Employers' Organizations and the Territorial Divergence of Employment Relations in Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland

Abstract

Recent research identified 447 Employers’ Organizations (EOs) in the UK. Forty-one of these served employer interests exclusively in one of the nations of Wales and Scotland, or the region of Northern Ireland. This chapter examines these EOs, adding to the emerging literature on regional EOs by arguing that as the salience of bargaining fell throughout the UK, a new focus of employer organization emerged within devolved contexts. Territorial EOs responded to devolved governments that were often more sympathetic to labour interests than were UK Governments and pursued policies that impacted on territorial Employment Relations (ER) to create emerging but substantive divergences within UK-wide ER. Divergent policies combined with the scale of devolved governments as employers, funders, and procurers to prompt EOs to develop two new roles in addition to their provision of individual member services and residual bargaining activity; one was a lobbyist of devolved institutions on topics including those linked to ER, and the other was taking part in new structures to regulate industry specific elements of ER. Nevertheless, the UK Government retains jurisdiction over employment law in Scotland and Wales, precluding the development of fully divergent ER systems.