Understanding continuity in public sector HRM through neo‐institutional theory: why national collective bargaining has survived in English local government

• Author: Peter Beszter,Peter Ackers,Donald Hislop
• Date: 01 July 2015
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/1748-8583.12051
• Published date: 01 July 2015

Understanding continuity in public sector HRM

through neo-institutional theory: why national

collective bargaining has survived in English local

government

Peter Beszter,Peter Ackers and Donald Hislop, Business and Economics School,

Loughborough University

Human Resource Management Journal, Vol 25, no 3, 2015, pages 364–381

Most HRM research over recent decades has concentrated on ‘change’, charting ever more fragmented,

individualised and unitarist employment relationships. This is equally true of public sector HRM, where

the emphasis has been on neo-liberalism and marketisation. However, in many countries and sectors,

collective, pluralist approaches to HRM and industrial relations have proved remarkably resilient. This

article uses Neo-Institutional theory to explain the ‘continuity’ of one such HRM system: national

collective bargaining in English local government (1979–2007). We argue that this survives because it

manages the political and managerial processes that link central government and central–local relations

and acts as a conduit between institutional stakeholders to deliver services to the public. By

understanding the ‘passive consensus’ that holds the collectivist HRM system together, we can anticipate

the forces that might pull it apart.

Contact: Dr Peter Frank Beszter, Business School, Staffordshire University, Stoke-on-Trent,

Staffordshire ST4 2DF, UK. Email: Peter.Beszter@staffs.ac.uk

Keywords: public sector; local government; collective bargaining

INTRODUCTION

Aneo-liberal and unitarist HRM often seems to have swept across the entire

contemporary world of work. Trade unions and collective forms of joint regulation are

in obvious decline, particularly in the US and UK. However, this retreat has been

uneven both between and within countries. Collective approaches to regulating wages and

conditions have remained strong within continental northern Europe, where strong traditions

of social partnership survive, while elsewhere certain industries, sectors and companies have

bucked the trend. A variety of broadly institutional theories have emerged to explain these

uneven developments and challenge the notion of some neo-liberal, unitarist convergence. At

a cross-national level, Hall and Soskice (2001) have incorporated employment policies into their

‘Varieties of Capitalism’ distinction between ‘liberal-market’ and ‘co-ordinated market’

economies. A range of other, related concepts, such as ‘path dependency’ and ‘institutional

isomorphism’ have been deployed to explain similar variations at the sub-national (or

transnational) level (e.g. Teague, 2009). Thus, to take the British example, while HRM through

collective bargaining has declined dramatically in the economy as a whole, the collectivist

approach remains strong, not only in the public sector but also in some surprising and strategic

parts of the private sector, such as Banking and Finance and many large manufacturing

companies. These tenacious continuities also require social science explanation.

We explore this question through a case study of English local government as a distinctive

collective HRM system within the broader British public sector. Looking at one major ‘leader’

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doi: 10.1111/1748-8583.12051

HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT JOURNAL, VOL 25 NO 3, 2015364

© 2014 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Please cite this article in press as: Beszter, P., Ackers, P. and Hislop, D. (2015) ‘Understanding continuity in public sector HRM through

neo-institutional theory: why national collective bargaining has survived in English local government’. Human Resource Management Journal 25:

3, 364–381.

city – as part of a larger sectoral study covering the period from 1979 until 2007 (see Beszter,

2012) – we try to understand why a centralised system of collective bargaining has survived the

dramatic political, economic and social changes of the past three decades, when similar systems

have collapsed elsewhere and collective bargaining has become a feature of only a minority of

British workplaces. Thus, only 16 per cent of UK private sector workplaces use collective

bargaining (Van Wanrooy et al., 2013). In English local government, by contrast, the national

collective bargaining framework remains the dominant form of pay determination: embracing

over 300 local authorities and 90 per cent of employees (see Brown and Nash, 2008; Local

Government Association, 2012). Our article does not focus on day-to-day peak-level process of

national bargaining but on explaining why most local authorities continue to ‘buy-in’ to the

national system. As we argue, the key actors here are large metropolitan ‘lead authorities’. So

long as the actors at this level support the system it is likely to survive. By drilling down to

these actors, we understand the roots of continuity. Other background interviews with national

actors and actors in other authorities allow us to reinforce this with a ‘firm-in-sector’ approach

(Smith et al., 1990) and to know these local actors are representative of a wider process.

It is not immediately obvious, moreover, why the national framework should survive in this

particular sector.1Indeed, there were several reasons to anticipate collapse. First, the system has

endured considerable political hostility. From 1979 to 1998, a strongly neo-liberal Conservative

national government was explicitly antagonistic to trade unions and collective bargaining.

Second, this resilience is not simply a shared public sector characteristic. While collective

bargaining has survived in other UK public services, centralised national agreements on wages

and conditions have often not. Third, survival is not based on some single, central choice. Local

authorities are independent, politically elected organisations, able to set their own terms and

conditions of employment. Many have been Conservative controlled for some period; yet

nearly all have remained within the national system. Finally, while some policy actors seem to

‘naturally’ support the status quo, notably public sector unions and local Labour politicians,

their adherence alone is insufficient to explain continuity. A host of other actors – general

unions, Conservative and Liberal politicians, HRM and operational managers, national

government – are necessary ingredients to the policy cement that has held together this

collective HRM system.

In this sense, national bargaining in English local government is about far more than an

economic exchange between employer and employee. Rather, it involves all the political and

social processes that shape the conduct of local government; and on which the various

institutional actors mutually depend to promote and further their own individual

organisational objectives. This raises one central question, which could be applied to any

similar study of institutional continuity in the private or public sector, anywhere: why do

specific institutional actors support the system and what is the strength of their commitment

to it? This answer to this question tells us what holds the current collective HRM system

together – and what might possibly pull it apart.

All change? Neo-liberal marketisation in the British public sector

Most public sector HRM research is silent about the dynamics of continuity. Directed at the

organisational level, studies mainly address the impact of central government reform, with a

strong emphasis on ‘change’. They stress the distinct approach of public sector employment

relations as a whole (Freedman and Morris, 1989; Barratt, 2009; Matthews, 2010), its historical

background (Pollitt, 1993; Hunt, 2004; Wood, 2010), the blurring of the public/private sector

divide (Roper et al., 2005), decentralisation (Kirkpatrick and Hoque, 2005; Bach and Kessler,

2012), the growth of flexibility (Rubery et al., 2002; Cunningham, 2011), the erosion of

Peter Beszter, Peter Ackers and Donald Hislop

HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT JOURNAL, VOL 25 NO 3, 2015 365

© 2014 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.