Industrial Relations Journal 30:1

ISSN 0019-8692

Systems of collective
employee representation in
non-union firms in the UK
Michael Terry
Legislative developments and some renewal of managerial
interest are drawing attention to systems of employee rep-
resentation in the non-union sector. This article examines such
data as exist on the extent and effectiveness of such systems,
asks whether they can provide effective substitutes for union-
based systems, and argues that this appears unlikely.

As the philosophy and practice of decollectivisation and deregulation extend ever

further through UK industry, the number of employees without access to a represen-
tative system through which they may receive information, have their views sought,
raise grievances, and seek to influence their terms and conditions of employment is
growing rapidly. The decline of trade unionism and of the coverage of collective
bargaining, the traditional and historically-dominant form of representative struc-
tures in the UK, is the clearest evidence of this. So dominant is the historical associ-
ation between employee representation and trade unionism in the UK—the ‘single
channel’ of representation—that it is easy to overlook the argument that trade union-
ism and collective bargaining are not necessary conditions for employee represen-
tation. In much of continental Europe works councils established with no formal
reference to trade unions are widespread, and in some cases operate with no signifi-
cant trade union engagement. In the UK formal systems of non-union employee rep-
resentation have rarely been investigated, partly because of their numerical insignifi-
cance, but often also because of a widespread assumption that such systems,
unsupported either by legal rights or by the existence of independent trade unions,
must be largely ‘cosmetic’ organisations, fig-leaves of consultation and participation
masking managerial unilateralism. However, now that trade unionism and collective
bargaining are no longer available to the majority of British employees it may be
appropriate to pay greater attention than before to non-union firms and in particular
to employee representation structures within them. The likelihood that European
legislation may, within the next few years, confer information and consultation rights
on employees, as outlined below, reinforces this argument.

❒ Mike Terry is Professor of Industrial Relations at the Industrial Relations Research Unit, Warwick
Business School, University of Warwick.

 Blackwell Publishers Ltd. 1999, 108 Cowley Road, Oxford OX4 1JF, UK and 350 Main St., Malden, MA 02148, USA.

16 Industrial Relations Journal

 The focus of this article is collective representative structures in non-union firms
established specifically for the purposes of consultation between employee represen-
tatives and managers (‘joint consultation’) which, prima facie might be expected to
appeal to companies interested in the benefits of systems of overt and formal two-
way communication and discussion but, unlike collective bargaining, formally leav-
ing managerial rights and prerogatives untouched. Such structures are, within the
frequently-used typology, forms of indirect employee representation and thus fall
within the category sometimes categorised as power-based rather than task-based par-
ticipation.
One widely-used categorisation of forms of indirect representation distinguishes
between ‘problem-solving’ and ‘bargaining’ activities thus:

Figure 1

While the two columns may be analytically distinct, the two processes have tra-
ditionally co-existed in the UK as the ‘negotiation’ and ‘consultation’ wings of the
collective relations between unions and employers, sometimes formally separated
organisationally into machineries for consultation and for negotiation and sometimes
combined, as in ‘Joint Consultation and Negotiation Committees’. In either case the
power resources available to unions and expressed in the form of joint agreements
provided a context within which joint consultation operated. Consultation was some-
times presented as a process seen as appropriate in respect of certain topics; more
frequently it was seen as the best that unions could achieve in respect of those topics
for which management claimed unilateral authority and which unions lacked the
muscle to contest; a second-best to full-blown negotiation. In much of continental
Europe the formal machinery is different but the underlying argument similar; the
two processes co-exist within the framework of works councils, where again the
power resource of co-decision rights backs up the (legally-enforceable) rights of
employees to information and consultation on certain subjects. Processes of consul-

1
I am grateful to Linda Dickens for suggesting this typology, based in part on Clegg, 1983.

 Blackwell Publishers Ltd. 1999. Systems of collective employee representation 17

tation in both these situations are thus ‘nested’ within a broader framework of organ-
isational resources (collective bargaining recognition, works councils, legal rights)
that confer power and legitimation on the agencies of employee representation which
help shape and give meaning to their participation in the processes of consultation.
However, in non-union enterprises, and in the voluntarist context of the UK, with
no general legal rights to information and consultation, forms of indirect represen-
tative participation consist only of those processes identified down the left-hand
column of Figure 1. In this article the available UK literature and research data
dealing with such representation are summarised and searched for information as
to whether they are capable of providing employees with an effective voice, outside
the ‘nest’ provided by power-based structures of collective bargaining.

