Workplace Partnership and Employee Voice in the UK: Comparative Case Studies of Union Strategy and Worker Experience

Abstract

This article addresses the role of ‘employee voice’ in workplace partnership. Drawing on two organizational case studies from the UK’s aerospace sector, it analyses employee experiences of two key dimensions of worker participation in partnership environments: joint consultation and union representation. Specifically, it investigates what consultation and union representation actually mean for employees in the context of different union responses to employer-driven partnership agendas. The article finds predominantly negative patterns of employee experience and attributes this partly to management control strategies and the short-termist dynamic of British manufacturing capital.