Equality bargaining a review

1. Equality bargaining a review Edmund Heery Cardiff Business School

2. Origins • Trevor Colling & Linda Dickens: Equality Bargaining – Why Not? EOC (1989) • Definition • Inclusion of issues of particular concern to women • Equality awareness in handling bargaining agenda • Equality dimension to negotiation of change • Relative absence (& discriminatory clauses) • Conservatism & parochialism of bargaining • Absence of bargainers attuned to equality

3. Subsequent research • Equality bargaining revisited • Colling & Dickens (1999) • Increased equality bargaining • Reasons • Crisis: ‘union business case’ • Opportunity: European law; New Labour • Pressure: feminization of union membership, activism & governance

4. Subsequent research • Gender democracy • Anne McBride (2001) • Limited influence of equality structures over bargaining • Bifurcation of bargaining & democratic channels within union governance • Sword of Justice • David Metcalf (2005) • Measurement of union wage effects • Higher wage effects for women, part-timers & minorities • Persistence of gap despite declining bargaining power

5. Cardiff Study • Equality bargaining: where, who, why? • Objectives • Measure bargaining on equal pay • Identify bargainers, contexts & influences • Survey (2002) • 585 union officers (42%) • 19 unions • Negotiation on 15 items in ‘last 3 years’

6. Cardiff study • Findings • Modest incidence • Access to information on gender pay rates (45%) • Introduction of equal value JE (42%) • Training in equal pay for lay reps (42%) • Revision of existing JE scheme (37%) • Written equal pay policy (34%) • Regrading of women-dominated jobs (32%) • Written equal pay audit/review (29%)

7. Cardiff study • Findings • Bargaining context • Public administration (not health or education) • Personal service & part-time workers (not women) • Centralized bargaining • Influenced by ublic policy & employment law • Bargainer characteristics • Younger but also experienced • Committed & trained but not female • Influenced by specialist officers & committees

8. Equality bargaining & equality law • Voluntarist tradition (mid-C20th) • Bifurcated (and gendered) system of job regulation • Collective bargaining • Primary means of setting wages & conditions for organized workers • Male-dominated: members, bargainers, agenda • Protective employment law • Restrictions on hours; minimum wages • Targeted at ‘hard to organize’ groups • Women disproportionately covered.

9. Equality bargaining & equality law • Post-voluntarist system (C21st) • Hybrid form of job regulation • Partial integration of individual statute law & collective bargaining • Pattern bargaining • Diffusion of strategic cases through bargaining • Statutes as bargaining platforms • Exceeding minima through collective agreements • Statutes as bargaining levers • Threat of legal action/non-compliance

10. Cardiff study • Union representation of part-time workers • Survey of trade unions 2001 • Findings • Use of bargaining • Audit of agreements (18%); commitment to pro rating (52%); training for bargainers (29%); tailored agreements (36%) • Use of legal/political action • Test case (25%); specialist legal advice (23%); response to government consultation (21%); lobbying UK (25%); lobbying EU (11%) • Positive association • High correlation between bargaining & legal scales (.75), controlling for union size

11. Conclusion • Equality bargaining • Unions respond to opportunities in their environment but push factors internal to unions help generate action • Equality law • Emergence of hybrid form of reprsentation in which bargaining supplements legal action & vice versa