Joint consultation in non-union firms: the background

Joint consultation, along with the ‘stronger’ processes also based on the represen-
tation of employees by elected representatives, collective bargaining, has been in
decline throughout the UK. As Millward noted in comparing findings from the 1984
and 1990 Workplace Industrial Relations Surveys (WIRS) on the presence of formal
systems of joint consultation, ‘the fundamental change over the period was in the
proportion of employees without access to a joint management-employee committee;
this grew from 57 per cent of employees in 1984 to 70 per cent in 1990’ (Millward,
1994: 81). By 1990 only 30 per cent of employees covered by the sample had access
to joint consultation systems. In other words the great majority of British employees
have access to no form of indirect participation; whether union-based or not. By
comparison with their continental European counterparts British employees lack a
range of basic guaranteed rights to information and consultation; rights normally
exercised in the rest of Europe through the operation of works council structures.
These lie at the heart of enterprise-level industrial relations in virtually every other
European economy and are cited as sources of stability and consensual change that
commend them to many employers and managers (see eg. Jacobi et al., 1992 for
evidence from the German case).
In the UK by contrast such responsibilities have been traditionally discharged
through the ‘single channel’ of trade union representation. Now, as non-unionism
becomes increasingly widespread in British industry, and after a lengthy period in
which the law has operated to facilitate the employer derecognition and exclusion
of trade unions, attention must increasingly switch to the non-union firm as a key
unit of industrial relations analysis. The numerical dominance of the non-union sector
has not led to a great deal of research into industrial relations in the non-union firm,
still less into the specific issue of concern in this article, collective representation
systems within them. Nevertheless they do exist and, as we shall see below, there
are reasons for believing that their significance may grow. Indeed, one of the few
crumbs of comfort that may be extracted from the 1990 Workplace Industrial
Relations Survey (WIRS) for those who attach importance to such systems was the
apparent stability of forms of joint consultation in non-union establishments (as
opposed to unionised ones, where they had declined significantly). In 1990 21 per
cent of all establishments reported that they operated some form of workplace joint
consultation committee; a fall from the 1984 figure of 27 per cent. By 1998 this figure
had risen again to 28 per cent (Cully et al., 1998: 10), testimony perhaps to some of
the processes discussed in this article. No more detailed figures for 1998 are yet
available, so the following figures refer only to 1984 and 1990 surveys. Where trade
unions were recognised the fall had been to 24 per cent from 34 per cent while in
non-union establishments the level fell only to 21 per cent from 24 per cent. In the
unionised sector the decline was greatest in the smaller establishments (25–100
employees) where nearly half disappeared (Millward, 1994: 78). These figures,
although low, suggest that there might be something here worth investigating; after
all 21 per cent of non-union establishments represents a lot of workplaces and a large
number of employees, even though only a minority. Millward stresses proper caution

18 Industrial Relations Journal  Blackwell Publishers Ltd. 1999.

in applying any significance to these figures; not only because they are small but
also because when looking at what Millward describes as ‘functioning consultative
committees’ (ie. those that actually appeared to meet and do something) the 1990
figures fell to 18 per cent of all establishments; 21 per cent where unions were recog-
nised, and as few as 16 per cent where they were not. A smaller study of 20 non-
union firms found nine with formal consultative systems and no effective communi-
cation system elsewhere (Beardwell, 1997).
Despite their low incidence and apparent relative ineffectiveness, consultative com-
mittees in non-union workplaces are worth considering, not least because of legal
developments and managerial policies that might bestow greater future significance
on them. These will be briefly summarised, and followed by an overview of such
data as we have on the nature and operation of such non-union systems, and will
conclude by considering their implications.

The stimulus for non-union systems?

(i) Legal developments
Developments in European legislation constitute the single most important reason
for believing that non-union forms of employee representation may come to assume
increasing significance. For more than three decades such statutory rights to infor-
mation disclosure and consultation as exist in this country were conferred only on
‘recognised trade unions’, emphasising once again the long-standing UK preference
for the ‘single channel’ of representation based on trade unions. In the specific
instances of redundancy (collective dismissals) and transfer of undertakings, legis-
lation conferred no such rights on employees working in undertakings where
employers chose not to recognise trade unions. On matters relating to health and
safety UK employers were required to consult only with union safety representatives
appointed under the 1977 Safety Representatives and Safety Committee Regulations.
In 1994 two decisions in the European Court of Justice held that the United
Kingdom was in breach of its duties under the requirements of the Collective
Redundancies and Acquired Rights Directives (Hall, 1996; O’Hara, 1996). In parti-
cular the ECJ ‘found the UK to be in breach of its obligations . . . because of its
“[failure] to provide for the designation of employee representatives where an
employer does not agree to it” ’ (Hall, 1996: 16). In other words the ECJ ruled
against a situation where such basic employee rights to consultation could be
denied to all employees working for employers who chose not to recognise
trade unions.
In order to comply with these judgements, achieved through the Collective
Redundancies and Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment)
(Amendment) Regulations 1995, the government had to ‘make provision for the
designation of employee representatives for the purposes of information and con-
sultation under the two Directives in situations where there are no recognised
unions’ (Hall, 1996: 16). These rights by no means amount to a requirement to
establish representative structures, since it is clear that the requirements to desig-
nate employee representatives apply only in the specific cases covered by the two
Directives. Nevertheless it is clear that ‘appropriate existing [non-union] consulta-
tive bodies are a permissible channel for the required consultation provided their
membership is elected’ (Hall, 1996: 17). Indeed, it is not even clear that consultation
alone, as traditionally understood in the UK, will be sufficient, since the Collective
Redundancies Directive requires not merely the exchange of views but consul-
tation ‘with a view to reaching agreement’; a phrase whose precise meaning has
yet to be defined (Wedderburn, 1997: 19) but which appears to go further than the
simple seeking of views of employees representatives in a context of untrammelled
employer prerogative.
Any opportunity that these Directives might have provided for strengthening
employee representation was largely lost since the then Conservative government

