Workplace partnership and professional workers: ‘about as useful as a chocolate teapot’?

Abstract

The labour processes and employment relations that characterise the working conditions of many professional workers might be expected to generate the high-trust environment required for cooperative, partnership-style management–union relations. However, few studies have focused on partnership in ‘professional’ and ‘expert labour’ employment sectors. This paper assesses the efficacy of partnership through the lens of manager, union and employee attitudes at three cases studies notable for employing high numbers of staff in the professions and ‘marginal professions’. The analysis focuses on the nature of the cooperative relationship between union representatives and management (categorised as either ‘nurtured’ or ‘coerced partnership’), whether unions in these settings are able to expand the range and scope of their influence, and whether professional workers themselves display positive attitudes to cooperative union forms. The study finds that in all three cases the ‘partnership’ union is seen by its members as a weak, insubordinate entity in terms of collective influence over management policy though in the two ‘nurturing’ cases they see it to be more effective for individual member representation.