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UNIONS AND SKILLS UTILISATION

This overview explores the role of trade unions in promoting skills utilisation and addresses the need for a long-term strategy to meet skills supply and demand. It examines the principles and reality of high involvement work practices (HIWPs) and highlights the potential benefits of unions championing the HIWP agenda. The article also suggests ways for unions to think ahead, including expanding participation, focusing on training and research, and learning from experiences in Scandinavia.

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UNIONS AND SKILLS UTILISATION

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  1. UNIONS AND SKILLS UTILISATION Francis Green

  2. Overview • "Skills utilisation": a new policy orientation, as part of a long-term strategy for skills supply and demand • what role has been envisaged for trade unions; how might this be taken forward?

  3. Origin & problem • evidence of increasing under-employment, in the sense of making insufficient use of the qualifications being gained • relatively low employer demand for more-educated workers in Britain • UK employers quite slow in adopting HIWPs

  4. HIWPs 1: the principles • harnessing creativity/ problem-solving • practices include: • regular meetings; suggestion schemes, participating appraisal schemes, quality improvement circles; pay for performance; emphasis on quality recruitment and skills enhancement; high skills utilisation • varied fit: good for complex and dynamic places • win-win argument

  5. HIWPs 2: the reality • limited advance of practices • declining levels of workplace autonomy

  6. Autonomy in British Workplaces

  7. Task Discretion in Britain, 1992-2006 Source: UK Skills Surveys

  8. Unions and HIWPs • What impact on whether they are introduced? • neutral in practice • What have been unions' effects in cases where HIWPs were introduced? • older study implies positive interactive effects on wages and on productivity • but we don't really know overall

  9. The skills utilisation strategy • Project: • lit. review; case studies; measurement project; policy review • Strategy: • to orient, prioritise and integrate services for employers, in order to promote the use of HIWPs • not a new policy recommendation; different across 4 nations; different emphases of the new government

  10. Unions' envisaged role • micro level: partnerships (as in case studies) • macro level: involvement of TUC, STUC, ACAS in the policy review process • indirect: • RDAs; through TUC's contacts with employers etc "championing" the HIWP agenda ; through unions directly influencing employers' demand for skills

  11. Thinking ahead • Context: large potential benefits • the Commission: delineate better the potential positive contribution of unions? • unions • seize opportunities for expanded participation • focus more training and research on skills utilisation issues • include skills utilisation issues/HIWPs in training programmes for union officials and shop stewards? • invest in some union-oriented research around issues of job design, links to well-being, H&S etc; learning from Scandinavia?

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