The Commission on Industrial Relations in Britain 1969–74: A retrospective and prospective evaluation

Employee Relations

Volumn 18, Issue 4, 1996, Pages 6-96

  Kessler, Sid ^a   Palmer, Gill ^b  

^a CITY UNIVERSITY   (United Kingdom)

^b UNIVERSITY OF WOLLONGONG   (Australia)

Author keywords

Collective bargaining; Industrial relations; Procedures; Professional associations; Trade unions; United Kingdom

Indexed keywords

EID: 84986165674     PISSN: 01425455     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1108/01425459610125384     Document Type: Article

References (48)

1. Palmer (1985, 1986) gives a condensed version of her thesis and Palmer (1989) developed this theme in a comparative context.
2. This nomenclature was subsequently changed to Assistant Secretary (and still later to Director), to Senior Industrial Relations Officer (SIRO) and to Industrial Relations Officer (IRO).
3. Occasionally, where a reference was particularly large or complex, an additional SIRO might be added to the team, as might additional IROs. Indeed, in most references whose attitude surveys were carried out, it was necessary to use additional IROs to carry out interviews during the period of the survey. In general references, which usually involved a considerable number of case studies, use was made on a short-term basis of industrial relations academics.
4. In Place of Strife (1969) also proposed that the forthcoming Industrial Relations Bill would provide for a trade union development scheme, administered by the CIR, whereby grants and loans would be made available to trade unions for a number of purposes, for example, assistance for trade union mergers, the expansion of training for trade union officials, including shop stewards, and the development of union research facilities (paragraphs 71-5). The Bill was never enacted, however, and consequently the CIR was never involved in any such scheme.
5. In Place of Strife (1969, paragraphs 39-41), following a Donovan Commission recommendation, stated that the Government would set up a register of collective agreements which would be kept by DEP. Registration was voluntary and, in the first instance, all companies and undertakings employing more than 5,000 were invited to register their procedural agreements. It was intended that DEP would use the registered agreements to ascertain where improvements were most needed and where to take appropriate follow-up action.
6. The National Union of Seamen and Equity adopted the same policy in order to seek “approved closed shop” agreements. The Bakers’ Union also registered in order to. conclude an industry-wide “agency shop” agreement to maintain the position established by a post-entry closed shop in an industry with high labour turnover.
7. There was a fifth S51 reference involving the Estate Duty Office of the Inland Revenue. The Association of Scientific, Technical and Managerial Staff (ASTMS) was trying to get a foothold in the Civil Service and used some disenchanted members of the Institution of Professional Civil Servants (IPCS) - now Institution of Professionals, Managers and Specialists (IPMS) -to force a reference. The CIR drafted a report which IPCS did not altogether like, although it was basically favourable to it. It tried to secure certain changes to it which the CIR did not accept. IPCS then went to the Chancery Division of the High Court, first to stop the ballot ordered by NIRC and, second, to amend the draft report. It failed on the first count, but on the second the judge decided that the CIR had no power to publish a report on a S51 reference because the 1971 Act did not require the CIR to do so. He added that, if he was wrong about that, the report itself was a perfectly good one. The resultant ballot resulted in a majority in favour of the continued recognition of the IPCS as sole bargaining agent.
8. The TUC objected to the CIR view that there were some aspects of shop stewards’ training which were matters of joint concern to unions and employers and that the training of shop stewards could be divided into “industrial relations” training on the one hand and “union” training on the other. According to the TUC's 1973 Annual Report “Workplace representatives were union officers and acted as such at all times. The organisational functioning of unions was inseparable from their representative negotiating or consultative functions. Since the role of workplace representatives was indivisible, the training needed to enable them to perform that role more efficiently was likewise indivisible” (TUC, 1973, paragraph 232). he responsibility for the training of union workplace representatives, therefore, should rest with the trade union movement alone.
