Abstract
This article addresses debates in contemporary industrial relations about practical application of pluralism. We compare the potential efficacy of ‘radical-pluralism’ and ‘neo-pluralism’. Data comes from analysis of employment relationships in two unionised public transport sector organisations, in the comparative country contexts of the UK and Republic of Ireland. It is argued that radical-pluralist framing of the employment relationship is better equipped than neo-pluralism to provide deeper and contextually sensitive understandings of the realities of unequal employment relationships. Desired (pluralist) democratic values differ from real world application of joint regulation (praxis). This raises implications regarding constraints on state regulation and public policy goals institutionalising pluralism as fluid and uneven praxis.
Highlights
This article addresses debates in contemporary industrial relations about practical application of pluralism
Pluralism has been a dominant concept in public policy prescriptions regulating employment systems (e.g. Donovan Commission, 1968), and a frame of reference long contested by industrial relations (IR) scholars (Hyman, 1978)
This section uses empirical cross-country data from BusCo and RailCo to test the pluralist frame of reference under three specific interrelated themes: (1) contextualising employment relations, (2) asymmetrical power relations and (3) structured antagonism
Summary
‘Frames of reference’ have attracted considerable debate in contemporary industrial relations literature (Ackers, 2014, 2019; Budd, 2020; Budd and Bhave, 2019; Cullinane, 2016; Edwards, 2014; Heery, 2016a). Radical-pluralists recognise alternative ways of managing employment relations, identifying various public policy interventions aimed at advancing good employment relations (e.g. see Sisson, 2016, 2020) This includes, for example, conditions required for workplace compromises to endure (Belanger and Edwards, 2007; Dobbins and Dundon, 2017); policy changes required to enhance mutual gains from employee information and consultation regulations (Dobbins et al, 2017); job quality (Findlay et al, 2017; Sisson, 2016); workers’ rights (Sisson, 2020) and worker-owned cooperatives (Wren, 2020). The essence of a radical-pluralist approach regarding public policy possibilities is more realistic than neo-pluralism, in terms of remaining conscious of structural constraints on sustaining cooperative workplace bargains within contemporary capitalist economies, especially LMEs like the UK This is because the radicalpluralist sees the employment relationship embedded within an increasingly dysfunctional marketised system. Themes were reviewed, combined and eliminated, generating three core themes, illustrated in the findings
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