Mobilising for equality? Understanding the impact of grass roots agency and third party representation

• Published date: 01 January 2019
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/irj.12237
• Date: 01 January 2019

Mobilising for equality? Understanding the

impact of grass roots agency and third party

representation

Martin Beirne, Scott Hurrell and Fiona Wilson

ABSTRACT

Does mobilisation theory provide telling insights into the collective expression of

gendered grievances? By analysing the dynamics of activism on pay inequality in

the British local authority sector, this article offers a negative evaluation, calling for

a deeper understanding of grass roots agency and third-party representation beyond

the workplace.

1 INTRODUCTION

Last year marked the 20th anniversary of the publication of John Kelly’sinfluential

1998 book Rethinking Industrial Relations:Mobilisation,Collectivism and Long

Waves. This proposed a logical framework for systematically analysing the conditions

that together stimulate or curtail collective action. Building on Tilly’s (1977) more

general articulation of how social groups may engage in collective action, Kelly

presented mobilisation theory as a means of understanding the shifting fortunes and

progressive potential of organised labour. His approach to research on union

organising and worker activism continues to attract critical attention, and was

recently celebrated with a dedicated seminar at the University of Leeds and a special

issue of Economic and Industrial Democracy (Gall and Holgate, 2018).

Moving away from Tilly’s focus on mobilizing economic resources to further

group interests, Kelly aimed to unpack the social processes and dynamics of

mobilisation, according pivotal significance to grievance and injustice. He stressed

the importance of workers attributing injustice to employers (and occasionally gov-

ernments) and forming a collective social identity in response. Mobilising processes

also depend upon the leadership of union officials, however. According to the theory,

and most of the literature that has developed around it, employee feelings of injustice

are insufficient in themselves and must be actively framed and focused by union of-

ficials and local representatives (Cunningham, 2008; Darlington, 2009; Gajewska

and Niesyto, 2009; Manky, 2018; Wood, 2015). Their role is vital to ensure that

blame is attributed explicitly to the employer, and to galvanise aggrieved workers

into opposition from a shared conviction that collective action can change their

situation.

❒Martin Beirne, Adam Smith Business School, University of Glasgow, Glasgow, UK, Scott Hurrell,

Adam Smith Business School, University of Glasgow, Glasgow, UK and Fiona Wilson, Adam Smith

Business School, University of Glasgow, Glasgow, UK. Correspondence should be addressed to Martin

Beirne, Adam Smith Business School, University of Glasgow, Glasgow G12 8QQ, UK. E-mail: martin.

beirne@glasgow.ac.uk

Industrial Relations Journal 50:1, 41–56

ISSN 0019-8692

© 2019 Brian Towers (BRITOW) and John Wiley & Sons Ltd

As others have acknowledged (Cox et al., 2007; Cunningham, 2008; Darlington,

2018; Murphy and Turner, 2014), Kelly’s mobilisation theory promotes an integrated

appreciation of structural factors (including market, institutional and regulatory pres-

sures) and their effect on the struggles between employers and union activists. It also

provides a basis for applied research on the practicalities of union organising and

campaigning. Subsequent applications of mobilisation theory have focused heavily

on the respective strengths and limitations of union activism in particular settings.

These studies aim to draw lessons about viable ways of developing union capacity,

strategies and processes to increase overall union effectiveness (Gajewska and Niesyto,

2009; Gall, 2003; Kelly and Badigannavar, 2004; Simms, 2007; Wood, 2015).

Despite some critical reaction to the treatment of leadership in the original frame-

work (Fairbrother, 2005) and to the relative neglect of grass roots activism (Atzeni,

2009; Holgate et al., 2018), functional accounts of union enabling and capacity build-

ing predominate. The problems of mobilising that command attention tend to be

those of union officials and activists. These include threats to social identification

and group cohesion that emerge from the counter-mobilising activities of employers,

and the role of officials’and activists’in swaying reticent or fickle workers (Cox et al.,

2007; Cunningham, 2008; Kelly and Badigannavar, 2004). There is no real sense that

perceptions of grievance and injustice at work reach beyond employers to unions

themselves, their activists, strategies or negotiated agreements. Nor is there much

discussion of contradictory behaviour or union counter-mobilising alongside

employers—to the detriment of employee interests—even in accounts of ineffectual

organising. Such questions are, however, particularly pertinent when examining cases

of pay equality. Extant writing suggests that unions, through a lack of familiarity,

might fail to represent female dominated occupations at the bargaining table ade-

quately (Gilbert et al., 2012). Indeed, the contribution that unions have made to

pay equality is often evaluated more successfully in the academic literature than by

working women themselves (Beirne and Wilson, 2016; Poling, 2005).

These issues in equality bargaining suggest an element of myopia in neglecting

forms of representation beyond the formal union hierarchy. The mobilisation litera-

ture following Kelly is relatively light on the significance of grass roots and non-union

third party interventions to address injustice or demonstrable inequalities across

different sectors (Parsons and Priola, 2013). This is a key emerging issue around

gendered pay inequality, certainly at the micro-political level. Women are reacting

to persistent pay inequalities in more direct and innovative ways (Beirne and Wilson,

2016). They are more confident in expressing disenchantment with traditional forms

of representation, including union equality bargaining. A mobilisation theory that

fails to account for critical grass roots reaction to prevailing patterns of trade

unionism appears inadequate, especially if it deflects attention from the impact of

competing third party contributions. Given that traditional conceptions of union

mobilisation may not extend to equal pay disputes, the question arises as to whether

the theory is fundamentally about union growth and effective union representation,

or tackling injustice and disadvantage.

This article therefore argues that the time is ripe for a reappraisal of John Kelly’s

mobilisation theory. Reflecting upon the politics of equality activism in the British

local authority sector through a secondary case discussion, it highlights some

important limitations. Specifically, weaknesses are found with how the theory treats

the attribution of responsibility for injustice by workers, and the attention given to

union leaders as agents of positive change. The front line agency of disadvantaged

42 Martin Beirne, Scott Hurrell and Fiona Wilson

© 2019 Brian Towers (BRITOW) and John Wiley & Sons Ltd