Statutory Regulation and Employment Relations ― The Impact of Statutory Trade Union Recognition

A comprehensive socio-legal evaluation of the 2000 statutory recognition procedure over ten years of its operation, in the context of UK labour law, changing work relationships, the dissipation of collective bargaining and union membership decline. The authors of this volume consider how far it has provided a template for the incursion of the law into industrial relations, with voluntarism no longer a dominant model in UK industrial relations, and how far it has encouraged a more limited form of joint regulation. They also reflect on how the procedure has shaped union strategies and on whether it creates the conditions for worker mobilisation. The central trend has been the decline in applications and whilst the design and operation of the procedure may discourage unions from submitting claims and permit employers to undermine the process, its impact is also influenced by union capacity to generate cases, something defined by wider economic, social and political relationships.

Sian Moore is Professor of Work and Employment Relations at the Centre for Employment Studies Research (CESR), Bristol Business School, the University of West of England, UK.
Sonia Mckay is Professor of European Socio-Legal Studies at the Working Lives Research Institute, London Metropolitan University, UK.
Sarah Veale is Head of the Equality and Employment Rights Department at the Trade Union Congress, UK.