 Blackwell Publishers Ltd. 1999. Systems of collective employee representation 19

implemented them in such a way as to negate their potential for underpinning effec-
tive and stable structures (O’Hara, 1996: 26–7). The government also reduced the
opportunity for consultation by changing the basis of the requirement to consult over
redundancies from cases of a single redundancy to those cases where (in line with
the minimum requirements of the Directive) the employer proposes at least 20 redun-
dancies over a 90-day period; a change that had the effect of removing the require-
ment to consult employee representatives from some 90 per cent of UK businesses
(Hall, 1996: 17–18). The Labour government has since indicated that it is considering
removing this exemption and has also announced its intention to formalise and
stabilise the procedures for employee representation under these Directives, in parti-
cular by specifying that
non-union employee representatives must be both capable (ie. suitably mandated) and inde-
pendent. They may be elected either on an ad hoc basis or as a standing body, or may be members
of an appropriate existing representative body (Hall, 1998: 2)

In short the implicit ‘works council’ model and attendant rights which lay below the
surface of the two Directives and which might have provided an organisational fillip
and institutional stability to non-union structures in some companies, were largely
denied to UK employees but may shortly come into play.
Two further legal developments that relate to the elaboration of European legis-
lation add to the picture. The first concerns the extension of employee rights to con-
sultation over health and safety matters into non-union organisations introduced
through the Health and Safety (Consultation with Employees) Regulations 1996 to
ensure compliance with the Framework Directive by extending these rights to all
employees. In contrast to the situation described above in regard to redundancies
and transfer where non-union employee representatives can, in theory, be established
in unionised plants as an alternative to union channels, for Health and Safety the
proposal is that non-union representatives be allowed only in cases where there is
no recognised union. Weak though the 1996 Regulations are, they provoked the
Association of British Chambers of Commerce into arguing that they could ‘introduce
works councils through the back door’ (James, 1996: 13; see also James and Walters,
1997). James has also suggested that these Regulations might provide a more stable
basis for the representation of non-union employees than the requirements concern-
ing redundancy and transfer, since these latter two require in principle only the
establishment of ad hoc committees in the particular circumstances, while health and
safety consultation is an ongoing requirement (James, 1994: 36).
The second, more radical, development is raised by the likelihood of a further
European Directive on information and consultation rights at enterprise level within
Member States. Such a Directive would be likely to add to the statutory remit of
employee representatives elected to meet the terms of the ECJ judgements (as well
as that of recognised unions) and would considerably strengthen the case for stand-
ing rather than ad hoc [employee] representatives’ (Hall, 1996: 26). It appears likely
that systems of representation introduced as a consequence of such a Directive, in
enterprises with at least 20 employees, would provide employees with the right to
information or consultation through ‘the independent and stable employee represen-
tative body provided for by national laws and/or practices’ on matters related to
the undertaking’s activities, employment, work organisation, other matters including
those covered by the Collective Redundancies and Transfer of Undertakings Direc-
tives (EWCB, 1998: 5).
The cumulative implication of the above is clear: European legislative develop-
ments have established universal employee rights to information and consultation
under certain specified circumstances and the requirements placed on affected
employers in the non-union sector will increase. It is highly unlikely that the only
commonly-found methods of communication in non-union firms, namely briefing
down through the managerial hierarchy (Millward, 1994: 90) will suffice. Unions
too, operating in an increasingly non-union environment, will have to find ways
of accommodating to the continental European pattern of conferring such rights

20 Industrial Relations Journal  Blackwell Publishers Ltd. 1999.

on all employees, irrespective of union membership and of union recognition by
employers.

(ii) Management policies

Those companies that indulge in forward planning of their HR policies may see
which way the legal wind is blowing and, as with the European Works Council
Directive, take steps to implement their own systems of representation before having
them imposed, or may come to the conclusion for reasons unconnected with legislat-
ive developments that such initiatives are worthwhile in their own right, either as
the positive development of employee representation structures within progressive
HRM policies; and/or, possibly but not necessarily related, the development of
union-avoidance or union derecognition strategies. One significant and widely-
reported recent development has been Sainsbury’s establishment of works councils
for each of its stores and depots; as many as 730 councils when the scheme is
extended to cover Homebase (IRS 1996: 13–16; Industrial Society, 1998: 51–3).
Although these councils do allow for limited trade union representation in those
stores and depots where they are recognised, they are clearly intended to be at most
a minority element.
Such case studies and surveys as have been undertaken into non-union firms sug-
gest that they can be roughly divided into those that practice some form of explicit
HR/IR strategy and those that do not (see the surveys of Guest and Hoque, 1994,
and of McLoughlin and Gourlay, 1994). It can be suggested that the great majority
of systems of non-union representation will be found in the former. Case study work
suggests that this general category of ‘explicit HRM/IR strategy’ can, for our pur-
poses, be further subdivided.
The first group consists of those companies wedded to an explicitly individualist
managerial approach, by which is meant a conscious managerial rejection of collectiv-
ism, union-based or otherwise. Examples include ‘Comco’ (Cressey et al., 1985) and
‘Deco’ (McLoughlin and Gourlay, 1994), IBM and Hewlett-Packard as summarised
by Beaumont (Beaumont, 1987), all US-owned. These approaches impose heavy costs
in time and money through combining a high benefits package, employment security,
and managerial time, as for example at Comco where ‘all managers had to devote
80 per cent of their time to “people policies”’ (Cressey et al., 1985: 78; see also Beau-
mont, 1987: 118). Such companies are unlikely to perceive much, if any, merit, in
establishing forms of collective representation; indeed they would appear to contra-
dict fundamentally the individualist approach, although that is not to say that such
companies might not be forced into them by legal constraints. The second group
consists of those non-union companies that operate an explicit policy of reproducing
in a non-union context the benefits conventionally associated with systems of union
representation: the financial savings associated with dealing with a collectivised
workforce through elected representatives, and the legitimacy conferred on mana-
gerial action by visible processes of consultation with accredited representatives.
Such companies appear to establish non-union forms of collective employee rep-
resentation as part of this approach. Case study examples include ‘Liftco’ (Cressey
et al., 1985, Cressey, 1986), ‘Ceco’ (McLoughlin and Gourlay, 1994), Gillette
(Beaumont, 1987: 118) and the companies described in the two IDS surveys (IDS,
1994; IDS, 1989), two of which are described more fully in a recent report (Industrial
Society, 1998). The majority of these companies are in the manufacturing sector,
although no clear significance can be given to this, since none come from surveys
that claim to be representative of the whole economy. The smallest company had
400 employees in the UK, the largest 2,300. In short, they were firms characteristic
in terms of size and activity, of the unionised sector (indeed, two of them, Ceco and
Northumbrian Water, had previously been union-organised, and a third, HP Bulmer,
recognised trade unions but also operated an Employee Council with both union
and non-union representation (Industrial Society, 1998: 39)). Operating in product
markets that did not allow high labour-related costs to be passed on to the customer

