Employee Relations - Voluntarism Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Employee Relations - Voluntarism - Essay Example In the United Kingdom, the basic areas of focus for the state have been on information dispersion and providing financial support and incentives for management action. (University of Bath, 2008) Now in the wake of numerous debates regarding the efficacy of the concept of indirect employee involvement and participation, voluntarism has not been promoted in certain cases in the United Kingdom. On the other hand, we see in some cases that the new trade union models are set to encourage voluntary cooperation. This essay is going to critically evaluate both scenarios with specific case studies. Nonunion employee representation (NER) and its independency from the governing authority typify the employee relations structure in the United Kingdom. (Kaufman et al, 2000:410) With the growth and development of service sectors in the country during the last 25 years or so, traditional industries became less operative, resulting in a steady decline in British union membership from 13 million in the early 1980s to 8 million in the late 1990s. Consequently, the need to introduce human relations and new wings of work organization was felt acutely as employers wanted to include dynamic business initiatives that would benefit both their interests as well as employee welfare. Looking into the context that preceded the provisions made in the 1999 Employee Relations Bill, one can clearly get an idea of the changing scenario in the late 1990s arising from the Trade Union Congress’ recommendation of a broad spectrum of individual and corporate rights at work into lawmaking. The concep t of voluntarism is not essentially circumscribed to state or legal interference in the union and management dealings, but should be expanded to take into consideration the relative freedom of employees and employers to improve the interrelationship. (Sisson, 1999) In relation with the thesis question, one might look into the fact