9. Bain, G.S. (1971, “Management and white-collar unionism”, in Kessler, S. and Weekes, B. (Eds), Conflict at Work, BBC, London.
10. CIR (1970, First General Report, No. 9, Cmnd 4417, HMSO, London.
11. CIR (1972, Second General Report, No. 25, HMSO, London.
12. CIR (1973, Annual Report for 1972, No. 37, HMSO, London.
13. CIR (1974a, Trade Union Recognition: CIR Experience, HMSO, London.
14. CIR (1974b, Final Report 1974, No. 90, HMSO, London.
15. CIR (1974c, Annual Report for 1973, No. 65, HMSO, London.
16. Clegg, H.A. (1975, “Pluralism in industrial relations”, British Journal of Industrial Relations, Vol. XIII, No. 3, pp. 309-16.
17. Department of Employment (1972, Industrial Relations Code of Practice, HMSO, London.
18. Donovan Commission (1968, Royal Commission on Trade Unions and Employers’ Associations Report, Cmnd 3623, HMSO, London.
19. Donovan Commission Research Paper No. 7 (1967, Employers’ Associations, HMSO, London.
20. Flanders, A. (1964, The Fawley Productivity Agreements: A Case Study of Management and Collective Bargaining, Faber, London.
21. Flanders, A. (1965, Industrial Relations: What is Wrong with the System? An Essay on its Theory and Future, Faber, London.
22. Flanders, A. (1967, Collective Bargaining: Prescription for Change, Faber & Faber, London.
23. Fox, A. (1966, Industrial Sociology and Industrial Relations, Donovan Commission Research Paper No. 3, HMSO, London.
24. Fox, A. (1973, “Industrial relations: a social critique of pluralist ideology”, in Child, J. (Ed.), Man and Organisation, Allen & Unwin, London.
25. Fox, A. and Flanders, A. (1969, “The reform of collective bargaining: from Donovan to Durkheim”, British Journal of Industrial Relations, Vol. 11 No. 2, pp. 151-80.
26. In Place of Strife (1969), Cmnd 3888, HMSO, London.
27. James, B. (1977, “Third party intervention in recognition disputes: the role of the CIR”, Industrial Relations Journal, Vol. 8 No. 2, pp. 29-40.
28. Jenkins, P. (1970, The Battle of Downing Street, Charles Knight, London.
29. Kessler, I. and Purcell, J. (1994, “Joint problem solving and the role of third parties: an evaluation of the ACAS advisory work”, Human Resource Management Journal, Vol. 4 No. 2, pp. 1-21.
30. Kessler, S. (1993, “Procedures and third parties”, British Journal of Industrial Relations, Vol. 30 No. 2, pp. 211-25.
31. Kessler, S. (1995, “Trade union recognition: CIR and ACAS experience”, Employee Relations, Vol. 17 No. 6, pp. 52-66.
32. Kessler, S. and Palmer, G. (1975, “Reconsidering recognition”, Personnel Management, July, pp. 18-22.
33. McCarthy, W.E.J. (1971, “Changing bargaining structures”, in Kessler, S. and Weekes, B. (Eds), Conflict at Work, BBC, London.
34. Millward, N., Stevens, M., Smart, D. and Hawes, W.R. (1992, Workplace Industrial Relations in Transition, Dartmouth, Aldershot.
35. Ministry of Labour (1965, Written Evidence to the Donovan Commission, HMSO, London.
36. O’Brien, R. (1971, “Plant procedures and agreements - a case study”, in Kessler, S. and Weekes, B. (Eds), Conflict at Work, BBC, London.
37. Palmer, G. (1983, “The Commission on Industrial Relations and ‘voluntary’ procedural reform”, unpublished PhD thesis, City University, London.
38. Palmer, G. (1985, “Freiwilliges Korporatismus - Reformvorschlage der Donovan Kommission von 1986 unter Commission on Industrial Relations von 1969 bis 1974”, in Jacobi, O. and Kastendiek, H., Staat und Industrielle Beziehungen in Gross britannien, Campus, Frankfurt, pp. 101-21.
39. Palmer, G. (1986, “Donovan, the CIR and post-liberal rationalisation”, British Journal of Industrial Relations, Vol. XXIV No. 2, pp. 267-96.
40. Palmer, G. (1989, “Corporatism and Australian conciliation and arbitration”, in Macintyre, S. and Mitchell, R., Foundations of Arbitration: The Establishment of the Compulsory Arbitration System 1890-1914, Oxford University Press, Oxford, pp. 313-33.
41. Poole, M. and Mansfield, R. (1993, “Patterns of continuity and change in managerial attitudes and behaviour in industrial relations 1980-1990”, British Journal of Industrial Relations, Vol. 31 No. 1, pp. 11-35.
42. Purcell, J. (1979, “The lessons of the CIR's attempts to reform workplace industrial relations”, Industrial Relations Journal, Vol. 10 No. 2, pp. 4-22.
43. Purcell, J. (1981, Good Industrial Relations: Theory and Practice, Macmillan, London.
44. Purcell, J. (1987, “Mapping management styles in employee relations”, Journal of Management Studies, Vol. 24 No. 5, pp. 533-48.
45. Purcell, J. and Ahlstrand, B. (1994, Human Resource Management in the Multi-divisional Firm, Oxford University Press, Oxford.
46. Singleton, N. (1976, The Reform of Industrial Procedures, Department of Employment Manpower Paper No. 14, HMSO, London.
47. TUC (1973, Annual Report, TUC, London.
48. TUC (1995, Your Voice at Work, TUC, London.