Abstract
This article discusses the changes in workers’ identity as blue-collar or salaried staff with respect to changing work content due to new models of industrial systems. Within these new industrial models, traditional blue-collar work is moving into areas of work previously held solely by salaried staff. This article argues that the merging of work content will cause a process of identity-mergers, a process calling for increased collaboration between blue-collar unions on the one hand, and salaried staff unions on the other. Reporting on four company cases, the authors argue that this process is caused both by labour unions’ efforts to increase workers’ motivation in work, as well as by market demands generating new models of industrial production. The authors conclude that the models of industrial relations must change so as to encompass cross-union collaboration and the diversity of professions.
Keywords
Introduction: The Norwegian industrial relations system’s capacity for renewal
In line with Kaufman’s (2008) call for reopening and expanding the field of industrial relations to include and embrace contemporary work life’s employment relations, this article investigates the manner in which the Norwegian practice and institutionalization of industrial relations can bring new knowledge to the survival of the field. Shaped by dialogue between key actors in the Social Democratic government and the industrial partners in the postwar period, the Norwegian industrial system was launched and structured to rebuild industrial capacity after wartime. Starting already in the 1930s, after a long period of economic crisis, mass unemployment and industrial conflicts, The Basic Agreement between the social partners in industry was first signed in 1935. 1 This agreement 2 between the employers’ organization, NHO (formerly NAF), and the Confederation of Trade Unions, LO, is often referred to as ‘The Constitution’ of Norwegian working life, and regulates the social partners’ collaboration and actions on both a macro and micro level along with supplementary labour legislation. The Norwegian IR system at both micro and macro level is marked by high trust, low conflict, predictability and dialogue. Scholars conceptualizing what has become ‘The Norwegian model’ (Falkum et al., 2009; Gustavsen, 2007; Levin et al., 2012; NOU 2010:1; Øyum et al., 2010; Sørensen et al., 2012) emphasize characteristics like universal welfare arrangement and a large public sector, high employment (both men and women), small wage differentials, a large degree of social mobility, strong collective actors, both centrally coordinated wage formation and local bargaining at company level, and tripartite cooperation (Løken and de Freitas Barbosa, 2008). Within this context the cooperation between the employers and employees has always served a dual purpose. Employees have contributed to industrial growth and moderation of wages, and in return they were accorded legitimate rights to secure working conditions and benefits from growth. This duality is in line with Grimshaw and Rubery’s (2003) perspective of mutual interests between economists and industrial relations, underlining that ‘trade unions can even act as a positive factor in achieving high productivity levels as they can act as a source of “voice” for the workers’ (Grimshaw and Rubery, 2003: 53).
On the micro level, the Industrial Democracy Programme (Emery and Thorsrud, 1969; Gustavsen, 1992) launched in the late 1960s, supported by the Confederation of Norwegian Enterprises, the Norwegian Confederation of Trade Unions and the Social Democratic government, became the backbone of a practice of collaboration between shop-floor workers’ unions and management to institutionalize industrial democracy in the workplace. In 1982, a passage was included in the Basic Agreement where the partners bind themselves to collaboration on enterprise development. A tradition emerged of cooperation on concrete enterprise development projects between local management and local shop stewards, the national agreements being the foundation. Within this practice, the social partners also worked in collaboration with action researchers (Greenwood and Levin, 1998; Levin, 2002).
The core characteristic of the Norwegian IR system is the strength of the local tier within the multi-tier collective bargaining system, as well as the single-level system of unions representing workers on all organizational levels. This allows for broad agendas of exchange, collaboration, negotiation and learning between the local actors, agendas which will foster a dynamic development of the IR system. One example of this dynamic is described by Nergaard et al. (2009), who analyse the degree to which the metal workers unions will engage in variable pay systems. They argue that the Norwegian system of multi-employer bargaining and single-channel representation increases unions’ willingness to go into dialogue with management over the issue of variable pay systems. Historically, the enterprise (micro) level of the IR system in Norway has always emphasized productivity as a common goal for workers and employers alike, labour process perspectives (Braverman, 1998) being central to understanding the contract of exchange between labour and capital. Hence, work, production and enterprise development have always been key issues in the collective bargaining at workplace level; with the development of variable pay systems serving as one example of the result of this willingness.
