UK Employment Relations: CIPD & WERS Survey Findings

Introduction: Union-Management Relations in the CIPD 2011 Survey

The relationship between unions and management is generally positive. According to the CIPD Employment Relations Survey Report 2011, approximately 55% of respondents described their relationship with unions as positive, 30% described it as neither positive nor negative, and 15% reported a negative relationship.

Since the previous CIPD Employment Relations Survey conducted in the summer of 2008, there has been a notable decrease in the proportion of respondents reporting a negative relationship with unions. In the 2008 survey, 69% of respondents described their relationship as positive and only 9% described it as negative, suggesting that the overall quality of union-management relations has deteriorated somewhat in the intervening years.

Approximately 50% of respondents in the 2011 survey described their personal relations with union officials and managers as good, while 46% said the quality of that relationship varies. Only 2% reported a bad or negative relationship, and a further 2% indicated that no such relationship existed at all.

Obstacles to Effective Partnership with Unions

Among all respondents, only one-third reported that the relationship between managers and unions had changed in the previous 12 months, while 64% disagreed that any change had occurred. Of those who did perceive a change, only 21% said the relationship had become more positive, while 76% said it had become more negative.

WERS 2004: Union Membership Density

Respondents to the 2011 survey were asked to identify the top three reasons they believed the relationship between managers and unions is negatively affected. A total of 37% cited a lack of business understanding on the part of the union as the primary obstacle. Meanwhile, 29% attributed poor relations to union policies at the national level, and 35% identified trust issues on both sides as a significant barrier to effective partnership.

The Workplace Employment Relations Survey (WERS) 2004 collected data on trade unions and independent staff associations from two sources. The Cross-Section Survey of Managers provided estimates — from a managerial perspective — of the number of union members working in each sampled workplace, while the Survey of Employees offered a first-hand account of individual union membership.

The Survey of Employees showed that, across all workplaces, one-third of employees were union members, amounting to 34% of the workforce. Union membership was found to be more common in the public sector, and membership density was strongly linked to the stance management took toward union membership. Although managerial support for union membership was more prevalent in the public sector, it was also present in the private sector.

The concentration of union membership within a workplace can often be underestimated, particularly when unions collect membership fees by direct debit and managers are unaware of the full extent of union membership among their staff. The survey found that in approximately 64% of workplaces there were no union members at all, and union members constituted a majority in only 18% of workplaces. By comparison, in 1998, 57% of workplaces had no union members and 22% had workplaces in which union members formed a majority.