 Blackwell Publishers Ltd. 1999. Systems of collective employee representation 21

(as opposed to the ‘individualist’ cases outlined above) these companies, having
opted for the non-union route, developed systems of collective representation.
McLoughlin and Gourlay, reinforcing the analogy with the unionised sector, note in
their discussion of a company that had derecognised the trade union but retained
the company council based on non-union representation, that it was ‘now deemed
to satisfy many of the functions that a union might perform’ (McLoughlin and Gour-
lay, 1994: 57). The IDS Study reports that at Monarch Aircraft Engineering the works
committee was set up ‘because of pressure from staff who had come from unionised
firms’ (IDS, 1994: 11).
Virtually all the companies mentioned above have characteristics of size and sector
traditionally associated with a trade union presence; even in 1990 there was a better
than 4 in 5 chance of finding recognised trade unions in manufacturing establish-
ments with more than 200 employees (Millward et al., 1992: 72). It is at least plausible
to argue that such organisations are, even in the 1980s and 1990s, potentially suscep-
tible to unionism, and fall into a category that might be labelled ‘unionisable’. By
this is meant that they display the characteristics of size, labour and product market
environments, and employment stability that may facilitate British unions’ traditional
approach to the recruitment of members and the establishment of effective union
organisation, which in practice means establishment-based organisation. By contrast
trade unions have encountered serious problems in organising a stable presence in
smaller workplaces, including large swathes of the service sector; such organisations
may be seen as relatively ‘non-unionisable’ with such methods. The proposed legis-
lation on trade union recognition may change the usefulness of this simple categoris-
ation.
The evidence summarised above suggests that such potentially ‘unionisable’
companies that cannot afford or consciously reject the high-cost ‘individualist’
approach, have adopted structures of collective employee representation that
closely resemble those associated with recognised trade unions—but without the
unions. There is no reason to doubt that these also represent explicit strategies of
union avoidance. There is no evidence of such approaches being used in companies
and sectors traditionally seen as ‘union-free’. The two reported cases involving
union derecognition (Ceco and Northumbrian Water) stressed the usefulness of
retaining non-union forms of representation for a workforce that had come to take
such rights for granted as part of the derecognition ‘package’. But from some other
companies comes evidence of a more relaxed attitude towards trade unions. At
Liftco the employee representatives pressed for trade union recognition only to be
defeated by an 89 per cent vote in an ACAS-organised ballot (Cressey et al., 1985:
69). The UK component of Eurotunnel ‘does not negotiate with unions formally,
but a number of employees are union members on an informal basis and Eurotun-
nel does maintain informal links’ (IDS, 1994: 7). In a rather different way, some
companies set up in the wake of water privatization ‘moved the basis of represen-
tation away from unions to employees’ (Jackson et al., 1993: 142). While this was
not accompanied by explicit union derecognition, the basis of representation on
company councils changed from union membership to all employees. While the
non-unionism discussed here is clearly a form of union avoidance, it is of a less
aggressive, more ambiguous kind than that of both the strongly ‘individualist’
firms. The representative structures are used either to demonstrate to employees
that their ‘voice’ would be no more effectively heard were unions to be recognised,
or they are created as an essentially cosmetic device, perceived as essentially useless
by managers and employees alike, with the non-union message sometimes driven
home by more strident means (Findlay, 1993: 37). In either case it may be suggested
that these are companies operating in some ways within the ambit of trade union-
ism, aware that a failure in industrial relations policy or other crisis could lead
to attempts at union organisation. To that extent the establishment of councils or
committees constitutes a calculated managerial risk since in their collectivism they
offer structures that could be ‘captured’ by unions should they fail to deliver their
non-union promise, an argument that assumes greater salience in the context of the