No matter whether the drivers for change in which the social partners engage are external or internal, the strength of the IR system on a local level is the capacity for social partnership collaboration enabled through legislation and collective agreements. A key driver for change – which forms the basis for discussing a renewed strategy for IR collaboration in this article – is that the increased level of education among employees in the traditional blue-collar union area has redefined their identities and responsibilities to be more in line with white-collar professionals. As the blue-collar workers have increased their formal competence, this has restructured the division of labour into operating teams consisting of both blue-collars and professionals, both groups trespassing on each other’s areas. As the Norwegian workforce and educational composition have changed over the last 50 years, so has the relative strength of the various employee groups. What is happening to the blue-collar worker role and to the white-collar professional role in the world of industry, as individuals and as collectives? What kind of practices in the Norwegian IR model on the local level are emerging when the labour unions are undergoing identity changes due to educational development and work-role responsibility?
To explore the Norwegian industrial relations system we start by outlining the existing model of local cooperation. Then we briefly analyse the developments in the demography of work life in Norway over the last five decades. How has it changed? How does the industrial relations picture of today differ from how it was 50 years ago? Thereafter we investigate the issue in close detail, by analysing changes in the collaborative side of the industrial relations system in four different company cases. By exploring these companies’ development over what issues and agendas to pursue on the labour–management agenda, we conclude by advocating the need to re-examine union strategies as being shaped in the encounter between professional identities and the socio-technical system of production in an enterprise. The traditional blue-collar unions must adapt to the fact that the intensity of blue is decreasing in most industries, as is the clean-cut white-collar. As we show that the local actors in the case companies have found ways to adjust their interaction, in spite of organizational obstacles, we conclude that the Norwegian IR model has a dynamic and inherent capacity for change.
Local bipartite cooperation in global value chains
Since the end of the 1970s, various sources report that trade union influence at work has declined significantly (Danford, 2005), measured among other things in the decline of membership (Turner, 2004). The threat of unions becoming nothing but a ‘passive actor responding to economic pressures and social forces, seemingly without independent capacity to shape events or determine outcomes’ (Turnbull and Wass, 2007: 583) is a scenario that demands the examination of unions’ proactiveness as a strategic actor in the encounter with management. In Europe, unions in most countries are in a defensive position (Huzzard, 2004), although the Scandinavian countries have retained their rather exceptionally high membership levels (Løken and Stokke, 2009; Towers, 2003). As a consequence of union decline, seeing globalization as one of the causes (Lillie, 2006; Turnbull and Wass, 2007) and threats (Lucena and Covarrubias, 2006; Slaughter, 2007), the Scandinavian IR practice is scrutinized as a presumably good practice (Gustavsen, 2007). Suggestions are made as to how trade unions can be modernized to regain a stronger bargaining position at both local company level and national and even international level, following the presumption that Scandinavian systems of labour relations, characterized by the interrelatedness of productivity and workplace democracy, or a ‘democratic capitalism’ (Byrkjeflot et al., 2001; Czarniawska and Sevón, 2003; Røyrvik, 2008), represent a competitive advantage in international business operations.
