The gender representation gap: implications for workplace union effectiveness

• Author: Gill Kirton,Anne‐marie Greene,Amy Humphris,Maria Koumenta
• Date: 01 January 2021
• Published date: 01 January 2021
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/irj.12316

The gender representation gap: implications

for workplace union effectiveness

Anne-marie Greene,*Gill Kirton,

Maria Koumenta and Amy Humphris

ABSTRACT

This article investigates how the gender of workplace representatives has implications

for three dimensions of union effectiveness: (i) responsiveness to members,

(ii) opportunity to inf‌luence management and (iii) ability to bring about change.

Utilising original analysis of the 2011 Workplace Employment Relations Study, we

examine three core elements of workplace employment relations processes that cut

across the three dimensions: (i) workplace representation processes and employer

support for union activity; (ii) substantive areas of representative involvement and

(iii) quality of relations between union representatives and management, and between

union representatives and employees. Our analysis highlights signif‌icant gender

differences embedded in all three processes. The conclusion considers the broader

implications of these f‌indings for the gender equality project of British trade unions,

beyond the objective of merely seeking to increase the numbers of women

representatives.

1 INTRODUCTION

Despite the undeniable weakening of unions over the last 30 years (Darlington, 2010),

the resilience of workplace union presence in the United Kingdom is notable particu-

larly in the public sector (van Wanrooy et al., 2013). The Trades Union Congress

(TUC, 2017) estimates that there are 170,000 workplace union representatives in

the United Kingdom and nearly half of employees (46 per cent) are located in a work-

place with at least one on-site union representative (Van Wanrooy et al., 2013). How-

ever, since the mid-1990s, the dynamics of union representation at workplace level has

not received the same level of attention in the literature as formerly or as much as

national level strategies and structures (Darlington, 2010; Murray et al., 2013). Where

workplace unionism is studied, it tends to be in connection with the union renewal de-

bate and mobilising member activism (e.g. Calveley and Healy, 2003; Le Capitaine

et al., 2013; McBride, 2009; Peetz and Pocock, 2009), or local organising/leadership

(e.g. Darlington, 2010; Greene et al., 2000; Peetz and Pocock, 2009; Simms, 2013),

❒Anne-marie Greene, Centre for Sustainable Work and Employment Futures (CSWEF), School of

Business, University of Leicester, Leicester, UK, Gill Kirton, Centre for Research in Equality and

Diversity (CRED), School of Business and Management, Queen Mary University of London, London,

UK, Maria Koumenta, School of Business and Management, Queen Mary University of London,

London, UK and Amy Humphris, Bristol Business School, University of the West of England, Bristol,

UK. Correspondence should be addressed to Anne-marie Greene, Professor of Work, Employment and

Diversity, Centre for Sustainable Work and Employment Futures (CSWEF), School of Business,

University of Leicester, Leicester, UK. E-mail: ag485@leicester.ac.uk

Industrial Relations Journal 52:1, 40–63

ISSN 0019-8692

© 2021 Brian Towers (BRITOW) and John Wiley & Sons Ltd

rather than the everyday activities of workplace representation per se. While the turn

to national strategies and union renewal, especially around the concept and practice

of ‘organising unionism’, is understandable given the overall union membership crisis

in many countries, the reality for most union members is that workplace representa-

tion is what matters most (Darlington, 2010; Hyman, 1997). Thus, workplace unions

are not only sites for recruiting new members (Simms, 2013), they are also critical to

union effectiveness in the context of decentralised bargaining and consultation

(Bryson and Forth, 2010; Greene et al., 2000; Hyman, 1997), as well as arguably

the means for transforming or renewing trade unionism in a substantive sense includ-

ing most crucially for our focus in this article, gender representativeness (Le Capitaine

et al., 2013; Murray et al., 2013; Peetz and Pocock, 2009).

On the latter point, it has been observed many times that the stereotypical

union representative of the 1960s and 1970s in the United Kingdom was a White

middle-aged man employed in blue collar work, which to a large extent ref‌lected

male predomination of the industrial heartlands of the union movement (e.g.

Charlwood and Forth, 2009). Despite the 1970s seeing the spread of workplace

union representation to white collar workers in both public and private services

(i.e. areas where women workers were numerous), in 1980 when the WERS

(then called WIRS) series began, 77 per cent of senior workplace representatives

were male. Moving forwards, headline f‌igures from analysis of the 2011 (and last)

WERS (Van Wanrooy et al., 2013) indicate that women still remain under-

represented among workplace representatives, especially relative to their now

majority share of membership (BEIS, 2020). The majority (66 per cent) of senior

workplace representatives were male by WERS 2011 (Van Wanrooy et al., 2013),

and moreover, the male share had increased from 56% in WERS 2004

(Kersley et al., 2006).

Female inclusion in workplace representation structures is important; however on

its own, it is not likely to be suff‌icient in achieving positive outcomes for female

workers in particular and the union movement more generally. Thanks to the body

of largely qualitative literature, we now know much about the dynamics of women’s

participation in national union structures including their union orientations, activities

and their agenda priorities (e.g. Colgan and Ledwith, 2000; Kirton and Healy, 2013).

Far less is known, and there is much less debate, about women’s involvement in

workplace union activities. In this article, we explore whether the gender of the

representative has signif‌icance in aspects of three main employment relations

processes that speak to workplace union effectiveness: (i) management support for

union activity and workplace representation; (ii) substantive areas of workplace rep-

resentative involvement in negotiations/consultations and (iii) quality of relationship

between workplace representatives and management, and workplace representatives

and employees.

The workplace representative questionnaire within WERS 2011 is an important but

arguably underutilised source of information on employment relations structures and

processes in the British workplace (Millward et al., 2016). The comprehensive report

by Charlwood and Angrave (2014) is a notable exception; however, the analysis

within this is not disaggregated by gender. Therefore, our article represents one of

the only systematic analyses of this data set specif‌ically from a gender perspective

on these aspects of workplace union activities. We contribute to the literature on

workplace unionism by examining the ramif‌ications of the gender representation

gap for workplace governance and employment relations and hence union

41The gender representation gap and union effectiveness

© 2021 Brian Towers (BRITOW) and John Wiley & Sons Ltd