22 Industrial Relations Journal  Blackwell Publishers Ltd. 1999.

 Table 1: Categories of employees represented on councils

Company Employees covered

Allied colloids Up to and including middle management

(separate representation)
Eurotunnel All employees
Monarch group Separate representation for engineering and maintenance,
supervisory and technical, admin and clerical, cabin crew,
and operations staff
Northumbrian Water All employees?
Pitney Bowes All employees
Baxter Healthcare Up to but not including middle managers. No separate
supervisors’ constituency.
Berol Kings Lynn—hourly-paid only
Tottenham—all employees except six managers
Claas UK All except senior managers
OKI UK All non-managerial staff
Polaroid Blue-collar and white-collar staff
‘Liftco’ Two committees—one for factory and one for office staff

Sources: IDS, 1994 and 1989; Cressey et al., 1985

government’s ‘Fairness at Work’ recognition procedures. To examine these issues

further the next section will look at what we know about the composition and
activities of these structures and at the even scantier literature that investigates
their detailed practice and development over time.

The workings of non-union councils

This section draws on a study of Liftco (Cressey et al., 1985: 56–73, Cressey, 1986)
and on the cases reported in the two IDS studies (IDS, 1994; IDS, 1989). Excluding
those that operate a Company Council in a unionised setting this gives 11 examples,
7 in manufacturing and 4 in service-based activities. Four were British- owned, 6
were subsidiaries of US-based companies, one German, one Japanese, and one
(Eurotunnel) joint UK-French.
In terms of electoral machinery the councils all have formal procedures. Secret
individual ballots were usually organised in and by the personnel department and
the term of office is usually two years. However, there is evidence also of appoint-
ment of representatives by management and of co-option, both of which would
cause problems if these bodies were used for the consultation purposes required
by the Directives. Most of the companies operated a qualification period for sitting
on the Councils (usually one year’s service) although this was not always enforced,
especially in recently-established companies. Some companies (only one of those
analysed here) excluded employees involved in disciplinary procedures (IDS,
1989: 7).
More important perhaps are the nature and determination of representative con-
stituencies. They varied in size from around 12 to 150+. A characteristic figure would
be 40 employees per representative. Constituencies were determined by manage-
ment, although employee opinion did influence them on occasion. There was con-
siderable variation in the range of employees covered, and this too appeared to have
been decided by management. Table 1 summarises the categories of employees who
were covered (and excluded) from representation on the council.
Constituencies were based on geography or function or a combination of the
two. Less clear were the procedures that related to interaction between constituents
and representatives other than the election procedures. This may have made for

 Blackwell Publishers Ltd. 1999. Systems of collective employee representation 23

uncertainty on the part of representatives as to whose interests they were rep-
resenting. Thus for Northumbrian Water ‘members represent everyone in their
section, so that a labourer may be representing craft operatives or vice versa’ (IDS,
1994: 15). While such representatives with small constituencies may be able infor-
mally to elicit opinions, for those with larger constituencies this may be problem-
atic. Some companies appear to have addressed this: OKI UK allowed representa-
tives ‘reasonable time away from their places of work to seek the views of interest
groups concerned with any aspect of their [Council] meeting’ and Polaroid allowed
employee representatives to address monthly team briefings and ‘with company
permission [to] call their own meetings of employees’ (IDS, 1989: 18, 21). It may
be that in practice such constituents’ meetings are more widespread than this
implies; at Liftco ‘participation was encouraged through the committee system
with workgroup meetings encouraged in order that communication reached from
bottom to top’ (Cressey, 1986: 69). However one drawback of this identification
with individual workgroups, was the managerial practice of ‘going round the table
asking each delegate if there was anything to raise [which] . . . engendered a sec-
tional viewpoint which management used professionally in committee deliber-
ations’ (Cressey, 1986: 71). This was the case even though at Liftco—as for most
of the companies—facilities existed for ‘pre-meetings’ of elected representatives
alone, in addition to joint meetings with management. Other facilities, such as time
off without loss of pay and access to training (in such matters as accountancy
and other financial skills, supervisory and managerial skills, grievance handling,
chairmanship, counselling, safety, industrial law) were common. Whether these
were perceived as adequate is unclear; Cressey notes that at Liftco the representa-
tives complained at their lack of training (Cressey, 1986: 71). A conspicuous
absence from the list of skills provided was negotiating skills.
So what did these councils and committees actually do? Table 2 presents an
attempt to summarise the findings of the three studies.
This categorisation should be interpreted with considerable caution, most
especially as regards the attempt to distinguish between negotiation and consul-
tation. So, for example, two cases in which pay and related matters are put into
‘negotiation’ refer to situations where it is claimed that these are negotiated at the
council but that the negotiated agreement then takes the form of a recommendation
to corporate management. Whether this is properly ‘negotiation’ or ‘consultation’ is
no clearer here than in similar circumstances in unionised contexts.
One other indicator of the ‘weight’ of these bodies may be the means, if any, used
to resolve failures to agree or other deadlocks. The third column shows a close corre-
spondence between the use of some form of external mechanism for resolving dis-
agreements and the characterisation of the committee as handling negotiation as well
as consultation. Finally, the committees differed in the extent to which they were
also channels for the handling of individual grievances. Four of the eleven commit-
tees appeared to do this, and three of these four also negotiated and had access to
external dispute resolution mechanisms.