On the micro level, the Norwegian IR system is characterized by a legal framework of both laws and collective agreements. The collective bargaining system is a multi-tiered one where central coordination is accompanied by workplace structures of cooperation and negotiation, and where ‘company agreements, including pay systems, cannot breach provisions in sector-level agreements’ (Løken and Stokke, 2009: 33). The coverage of collective agreements in the Norwegian labour market is approximately 70%, the public sector having 100% coverage and the private sector approximately 55% (Løken and Stokke, 2009; NOU 2010:1). The main areas covered by bipartite social partnership agreements and legislation at company level are health and safety issues, and co-determination in company development. For the individual, the main piece of legislation is the Working Environment Act, whose purpose is ‘to ensure the safe physical and organizational working conditions and equal treatment among workers, and to ensure that the working environment forms a basis for a health-promoting and meaningful work situation’ (Løken and Stokke, 2009: 15). The development of the Working Environment Act was one of the key results of the Industrial Democracy Project in the 1960s, establishing legislative rights for workers to be involved in restructuring processes at the workplace, including the implementation of new technology (Levin et al., 2012; Øyum et al., 2010). The Act makes working environment committees compulsory in enterprises with more than 50 employees and in enterprises with 20–50 employees such a committee is to be set up if requested by one of the local parties. The Working Environment Act also stipulates mandatory safety representatives for enterprises with more than 10 employees. In general the function of the safety representative is to act as spokesperson for the employees’ interests in health and safety matters, including issues of psychosocial work environment, and they are legally authorized to participate in planning and decision-making. The safety representatives are powerful as they can bring work to a halt if there is risk of danger to life or health. A survey on the Norwegian system of mandatory safety representatives (Forseth et al., 2008; Torvatn et al., 2008) concluded that nearly 80% of all companies have safety representatives and that the system is well established and is functioning as intended. The survey also shows that approximately 20% of the safety representatives have used their right to halt work due to danger to life or health.
Co-determination in company development is the other main area of IR at micro level in Norway. Regulated both by law and collective agreements between the social partners in both private and public enterprises, the practices and institutionalization of collaborative IR ensure that (1) the trade unions or employee representatives are entitled to be informed, consulted and have co-determination in areas related to major changes in the workplace, and that (2) employees participate in decision-making which directly relates to their job performance. A Norwegian governmental white paper defines the first kind as indirect representative co-determination and the second kind as direct individual participation (NOU 2010:1). Examples of areas where trade unions or representatives are entitled to co-determination are substantial enterprise investments, implementation of new technology and reorganization of work, downsizing and restructuring. This co-determination takes place by means of the legislative right for employees to have one or more representatives on the company board 3 (if the company has more than 30 employees), and by means of bipartite work councils 4 composed of an equal number of employee and employer representatives.
Internationally, the enlargement of value chain control, effectively combined with investments in low-wage countries, has transformed trade unions’ ideology of protecting and securing working conditions for workers into an issue which needs to be bargained for and protected in the global arena. Employers’ increased influence over the legislative agenda and process (Lucena and Covarrubias, 2006; Towers, 2003) caused by expanding value chains and global markets was discussed as early as in the 1970s by Levinson, who analysed multinational companies and their implications for collective bargaining (see Haworth, 2005). According to Levinson, capital was internationalizing and, consequently, the power of management was increasing. Trade unions’ responses had to match the scope and level of MNC power, Levinson argued (see Haworth, 2005: 189). The WORKS project (www.worksproject.be) – Work Organization and Restructuring in the Knowledge Society – studied the changes in the organization of work caused by the processes of globalization, and explored specifically the consequences on the quality of work and employees’ opportunity to influence the changes they were subjected to (Birindelli et al., 2007; Holtgrewe et al., 2009; Meil, 2009; Meil et al., 2009; Valenduc et al., 2008). On the topic of employees’ influence and co-determination the conclusions are twofold. First, work is fragmented to a greater degree causing employees to position themselves as either core workers or peripheral workers. Core workers are professionals and experts having the essential skills for running the business functions in the global value chains. Their power as individuals is increasing, so too is their bargaining power over wage and working conditions. The other group are those subjected to increased control and claims for flexibility, and their degree of co-determination in everyday work is decreasing (Meil, 2009). Second, in the decision-making over restructurings both unions and work councils have only been consulted in retrospect, after the decision was made by management; representatives’ response is of a defensive kind trying to reduce the possible negative impact for workers’ well-being (Meil et al., 2009). Another crucial lesson from WORKS is that although the EU has implemented several directives aimed at regulating employees’ right to participate in decisions influencing their work situation, it is still national legislation and collective agreements which apply in practice. Thus, national IR systems must be scrutinized as the reflection of a changing working life in the globalized knowledge society (Øyum and Torvatn, 2010).
