Re‐Examining Joint Consultation: Attitudes and Perceptions of White‐Collar Shop Stewards and Union Members

Abstract

Many writers have suggested that the concept of joint consultation is outdated in Britain, no longer appropriate in the light of other changes in industrial relations practice. McCarthy, for example, has argued that joint consultation machinery at plant level has been upstaged by the growth of shop steward organisation and workplace bargaining. Further, Clegg has criticised joint consultation committees (JCC's) for contributing little to workplace industrial democracy; more recently, King and Van de Vall have echoed this sentiment, arguing that JCC's in Britain became ineffective due to a lack of decision‐making powers and a remit covering too limited a span of issues. Evidence of the widespread nature of this criticism is indicated by the decline in numbers of JCC's during the nineteen fifties and sixties. In a large‐scale survey published in 1952 by the National Institute of Industrial Psychology, consultation committees between management and employee and/or union representatives were found to be operating in 73 per cent of firms. In a similar survey carried out in the late 1960s, however, Clarke and his colleagues found this figure to have fallen to 32 per cent.