The effectiveness of non-union representative systems

Is it possible on the basis of the available evidence to compare non-union and
union structures? The strongest argument concerning the ineffectiveness of non-
union consultative committees comes from Findlay who argues that according to
her survey they were widely criticised by the employees they claimed to represent
and were acknowledged as uninfluential by the managers (Findlay, 1993: 37).
Findlay’s view receives some support from the WIRS which reported that man-
agers in non-union enterprises were less likely than those in unionised to report
that employees were given a lot of information on the three specific issues of
‘staffing and manpower plans’, ‘major changes in working methods or work
organisation’ and ‘the financial position of the establishment’ (Millward, 1994: 97).
These summary data may be open to several interpretations but one may be that

24 Industrial Relations Journal  Blackwell Publishers Ltd. 1999.

 Table 2: Responsibilities of company councils

Company Negotiation Consultation Procedure to resolve

disagreement

Allied Colloids None Pay, company None specified

results, training,
health and safety
Eurotunnel None Operational change, None specified
terms of employment
(including pay),
commercial policies
and profits
Monarch Group Pay and ‘Nothing excluded’ ACAS conciliation or
conditions Sickness, suggestion joint reference to
schemes ACAS arbitration
Northumbrian Terms and ‘Company-wide’ ACAS conciliation or
Water conditions, issues concerning joint reference to
grievance and industrial relations ACAS arbitration
other procedures,
health and safety,
other
Pitney Bowes Pay (indirectly) Not specified— Pay disagreement
open-ended ‘might be taken to
ACAS’
Baxter Healthcare Pay Any matter No procedural
specification.
ACAS conciliation
and workforce ballot
both used
Berol Pay(?) Any matter No provision.
Must be ‘talked to a
solution’
Claas UK Pay and Profit-related pay, Provision for
conditions job evaluation, arbitration and
any matter workforce ballot
OKI UK No Pay and conditions, No facility for
safety, quality and arbitration
social issues
Polaroid No Wages and None specified
conditions,
‘manpower and
production plants’
‘Liftco’ Pay and General None
conditions

Sources: IDS, 1994; IDS, 1989; Cressey, 1986)

non-union representatives are less able, trained, expert, or more nervous than
their union counterparts (and hence less likely to press management) and/or that
management take less seriously representatives who lack the potential sanctions
of trade unionists.
One of the very few case studies that makes a direct comparison between unionised
and non-unionised representatives is the work of Kidger (Kidger, 1992) who exam-
ined the position of non-unionised Health and Safety representatives in the offshore
oil industry and compared it with unionised workplaces. The Offshore Installations

 Blackwell Publishers Ltd. 1999. Systems of collective employee representation 25

(Safety Representatives and Safety Committees) Regulations 1989 provided for such
representatives; otherwise statutory provision for health and safety representatives
only existed in workplaces where trade unions were recognised. The Regulations
contained provisions concerning election procedures, facilities, and consultation
rights. Kidger argued that non-union representation can be as effective in principle
as union-based, but only if certain conditions apply; in particular it can only succeed
if it is fully supported by management and backed up by an effective set of sanctions
enforceable through industrial tribunals for non-compliance. He suggested that indi-
vidual employees be given the right to bring such actions, but conceded that ‘there
must be doubts about how likely it would be that individual employees would take
action (Kidger, 1992: 31). He argued that non-union representatives would need pro-
tection against victimisation, access to training and other support, and that all this
should be overseen and regulated by an independent agency such as the Health and
Safety Executive. In effect Kidger is arguing for something very close to the statutory
rights and protections of mainland European works councils and, by implication,
making it clear that ‘voluntary’ non-union representation, unsupported by a legal
framework, would be ineffective. In this context it is worth noting that the 1996
Regulations extending health and safety representation to all non-unionised
employees are less onerous than the 1989 Offshore Regulations (see James, 1996).
They give only very general guidance concerning election procedures, for example,
and the functions of representatives established under the 1996 Regulations are far
more limited than those discharged by union-based representatives under the orig-
inal 1977 Regulations.

The trajectories of non-union representative systems

Kidger’s research suggests that ineffective systems of employee representation rap-
idly lose the support and commitment of the workforce and inevitably fall into disre-
pute and/or disappear entirely. Is this the inevitable fate awaiting all non-union
forms of representation unsupported by law? It is clear than at least some such sys-
tems have a long life. Several of those reported by the IDS had been in existence for
ten years or more, but we are only given a snapshot view of these. However there are
two studies—Cressey and his colleagues’ analysis of ‘Liftco’ and Broad’s of ‘DenkiCo’
(Broad, 1994) a longitudinal study of a Company Council on a Japanese greenfield
site—which provide some detail on the history of non-union systems.