The debate over what strategies trade unions should employ to proactively confront the ‘threats’ of globalization is one characterized by alternating optimism and pessimism, and various approaches have been suggested. One strategy for labour movement renewal proposed by Turner (2004) is expanded coalition building. This can broaden labour’s political influence, which in turn can provide support for union organizing (Turner, 2004: 4). Greer and Hauptmeier (2008) report on labour transnationalism in multinationals within the auto industry as one form of ‘coalition building’, where the EWC Directive on European Work Councils has created opportunities for in-firm labour transnationalism, and where trade unionists regularized their meetings to a greater extent and thereby produced new frameworks of rules, norms and activities across the different sites. Another strategy or prerequisite, which presumably takes place or is ensured on local and national level, is union leadership commitment and leadership change (Behrens et al., 2004). Mergers of trade unions (Huzzard, 2004) is another strategy, as is also ‘(Inter)net internationalism’ (Diamond and Freeman, 2002; Haworth, 2005). Further, internationalization opens up an arena for social movement unionism making it likely for new social movements to appear where new types of trade unions with other agendas may arise (Diamond and Freeman, 2002). Trade unionism is then expanding to include not merely economical perspectives on labour relations, but also to serve as a mobilization towards issues of societal concern like, for instance, protection of the environment. In order to carry out whatever strategy is chosen, however, comparative research across countries emphasizes the importance of the institutional framework in which these strategies are embedded (Frege and Kelly, 2004). Core elements of these institutional frameworks, as discussed in Behrens et al. (2004), include the degree of coordination and centralization of collective bargaining, the strength, unity and comprehensiveness of employers’ associations, the existence of competent and powerful work councils, the inclusion of labour into corporatist structures at the national or international level, or involvement in issues of training and skill development. As will be outlined later, in Norway the national agreement on tripartite negotiations and collaborations is one such institutional framework which has served to regulate industrial relations in the country as well as shaping the Norwegian welfare system.
To conclude, research on industrial relations identifies a whole set of changes in society and working life that might affect the industrial relations scene. There is no consensus as to which of these changes are most important or as to how they will affect industrial relations. Also, cross-national studies identify differences between countries. Earlier studies and comparisons have pointed to the ‘Scandinavian model’ as different from others, ‘distinguished by a large welfare state, encompassing unions and employers’ associations, and a system of routine consultation among government and representatives for interest organizations’ (ESOP homepage 5 ). It is also argued that learning-oriented work forms are more widely applied in the Scandinavian countries (Gustavsen, 2007). But it is specifically the Norwegian case of industrial relations that concerns us here. We set out to investigate changes in its external and internal conditions, and how these interact with work identity formation among the employee groups. First, we examine how education and unionism have changed the demography of work life. Second, we analyse a set of company cases to seek out changes in the collaborative side of the industrial relations system.
The demographic picture: Identities put in play
At the start of the 20th century, Norway was among the poorest countries in Europe. In 1875, more than half of the working population was in agriculture, forestry and fishing, only 13% being employed in industry. Some 75 years later, by 1950, manufacturing industry had become more than twice as big as agriculture, forestry and fishing (SSB, 1959: 212). In the early 1950s, the industry sector accounted for about a quarter of all production value in Norway. By 2007, this had fallen to a tenth. 6 In 1966, industry accounted for 24% (375,000) of total employment. The industry employment rate dropped to 11% (275,000 ) by 2006 (about 10% of GDP). 7 The economy has grown steadily, so has welfare. Today, the per capita income is only surpassed by Luxembourg in Europe. Unlike most western economies, the Norwegian national budget enjoys a huge surplus, and Norway has ranked No. 1 on the UNDP’s HDI index several years in a row. 8 The welfare benefits are generally seen as generous and the present unemployment rate of 4.1% 9 is very low compared to the EU28 rate of 8.0% as reported by Eurostat in February 2017. 10
Education and competence development serve as a particularly good observatory of the societal changes due to economic growth. From Table 1 we find that the percentage of the workforce with lower education was reduced to less than one third between 1950 and 2017 (83.6% to 26.5%), while the proportion of the workforce with tertiary education increased tenfold in the same period (3% to 32.9% 11 ). There has also been a rapid growth in training courses, on-the-job training, up-grading courses and post-school education. This goes for traditional blue-collar as well as for white-collar. Furthermore, the content of, for instance, upper secondary education itself has changed. Computer literacy, as one example, is becoming common. In a way, we might argue that the skilled operators are trespassing onto terrain traditionally controlled by the engineers. This growth in education tells us that the workers’ role and knowledge have radically changed, and that the drawing closer of workers and professional staff might be expected as the groups are becoming more equal in numbers and in terms of actual work content.
