What Workers Say: Employee Voice in the Anglo-American Workplace / Edition 1

by Richard B. Freeman, Peter Boxall, Peter Haynes

Overview

This book brings together research in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia, and New Zealand to answer a series of key questions:

* What opportunities do employees in Anglo-American workplaces have to voice their concerns and what do they seek?

* To what extent, and in what contexts, do workers want greater union representation?

* How do workers feel about employer-initiated channels of influence? What styles of engagement do they want with employers?

* What institutional models are more successful in giving workers the voice they seek at workplaces?

* What can unions, employers, and public policy makers learn from these studies of representation and influence?

The research is based largely on surveys that were conducted as a follow-up to the influential Worker Representation and Participation Survey (WRPS) reported in What Workers Want, coauthored by Richard B. Freeman and Joel Rogers in 1999 and updated in 2006. Taken together, these studies authoritatively outline workers' attitudes toward, and opportunities for, representation and influence in the Anglo-American workplace. They also enhance industrial relations theory and suggest strategies for unions, employers, and public policy.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780801472817
Publisher:	Cornell University Press
Publication date:	07/10/2007
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	256
Product dimensions:	6.12(w) x 9.25(h) x 0.62(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Richard B. Freeman is Ascherman Professor of Economics at Harvard University, Codirector of the Labor and Worklife Program at the Harvard Law School, and Director of the Labor Studies Program at the National Bureau of Economic Research. He is also Senior Research Fellow in Labour Markets at the Centre for Economic Performance at the London School of Economics. He is the coauthor of What Workers Want, Updated Edition, also from Cornell. Peter Boxall is Professor of Human Resource Management at the University of Auckland. He is coauthor of Strategy and Human Resource Management and coeditor of The Oxford Handbook of Human Resource Management. Peter Haynes is a former senior trade union official. His research spans studies of worker representation and participation, union strategy, high-performance work systems, and service-sector human resource management.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments     vii
Introduction: The Anglo-American Economies and Employee Voice   Richard B. Freeman   Peter Boxall   Peter Haynes     1
Can the United States Clear the Market for Representation and Participation?   Richard B. Freeman     25
Say What? Employee Voice in Canada   Michele Campolieti   Rafael Gomez   Morley Gunderson     49
What Voice Do British Workers Want?   Alex Bryson   Richard B. Freeman     72
Employee Voice in the Irish Workplace: Status and Prospect   John Geary     97
Australian Workers: Finding Their Voice?   Julian Teicher   Peter Holland   Amanda Pyman   Brian Cooper     125
Employee Voice and Voicelessness in New Zealand   Peter Boxall   Peter Haynes   Keith Macky     145
Employee Voice in the Anglo-American World: What Does It Mean for Unions?   David Peetz   Ann Frost     166
Why Should Employers Bother with Worker Voice?   John Purcell   Konstantinos Georgiadis     181
What Should Governments Do?   Thomas A. Kochan     198
Conclusion: What Workers Say in the Anglo-American World   Peter Boxall   PeterHaynes   Richard B. Freeman     206
References     221
Contributors     237
Index     241

What People are Saying About This

Anil Verma

A century ago, concerns about worker voice led to the recognition of trade unions as institutions that give workers voice. Globalization and other changes in the socioeconomic environment have created new obstacles on the road to giving workers voice in their workplaces. With its innovative use of data to address issues that are of great relevance and importance to the future of prosperous and sustainable societies, What Workers Say opens up many new fronts for thinking about the practice and promise of realizing worker voice.

Mick Marchington

"What Workers Say is a very useful addition to the literature. In summarizing research across the Anglo-American world it is invaluable to students, scholars, and policymakers."

Editorial Reviews

What Workers Say examines the voice that employees have, and want, in the workplace and the role played by unions, employers, and governments in expanding, or restricting, that voice. The authors are interested in assessing and comparing what forms of employee voice are able to meet the needs and wants of workers in six nations: Australia, Britain, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand, and the United States.

-- "Work and Occupations"

Freeman, Boxall, and Haynes provide the results of comprehensive on employee voice and the implications of their findings for labor unions in six countries.... Of the countries studied, the US has the most rigid, outmoded form of employee voice. Highly recommended.

--G. E. Kaupins "Choice"

From the Publisher

"Freeman, Boxall, and Haynes provide the results of comprehensive on employee voice and the implications of their findings for labor unions in six countries.... Of the countries studied, the US has the most rigid, outmoded form of employee voice. Highly recommended."

Choice - G. E. Kaupins

"What Workers Say examines the voice that employees have, and want, in the workplace and the role played by unions, employers, and governments in expanding, or restricting, that voice. The authors are interested in assessing and comparing what forms of employee voice are able to meet the needs and wants of workers in six nations: Australia, Britain, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand, and the United States."

Work and Occupations

"What Workers Say is a very useful addition to the literature. In summarizing research across the Anglo-American world it is invaluable to students, scholars, and policymakers."

Mick Marchington

"A century ago, concerns about worker voice led to the recognition of trade unions as institutions that give workers voice. Globalization and other changes in the socioeconomic environment have created new obstacles on the road to giving workers voice in their workplaces. With its innovative use of data to address issues that are of great relevance and importance to the future of prosperous and sustainable societies, What Workers Say opens up many new fronts for thinking about the practice and promise of realizing worker voice."

Anil Verma