Suchergebnisse

This article 'gives voice' to disabled employees by documenting their experiences of negotiating workplace adjustments under the terms of the UK's Disability Discrimination Act, 1995.This ad hoc process of 'negotiation' is explored through in-depth interviews that reveal persistent problems with the character of legislation and its implementation in public sector organizations. Negotiations on adjustments were characteristically highly individualized and outcomes almost entirely contingent upon the knowledge, attitudes and goodwill of poorly trained line managers. The adjustment process itself often led to instances of bullying by managers, resulting in stress and ill health among employees.An analysis of managers' behaviour in the context of wider debates on power and organizational decision-making concludes that, even where outcomes are positive for employees, managers still choose to abdicate responsibility in this area. Such behaviour represents a form of non-decision-making that is essentially political in character and has wider implications for equality agendas.

The adverse employment effects that attach to disability are empirically well established. They are large and persistent. This is a conceptual article that investigates the source of this deep and enduring employment disadvantage. Debate begins by examining the origins of ideas that have shaped approaches to work study and have influenced concepts of what constitutes an ideal worker. Drawing on feminist critiques of organisational analysis that have highlighted the gendered character of processes, practices and values, it explores the relatively neglected position of disabled employees. With reference to transcripts from four Employment Appeal Tribunals brought under the Disability Discrimination Act, it illustrates how standard jobs, designed around ideal (non-disabled) employees, create a mismatch between a formal job description and someone with an impairment. We suggest this mismatch is central to the organisation's resistance to implementing adjustments and also to any radical approaches to include impaired employees in the workplace.

This article explores whether there is merit in a lesbian educator being 'out' in the classroom or whether her orientation should be invisible. Only part of what we teach is our content; the other part involves acting as role models and giving students more effective tools to interact in a diverse world; as such the question of 'out' or not begs an answer. This article is a conversation between two lesbians teaching at a rural northern college in Alberta, Canada, discussing whether to be 'out' or not in the classroom.

This article analyses relations between trade unions and the elected regional government in Wales as a hybrid form of `new social partnership' to manage change, using the case study of public service reform. Welsh unions have been able to achieve both improved consultative status and some bargaining aims, partly due to a stronger confluence of formal and informal political linkages than is evident on the wider national scene. Nevertheless, unions face longer-term resource and political threats to their ability to engage with regional government and to maintain their levels of influence within a more heterogeneous network of consultative stakeholders.

This article considers the attitudes to the single currency of public service trade unions, illustrating this through a number of nationally based case studies. We examine claims about the impact of EMU on welfare states and public expenditure, and particularly the extent to which the governance of EMU attests a 'neoliberal', marketising approach towards the public sphere. We find that any such tendency has been offset by the recent resurgence of forms of national-level bipartite or tripartite economic and social coordination, managing the effects of EMU through social dialogue. The subsequent section of the paper develops a categorisation of four main trends evident in European public service trade unions'response to the single currency: enthusiasm, altruism, scepticism and resistance. The dominant attitude to date has been acceptance. We highlight dangers for democratic legitimacy within public sector unions in cases where leadership support for EMU has exceeded that of the membership, and indicate some potential areas for future public service union influence in the EMU.

Using case study evidence from an investigation of `quality' initiatives and working practices in three offices within a District of the Benefits Agency (BA), this article examines the contradictory role of new public management on employees. Decentralised management, performance related pay, teamwork philosophies and the promotion of a `customer' culture reflect a move away from a traditional civil service bureaucratic form of organisation. However, the implementation of change within local settings has brought about variations in local management approaches, work organisation and staff perceptions. The consequences of these are explored and we consider whether the BA's attempts to empower staff have been thwarted by a progressive intensification of workloads. Our research, by illustrating the importance of variations in local settings, warns of the dangers of evaluating institutional and employment change in the public sector as if it were the result of a coherent and consistent neo-liberal re-structuring strategy. Moreover, it examines reasons why some change initiatives have been unsuccessful. Finally, we identify a recent shift in emphasis within the BA which presages a move away from service quality to economy and draw some initial conclusions about the future impact on employment in this sector.