Persons 16 years and over, by highest education completed, as percentage of the workforce. a
Sources: a www.ssb.no/histstat/tabeller/5-5-18t.txt
Exploring the sector from which the case studies in this article are drawn, Table 2 shows the development in various work positions in the period from 1999 to 2008. In 1999, 14.3% of the workforce in the sectors studied were professionals with tertiary level education, that is mostly engineers and technical staff, while in 2008 this number was 24.3%. At the same time the number of workers operating machines was slightly reduced from 37.3% to 32.4%. Thus, the gap in proportion of the workforce between these two groups of ‘professionals’ has reduced considerably, and they may well be equal within a few years.
Full-time employees in the industry sector, 1999 and 2008.
The changing educational pattern has affected the industrial relations picture. However, as Figure 1 indicates, the unionization rate has remained fairly constant for the last 50 years.
Union membership as percentage of total workforce, 1945–2000.
Since the 1950s, around 55% of the employed workforce has been organized in one union or the other. But the relative strength of the unions is changing. The largest segment in Figure 1 is LO, which represents the blue-collar unions, whereas the unions AF and Akademikerne organize employees with higher education. As we can see, LO has lost in relative size compared to the other employee unions. Table 3 shows the development in union membership in the sectors from which the case studies in this article are drawn, over more than six decades.
Developments in union membership, 1950–2016.
Sources:
Stokke (2000: 9).
31 December 1974; Statistisk årbok 1975.
Statistisk årbok 1955; aggregated from seven individual unions who formed Fellesforbundt between 1988 and 2007.
Statistisk årbok 1975; aggregated from seven individual unions who formed Fellesforbundt between 1988 and 2007.
Comparing the changing educational level with unionization, LO has grown in size although lost its relative strength compared to white-collar unions for technical and engineering professionals. From Table 3 we see that in 1950, the ratio between white-collar unions, Tekna and NITO, for technical and engineering staff and the largest blue-collar union in LO, Fellesforbundet, was 1:18. In 2016 the ratio was 1:0.9.
The case of Norway shows a shift towards ‘multi-collar’, suggesting an expansion of those involved in the negotiations and collaborations in the industrial relations system. This transformation demonstrates Kaufman’s (2008) call to re-open the debate about contemporary industrial relations paradigms and practices to ensure that the field survives and grows. His quest to expand the field into what he calls ordinary industrial relations (OIR) is a way to include and embrace contemporary work life’s employment relations, as opposed to the modern industrial relations perspective (MIR) whose radical political focus upon unions and collective bargaining is a perspective that misses the diversity and participatory ideal of employment relations be they unionized or not. We agree with Kaufman in his quest to adjust the field of industrial relations to be compatible with current work systems. However, as our cases show, we find it necessary to adjust the issue and practice of labour–management relations, not to leave it out in favour of productive contemporary employment systems.
