Suchergebnisse

This article explores recent trade union efforts in Ireland to re-engage activists and members and promote revitalization following the termination of a 22-year period of tripartite social partnership. It analyses four case studies of major unions' strategies to involve activists and members in a workplace-anchored model of firm-level collective bargaining. The findings indicate that decentralized bargaining has become the preferred model of pay determination for Irish unions, and they express little interest in returning to national-level centralized bargaining. Union leaders are enthusiastic about company-level bargaining primarily for three reasons. First, it revitalizes unions by sustaining and expanding union membership at the workplace. Second, it supports local bargaining arrangements that produce tangible benefits for workers, showcasing the effectiveness of unions in advocating for their members. Third, workplace arrangements enhance union influence over management decision-making, both directly through firm-level collective bargaining and indirectly by fostering incentives for continuous dialogue and information exchange.

Abstract
This paper reviews human resource management (HRM) reforms in the Irish public service over the past twenty-five years. The narrative is based around five HRM themes which have been the main focus of public service reform efforts: performance management, public service careers, leadership, strategic HRM and employment relations. The paper examines all available independent empirical research as well as internal and external reviews commissioned by the public service. The paper contributes to the empirical literature on HRM in the public service and in Ireland, and locates the pattern of HRM reform in the public service in Ireland in comparative context. The paper concludes by noting that while progress has been made, further energy is required in respect of HRM reform.

The international literature on the economic and fiscal crisis that heralded the Great Recession emphasizes the negative effects of 'disorganized decentralization' on unions' capacities for pay coordination and ultimately on their effectiveness in representing their members. These effects are seen as particularly pronounced in countries on the 'European periphery' such as Ireland. The article challenges this view by showing how the collapse of social partnership and centralized bargaining in Ireland was soon followed in the private sector by a new form of coordinated decentralized pattern bargaining. Coordinated sectoral bargaining emerged and was sustained in the public service. The durability of pay coordination is attributed to the strategic postures of unions, combined with embedded features of industrial relations institutions. The comparative import of the Irish case arises less from 'disorganized decentralization' than from the resilience of coordination following one of the most severe economic and fiscal shocks experienced by any advanced economy.

Pay coordination is a subject of continuing interest in industrial relations, especially achieved through networks and as a feature of social pacts. Yet few empirical studies have examined the issue in a systematic way. This article examines how pay was coordinated to contain second-tier bargaining and pay drift under Irish social partnership at the peak of the Irish economic boom in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Drawing on case studies of collective bargaining in the building construction and pharmaceutical manufacturing sectors, the article examines the relevance of a series of mechanisms of network-based pay coordination in containing second-tier pay bargaining and potential economy-wide pay drift.

This article examines the work and roles of HR managers in the Irish recession. It tests the validity of three competing views about the future of HR: that the profession needs to become a business partner; that it is knee-deep in a legitimacy crisis; and that it is fragmenting by being unable to cope with the complexity of modern organizational life. Three key findings emerge from the research. First, HR managers have gained greater influence in business decision-making, but much of this influence arises from short-run retrenchment measures. Second, many HR managers remain committed to long established professional values and ideas of good practice. Third, modern HR managers are developing a professional identity that allows them to perform multiple, competing roles. These findings challenge existing arguments about the effects of the current recession. They also speak to ongoing debates about changing HR roles by showing how HR managers remain adept at making pragmatic adaptations to secure their role in organizational life.

The issue of concession bargaining between employers and unions during the Great Recession has received little attention in the research literature. This article presents a systematic analysis of the conduct of concession bargaining during the recession in Ireland in the context of three forms of concession bargaining identified in the international literature: integrative concession bargaining, distributive concession bargaining and ultra concession bargaining – each with different but overlapping sets of institutional foundations and implications for employers and trade unions. Drawing on focus groups of managers and union officials and a representative survey of employers, the article shows that distributive concession bargaining has been the predominant form in the Irish recession. This form of concession bargaining is likely to have few lasting direct effects on employer or union roles in collective bargaining but nevertheless appears to have significant indirect implications for the silent marginalization of unions in workplaces.