‘Liftco’—from euphoria to collapse

The case study paints a picture of a non-union committee system that had been
in existence for five years, celebrated by management as evidence of their particip-
ative ‘open-door’ approach, and which enjoyed widespread support among both
blue-collar and white-collar staff. An attempt to press for union recognition had
been heavily defeated in a workforce ballot, and employees argued that the sys-
tem provided representation as effectively as could have been done by unions,
but without the associated problems of sectionalism and inter-union rivalry. It
functioned ‘as an information-passing forum, as a consultative mechanism and
for bargaining over pay, holidays and conditions. The representatives tended to
see themselves as non-union shop stewards’ (Cressey et al., 1985: 64).
However, confronted by the company’s insistence on the need for significant
reductions in working time, redundancies and a pay freeze, all precipitated by the
recession of the early 1980s the system collapsed as the representatives resigned en
masse, arguing that the consultative committee had been ignored following a man-
agement decision to ballot the workforce directly on a pay freeze proposal. Cressey
and his colleagues argue (Cressey et al., 1995: 63–7) that the company’s economic
crisis exposed fundamental weaknesses in the consultation system. These included
elements familiar in unionised settings (inadequate information disclosure, inability
to enforce procedural agreements against management, no effective sanctions against

26 Industrial Relations Journal  Blackwell Publishers Ltd. 1999.

the company) and some that were seen by the representatives as deriving from their
non-union status (no recourse to independent sources of advice or assistance, inad-
equate training, lack of professionalism, inability to communicate with representa-
tives in other UK Liftco plants).

‘Denkico’—the road to union recognition

A Japanese subsidiary, Denkico established a non-union Company Council (CC) as

the ‘centre-piece of our Company-wide communications policy’ (Broad, 1994: 30),
intended as a consensual forum for the discussion of broad strategic matters and
as an explicit device to stave off pressures for union recognition, especially from
the ‘militant TGWU’. However, within 18 months dissatisfaction and disillusion
among management and employees were widespread. Senior (Japanese) managers
became aware that the Council was failing because of the reluctance of junior
(British) managers to divulge information and to resolve problems. Employee rep-
resentatives felt that their lack of experience and knowledge, especially of employ-
ment law, were major handicaps, but their major complaint was that despite the
emphasis on consensus ‘there was little prospect that decisions favourable to the
workforce “side” would emerge’, leading to a ‘fast-growing credibility gap for the
CC’ (Broad, 1994: 31).
Shopfloor dissatisfaction led to the organisation of a clandestine workforce ballot
on the issue of union representation, which indicated strong support for union
recognition, eventually granted not to the TGWU but to the union that had come
to stand for moderate new realism, the then EETPU. Recognition was accompanied
by the formal relaunch of the CC, which had its remit extended to cover terms and
conditions, and to constitute the first stage in the collective grievance procedure
(Broad, 1994: 32). And, although not specified in the agreement, the union took
steps to ensure that all representatives were also union members.
These two brief case histories suggest that non-union representation constitutes a
form of ‘consultation for the good times’ but lacks the resources and resilience to
deal with the procedural and substantive crises that confront all systems of employee
representation faced with employer demands for job losses, pay cuts and pressures
to short-cut established procedures to obtain quick results. With no reference to the
external agencies of law or trade unions for support they are perceived—rightly—
as managerial emanations subject to managerial whim. The cases illustrate the only
two fates that can befall such consultation mechanisms in crisis in the legal environ-
ment of the UK: collapse and/or abolition (with the possibility of subsequent re-
launch), or transformation into union-based and perhaps more solidly-entrenched
systems. Even though union-based systems experience analogous problems in diffi-
cult environments and they can be removed through derecognition, they have tended
in practice to display a greater long-term resilience than their non-union counter-
parts.

Discussion
This article has argued that in the present context there is value in considering the
present state of non-union representation in UK industry. Although still very much
a minority phenomenon, pressures from several identified sources appear likely to
push non-union firms towards adopting forms of collective representation. The data
show that there is still a great deal more research to be done. We know virtually
nothing about how these bodies are composed, the detailed machinery of election
and its independence from managerial influence, the ‘representativeness’ of such sys-
tems (none of the cases have any information about the gender balance in the work-
forces represented or on the consultative bodies themselves, for example), about
accountability procedures of representatives, or the training and other assistance pro-
vided. Still more elusive are data concerning the effects of such systems—with regard
either to the managerial objective of securing consent to change or the employee