Cases of trespassing professionals
The cases outlined in this section represent changes in identity both with respect to workers’ identity in work, and of work, and the respective labour union’s identity. All four companies operate in a global industrial market, having been in business for decades. We structure our discussion around the change processes which have taken place in the companies over a period of more than 15 years, emphasizing the alteration in union identities as a dialectic process of workers’ job enlargements on the one hand, and the blue-collar worker’s identity and consciousness as a responsible individual with a collective agenda, on the other hand. In the companies studied the majority of the blue-collar workers are unionized in the Norwegian United Federation of Trade Unions (Fellesforbundet; www.fellesforbundet.no). With a registered 141,644 members in 2016 this is the largest trade union in the private sector, organizing workers within most of the manufacturing industry, the building industry, hotels and restaurants. Further, the majority of the professional staff in the cases are organized either in the Norwegian Society of Engineers and Technologists (NITO; www.nito.no), organizing a total of 83,452 members nationally, or the Norwegian Society of Graduate Technical and Scientific Professionals (Tekna; www.tekna.no). We will discuss the cases with respect to trespassing areas of responsibility and the tendency towards ‘multi-collar’ identities.
Method
The companies have been involved in several action research (AR) projects (Greenwood and Levin, 1998) led by the authors in the time span from 1995 to the present day. The data for this article are primarily based on a project that took place from 2006 to 2010, 12 and aimed at involving union managers and company managers in joint reflection on their managerial practices – and challenges. We refer to this as the Joint Union–Management project. At present we are involved in another AR project with two of the companies, aimed at understanding new competence requirements for industry in the future. Preliminary data from this project, lasting from 2015 to 2019, will also be used in the analyses, and we refer to this project as the Skills project.
Initially, the unions involved in the union–management project were only blue-collar ones, but representatives from the white-collar unions became involved in the latter phase of the project. The pedagogical approach of the project was to run seminars on theories of industrial relations and labour–management relations, as well as facilitating processes of learning and reflection based on union–management teams’ efforts to collaborate on organizational development in their respective organizations. For more than a decade, these companies have participated actively in various national research programmes directed at union–management collaboration (Elvemo et al., 2001; Gustavsen et al., 1998; Levin, 2002). The authors of this article have worked for many years as action researchers to initiate and study organizational change efforts involving labour–management dialogue in these companies. However, in these former research programmes the unions involved were the blue-collar ones only. The gradual involvement of white-collar unions for technical staff in the project involving the four case companies in this article came about due to blue-collar unions’ and management’s request to bring them into the cooperation processes.
‘The Smelter’: Negotiations on trespassing identities
Being in industry for more than a century, The Smelter, which is a plant facility within a large corporation, produces niche metal for a highly competitive global market, facing severe competition from low-wage countries and companies which control the raw material exploitation in their value chains. In response to this, The Smelter’s competitive advantage has developed into an emphasis on continuous improvements of their socio-technical organization of work, as well as large investments in technology making it possible to refine the metal into byproducts which can be sold in the niche market.
Having collaborated with The Smelter for many years, we have witnessed a radical shift in the ownership of change processes. In latter years, initiatives and proactive strategies have to a greater extent been put forward by first-line operation management and operation workers, the plant CEO and the labour union playing a supportive and facilitating role. In earlier years, first-line plant operation management had to a much greater extent been the passive recipients of the corporation’s strategies and action plans, the labour union being caught up in a biased role as critical advocates for local plant autonomy. This change is of course notably caused by corporate strategic changes and market reorientations. However, replacements in plant operation management generated a shift in production philosophy, the most radical one being an upgrading of every worker’s skills and perceptions of what we may call the tacit characteristics of the critical parameters of standard operating procedures.
As part of the Joint Union–Management project, the blue-collar union leadership accomplished a re-implementation and ‘tightening up’ of the existing team organization in the production departments. This re-implementation included a systematic division of every worker’s responsibility into operation and organizational team-roles. The revitalization aimed at generating a workforce more motivated and dedicated to take responsibility for the day-to-day plant operation and to look for better ways of organizing work and producing metal of world-class quality. The labour union’s effort was accomplished with plant management’s financial support. Working in a team with first-line operation managers, who are unionized in a white-collar union for engineering staff, the labour union, as part of their involvement in the Joint Union–Management project, ran seminars involving all production workers, the emphasis being (among other things) on: the notion of what it means to be a responsible team-worker; which critical work tasks ought to be involved in which team-role; team-workers taking on managerial decision-making responsibility; and how to improve the working conditions and the practices of social support and professional reflection among the team-workers.
