Conflict: Trends and Forms of Collective Action

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Conflict Trends and Forms of Collective Action

• John Kelly, Birkbeck
• The Changing Face of Employment Relations Over
  the Last 50 Years
• Manchester IRS, 21 Nov 2014

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Traditional questions about strikes

• Trends over time cycles and waves? quiescence?
• Strikes and non-strike sanctions changing
  balance?
• Variation across countries pattern stability?
  Links to VoC?
• Sectoral variation tertiarization and
  feminization?
• Major causal factors?
• labour and product market competition
• institutional erosion
• union density and organization
• actor policies
• Reliability of strike statistics.

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Median WDL/1000 workers N14 W Europe 1980-2006
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Non-strike actions GB 1980-2004 ( workplaces,
WERS)
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What we know of strike patterns

• Steep decline in strike days (Gall 2012 van der
  Velden 2007).
• But no evidence of corresponding rise in
  non-strike actions in GB, apart from strike
  ballots (Dix et al 2009 Godard 2011 ONS 2012).
• Cross-national convergence and country rankings
  fairly stable (Vandaele 2011).
• Manufacturing/services balance variable e.g.
  Germany vs UK (Vandaele 2011).
• Causal factors? Question marks about
  unemployment.
• Continuing doubts about labour statistics e.g.
  exclusions, large strikes, resource cutbacks
  (Gall 2012 Lyddon 2007).

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Shifting repertoires of contention?

• Decline of union density and organizational
  capacity fewer resources for both strikes and
  traditional actions short of a strike e.g.
  overtime ban, work to rule.
• Reduced bargaining coverage shrinking
  opportunity structures through which to pressure
  employers.
• But declining conflict at work does not entail
  decline in conflict about work.
• Are we seeing a shift to different forms of
  action? By different actors? And targeted at
  different adversaries?
• Sources Gall Hebdon (2008) Kelly (1998).

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Varieties of collective action

• Coalition building between unions and civil
  society organizations e.g. Living Wage campaigns
  (Holgate, Wills).
• Political lobbying of key decision makers e.g.
  anti-academy protests in education (Muna)
  anti-austerity protests in local government
  (Joyce).
• Online petitions and social media
• https//www.change.org/p/john-lewis-jlcustserv-pay
  -cleaners-the-living-wage
• https//www.coworker.org/petitions/let-us-have-vis
  ible-tattoos
• Occupations of public spaces in austerity
  protests.
• General strikes and demonstrations (Hamann et al
  2013).

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General strikes, W Europe, N17 countries, 147
strikes, 1980-2014
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Research questions

• What forms of action are undertaken by which
  groups around which issues and against which
  adversaries?
• Do recent varieties of collective action
  represent a recession-induced shift in behaviour?
  Or a longer-term response to union decline and/or
  to neo-liberalism?
• What do we know about, and how do we explain, the
  outcomes of these, and traditional forms of
  collective action?

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Strikes from DV to IV

• Strike as social pathology hence studies of
  causes, incidence, variation and trends.
• Strike as collective action what are the
  outcomes for the strikers and consequences for
  their adversaries?
• Outcomes substantive bargaining power
  organizational capacity (Weil 1997).
• Substantive strike outcome data UK ceased in
  1935.
• General strikes concessions in 35 of 92 strikes
  1980-2013 BUT concession rate significantly lower
  since 2008.

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Strikes from DV to IV

• Bargaining power strike effects on subsequent
  negotiations.
• Capacity membership, activists, structure.
• PCS regression analysis of strikes and
  membership 2007-13 shows significant ve impact
  of strikes on membership. Net recruitment c28
  higher in strike months compared to non-strike
  months BUT effect is weakening over time (Hodder
  et al 2014).

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Strike consequences

• What are the links between strike and protest
  waves and the restructuring of class
  representation in the political system?
• Early and late 1970s strike waves UK
  polarization of Labour and Conservative parties
  and Labour split.
• Mid-late 2000s upsurge of general strikes in
  Italy and fragmentation and decline of the Left.
• Late 2000s general strikes and protests in
  Greece the collapse in vote share of PASOK and
  New Democracy and the rise of SYRIZA.

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Sources

• Strikes
• AU, DK, FIN, FR, GE, IRL, IT, NE, NO, POR, SP,
  SWE, SWITZ, UK
• Bird, D. (1991) International comparisons of
  labour disputes in 1989 and 1990, Employment
  Gazette, 99(12) 653-658, Table 1.
• Davies, J. (2001) International comparisons of
  labour disputes in 1999, Labour Market Trends,
  109(4) 195-201, Table 1.
• Hale, D. (2008) International comparisons of
  labour disputes in 2006, Economic and Labour
  Market Review, 2(4) 32-39, Table 1.
• General strikes
• EU15 plus NO, SWITZ
• Hamann, Johnston, Kelly database.