Industrial Relations Developments in NHS Trusts

In: Employee relations, Band 14, Heft 6, S. 33-44

Abstract

Looks at industrial relations developments in the "first
wave" of self‐governing trusts in the National Health Service. It
finds that many are departing from the NHS′s traditional industrial
relations model. There is a move from national to local bargaining and
the predominant pattern is single table bargaining, as opposed to
separate Whitley Councils for each functional group. In addition, to
simplify the complex traditional model, negotiations in many trusts will
be carried out effectively by representatives of only some of
the staff organizations with members in the trust. Moreover unitarist
exceptions to this still essentially pluralist pattern can be found in
trusts, with examples of no union recognition, a single union deal and
pay deals unilaterally determined by management.