For the labour union the initiative to design and launch this series of seminars was one of several actions directed towards taking a proactive role in organizational and managerial plant development. In the historical context of the identity formation process of the unionized worker, notions of equality, resemblance, collectivity, unity, equal rights and opportunities are all important perceptions. Uniting within the institution of a labour union has aimed at advocating the workers’ voices and interests in the encounter with capitalistic ownership and professional staff claiming more power, pay and resources for individualistic work arrangements. Thus, in most respects, the unionized worker’s identity formation process has been didactic in the sense that ‘the others’ – management, professional skilled staff, capital owners – have shaped what it means to be a ‘proper’ worker with integrity and collective loyalty. At The Smelter, however, the workers’ and the labour union’s identities have undergone dramatic changes. Running a skills-upgrading activity aimed at increasing plant operation workers’ motivation and capabilities for taking on managerial responsibility means in all respects that the blue-collar worker is working his or her way up into what was formerly the engineering staff’s areas of work. As part of the project the labour union developed a new wage system for linking different wage increases to individual team-roles. Such an effort fully demonstrates the transformation of work identity at the plant, as the difference between a worker being responsible for a critical operation procedure, and the skilled professional holding that same responsibility, will decline in terms of both work content and pay. Surely, for the labour union this change will in the long term imply a move away from merely collective thinking and actions, in favour of rewarding individual ambition and talent. Furthermore, the labour union has approached this identity transformation by initiating programmes of organizational development, suggesting individualistic wage systems, and supporting job enlargement for its members. This move has indeed produced great debate within the labour union, as well as in its encounter with the rank and file members, on both its future role and the present shortcomings in managerial skills among the labour union leaders. Based on this, the labour union leadership has claimed their own need to increase their skills in the area of organizational development.
‘The Toolmakers’: Negotiations on collectivism versus individualism
The Toolmakers produces niche products for a global supplier of tools for the mechanical industry. During the last 10 years the company’s turnover and number of employees have grown considerably, emphasizing innovation as the core competitive advantage. Fifteen years ago the labour union initiated a radical reorganization, by removing the supervisory level in the production department, and organizing the operators into autonomous teams. Since then, the labour union has been the most proactive partner for continuously developing the organization of work and the production workers’ skills, an effort being enthusiastically supported by the owners and the top-management group.
As part of the Joint Union–Management project our research group ran an action research project on developing the autonomous teams and the day-to-day collaboration between the teams and the departments for technical support. By means of team facilitation and seminars, our aim was to strengthen the workers’ confidence in engaging in difficult operational and interpersonal situations. The operators first and foremost emphasized their need to improve the teams’ practice in handling conflicts and thus to make the most of the skills and talents present among the individual team members (Finnestrand, 2011). This rested on the acknowledgement of time lost on interpersonal misconceptions at the expense of optimal running of the machines. The model of the autonomous teams in the production department rests on the ideal of everyone taking on the same amount and degree of operational responsibility in everyday work. Equality and conformity are perspectives strongly advocated by the labour union, reflected also in the union’s non-negotiable decision not to have an appointed team manager. Instead, the role of being a ‘team-coordinator’ rotates among the members of each team on a weekly basis. The labour union’s argument for this dynamic role is that every worker will improve their confidence in speaking up for the teams’ interests, needs and suggestions for improved operational practice.
Both the Joint Union–Management project and the Skills project discussions have been around the suitability and efficiency of a non-formal managerial role in the teams. Arguments have been given in favour of dedicating the managerial role to the individual worker who shows a commitment to and talent for this role. Such a solution would not be to turn away from the practice of autonomous teams, rather to weaken the collectivist ideal in favour of making room for individual preferences and ambitions. The labour union, on the other hand, still seems unready for this change, stressing its belief in shared responsibility and a similar praxis of operational work. At the same time the union is proposing the need for salaried staff to participate in the broader debate over what production philosophy to adopt. Although The Toolmakers is an SME, there is a rather distinct division between the production teams and the professional technical support departments in terms of day-to-day dialogue on matters of production and technical innovation. The salaried staff’s two unions have not been actively involved in the organizational reforms, a situation explained by the workers’ labour union as due to ‘a lack of history on, and interest in collectivist aspects of work and labour–management relations’. Rather, emphasis has been put on individual wage systems reflecting educational background and individual expertise.