 Blackwell Publishers Ltd. 1999. Systems of collective employee representation 27

objective of influencing managerial decisions. The strong impression that comes
across from the work cited here is of systems that achieve little, are viewed for much
of the time, and especially when having to deal with tough and unpalatable issues,
with a mixture of cynicism and disenchantment by managers and employees,
although often for different reasons. The case study evidence, although very limited,
suggests that they survive—and may even be viewed with some enthusiasm—during
periods of growth and buoyancy, but that they come under immense strain, perhaps
precipitating collapse, at other times.
The central problem appears to be that which is traditionally associated with
voluntarist systems, namely that in the absence of any legally binding requirement
to the contrary or of some manifestation of collective employee power, managements
can ignore consultation or other procedures when they wish. Lacking collective sanc-
tions, non-unionised representatives and those they represent are left powerless in
the face of such behaviour. In addition, non-union representatives enjoy none of the
protections that unionised representatives (and works council members in continen-
tal Europe) have against being dismissed for engaging in representative activities.
This lack of protection must, especially at times of economic crisis, tempt non-union
representatives into caution.
Clearly, then, non-union representation can provide at best only a partial mech-
anism for employee involvement and participation in the absence of legal under-
pinnings. Although legal developments are tending towards the provision of some
form of framework of consultative rights for such representatives, progress is likely
to remain slow. The intriguing question remains whether such structures as those
discussed here might provide the basis for a form of trade union intervention; a sort
of embryo structure that could be ‘captured’ by unions (as happened at DenkiCo
and might have happened at Liftco). Such a prospect is perhaps heightened by the
proposed union recognition legislation; indeed it might be hypothesised that such
‘unionisable’ workplaces constitute logical starting-points for recognition campaigns.
Attractive though this might appear for trade unions, at least one significant ques-
tion arises, namely whether, in a managerial environment that may remain hostile
to union recognition, employees will be sufficiently persuaded of the merits of
union membership. Or, to put it another way, why should they be persuaded that
a unionised system will enable more effective representation than a non-union one?
What value do unions add? One obvious reason for asking this question is that
several of the problems discussed here in the context of non-unionised systems
(inadequate information, being by-passed or ignored by management, general lack
of impact) have become standard complaints of many shop stewards and employee
representatives in unionised contexts during the 1980s and 1990s. There is an
assumption in several of the studies that unionised representatives are better-
trained and better-equipped with information, arguments and negotiating skills
than their non-union counterparts, but plausible as this might appear it is not based
on empirical comparison between the two settings. Nevertheless, the fact that non-
union representatives appear to believe that it is so may provide one opening for
trade unions—as providers of training and other expert services to non-union rep-
resentatives, as is currently happening in Australia with the emergence of new
enterprise-level non-union agreements between employers and employee represen-
tatives. However the dominant reason underlying the presumption that unionised
representatives would do a better job is that behind the union representatives lies
the union, with its power and authority. Even if in the 1980s and 90s these are
lesser than in earlier decades, they are still more than the non-union representative
has to call upon.
To return to the starting-point of this article, the argument is that ‘pure’ co-oper-
ation or consultation processes, ultimately at managerial discretion, with no access to
the ‘power-based’ resources that characterise the bargaining component of collective
relations between employers and employees, are fragile and, especially in the face of
adversity, ineffective means of representing employee interests. European experience
suggests further that legal rights and guarantees are themselves insufficient to pro-

28 Industrial Relations Journal  Blackwell Publishers Ltd. 1999.

vide effective employee representation; the expertise, co-ordination and mobilising
potential provided by strong trade unions is also necessary (Terry, 1994: 244–5). As
indicated above, there are grounds for believing that legal and other changes may
gradually start to confer rights that may be used as resources by employee represen-
tatives even in non-union settings. It is also possible that unions may be able, through
a recognition procedure or otherwise, to ‘capture’ some non-union structures. How-
ever, it is equally clear that in the present context of the UK it is the attitudes and
practices of managers that will powerfully influence developments. Are there
grounds for believing that these too might change?
Metcalf recently argued an unequivocal case. Using the WIRS3 data he stated

We have investigated the connection between the existence of a JCC, a weak works council, and
workplace performance. Given the hostility to the establishment of works councils shown by UK
employers our findings are remarkable. There is not one single unfavourable link between the
existence of a JCC and the various economic and industrial relations outcomes. Moreover on two
counts JCCs are favourably associated with performance. Other things being equal, a workplace
with a JCC has faster productivity growth and a better climate of industrial relations (Metcalf,
1995: 18)

While both union and non-union firms are included in this analysis, there is no
reason to doubt its general validity. Why then do the great majority of British
employers not only not take advantage of this approach voluntarily, but, as Metcalf
indicates, publicly vigorously resist even the mildest suggestions for legal support
for such processes? One answer can be found in Broad’s picture of DenkiCo, and it
can best be summed up in the view that British managers are unequivocally in favour
of systems of employee participation; they just draw the line at sharing any meaning-
ful information with them. As Broad suggests, many factors contribute to this culture
of managerial secrecy – career insecurity, payment and promotion systems, and lack
of training amongst them. However, there is evidence that management approaches
may be changing. A recent survey of 481 personnel and HR specialists revealed that
over a third approved of legislative propsals for compulsory works councils in firms
with over 50 employees and over a half in firms with over 250 (Industrial Society,
1998: 2). Other evidence suggests a more ambivalent approach. In some non-union
firms ACAS has been ‘surprisingly successful in establishing the idea of joint working
parties [as an aid to improving aspects of industrial relations]’ and management
‘express surprise’ at finding that their employees ‘have interesting and useful per-
spectives on the problem at hand’ (Kessler and Purcell, 1996: 677). But even these
successful innovations were ephemeral, dissolved by management after they had
done their job, even where this caused widespread employee disillusion. Patterns
of managerial secrecy and a preference for unilateral approaches quickly reassert
themselves. As long as they persist they will frustrate all attempts to introduce effec-
tive consultation rights on a voluntary basis, not least because the secrecy is at its
most marked in periods of economic difficulty and this is precisely the time at which
managers should be at their most open if they are to convince employees of their
commitment to participation and of its effectiveness.

Acknowledgement

The work on which this article is based was undertaken while the author was a
Visitor in the Department of Industrial Relations at the London School of Economics.
The author is grateful for the support and assistance he received from colleagues
there. Thanks are also due to Linda Dickens, Mark Hall and Paul Marginson for
characteristically helpful comments on an earlier draft, to Paul Gollan for stimulating
discussions, and for the detailed suggestions for improvement from two anony-
mous referees.

 Blackwell Publishers Ltd. 1999. Systems of collective employee representation 29

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