly from WERS
98 is that collective representation in Britain is now largely a public sector
phenomenon, with 56 per cent of employees in the public sector belonging to
a union as compared to only 26 per cent in the private sector. Further, where
union members exist in a workplace, but where there is no recognition, the
non-recognition rate is much higher in the private sector at 30 per cent than
in the public sector at 3 per cent.
According to WERS 98, 60 per cent of workplaces have no worker repre-
sentatives including 25 per cent where unions are actually recognized. Never-
theless, in workplaces where there are no union members, management report
that 11 per cent have non-union representatives, a figure which rises to
19 per cent of workplaces in which union members are present but where
unions are not recognized for collective bargaining. This is not very reassuring
if we look at the findings on consultation. Only 34 per cent of the public sector
and 20 per cent of private sector workplaces had a consultative committee
and, as Guest (2001: 100) argues, there is evidence to suggest a high degree of
management control of such committees. For example, although 51 per cent
of managers in the public sector and 29 per cent in the private sector rated
their committees as highly influential, they were more likely to receive this
rating if there were non-union representatives and particularly where they
were appointed by management rather than elected by workers. Although they
were rated as more influential when they met more often, it is notable that the
committees composed of union representatives in unionized settings tended
to meet less frequently. As Guest (2001: 100) succinctly puts it:
In short, managers appear to rate committees as influential where they are able to
exercise control over them. In other settings, the committees are more likely to be
marginalized in the decision-making process.
The general marginalization of any expressions of collectivism in British work-
places is summed up not only by the retreat from union membership and
recognition, but by the impoverished agenda for collective bargaining and
consultation where it still exists. Of the WERS’s list of nine conventional items
for bargaining (pay or conditions of employment, payment systems, recruit-
ment and selection, training, grievance handling, staff/manpower planning,
equal opportunities, health and safety, and performance appraisals), there was
no negotiation with union representatives overanyof these issues in half the
workplaces where unions were recognized. On average, union representatives
negotiated on only 1.1 of the nine issues, while non-union representatives
negotiated over even less, 0.9 issues. Nor were these issues covered much better
by consultation: the average number covered by consultative committees was