At present, however, there is a growing awareness in the labour relations system at The Toolmakers that all unions should collaborate with management to strengthen the company’s future on global markets. This awareness is strengthened in the Skills project, where we find that a group of machine operators reached an agreement with the management to invest in a new software program which will coordinate the sections in the production line more effectively. Initially the process of reaching such an agreement was met with great opposition from the skilled staff: on the one hand, they didn’t credit the machine operators with having sufficient knowledge of a modern digitalized production system, and on the other hand, they perceived it to be their role and responsibility to design an in-house digitalized system. From this learning process, however, the skilled staff now has a growing acknowledgement of the merging work-roles and responsibility for effective production between the white-collars and the blue-collars. The blue-collar union has encouraged representatives from the two white-collar unions for engineering and technical staff to become more involved in this project of union–management collaboration in enterprise development. Arguments are being presented in favour of a reorientation of production practice into an increased emphasis on product delivery rather than operation processes. Within this context a kind of identity-merger between the workers and salaried staff, and their respective unions, has started to take place.
‘The Yard’: From conflict to collaboration and conflict
The Offshore Construction Yard produces steel structures for offshore installations. We had our first encounters with them in 1996. Since then, we have been cooperating through different projects. In 1996, management considered it necessary to adjust the organization to changes in the environment, and to meet new economic demands. The issue was to replace a rigid hierarchical way of operating the production processes with a more flexible, horizontal, value-chain orientated production system. The metal workers union organized 99% of the operators, while six other unions organized the salaried staff. There had not always been good collaboration among the different unions. Sometimes, the professional staff unions saw the labour union as their enemy, at least as a counterproductive force as regards sustaining the company. When we entered the site, a first step for us was to establish contact with both management and unions, as the company did not have any tradition for joint management–union activity on enterprise development. The overall perspective and modus operandi was top-down oriented, the relationship between management and the metal workers union – by far the largest union on site – being confrontational and not very dialogic. We considered it a core achievement when we eventually got to include metal workers union representatives in the development work, knowing we had the union’s support. For the other employees, however, it was a different story. Some of the engineers at The Yard held important positions in the development processes as individual experts, but the engineers as a group or collective were not visible. And as for the clerical workers or the supervisors/foremen, they played no part at all.
Later, after this first project had come to an end in the early 2000s, we learned that the metal workers union was asking for job enlargements: how could one expand the scope of work for the operators, by competence development, introduction of ICT tools, etc.? In 1996, the metal workers union had been hesitant (if not hostile) about such an agenda. We remember how a shop steward asked, ‘Why should we do management for free?’ By 2000, however, the metal workers union had come to see such an increase in work responsibility to be in line with their members’ interests: better work content offers more meaningful work. Job enlargement was also a long-term interest for the union, since it increases the importance and sovereignty of the work of its members – a strategy for keeping jobs in-house. Consequently, job enlargement brings bargaining power to the union.
It is fair to say that the management–union communication pattern has become more dialogical. In the Joint Union–Management project in 2006 a team of shop stewards and managers was formed to further develop shop-floor management and company value chain reorganization. Neither shop stewards nor managers lost sight of holding different positions. Although many goals and interests were conflicting, some coincided as well. This is what made space for union–management collaboration. Consequently, The Yard case illustrates the importance of looking into the diversity of employee interests and positions, and to strive for new models of local cooperation on enterprise development. To bring about collaboration between the metal workers union and company management is important, but it is not exploiting the full potential of industrial relations. The number of employees organized by the other unions is substantial, and the challenge of bringing these groups into the development work remains unresolved.
‘Power Electric’: A new industrial form requires new industrial relations
Power Electric was established 100 years ago. Our cooperation with them started after 1965, when a plant for producing electrical heating systems was established. In the second phase of the Norwegian Industrial Democracy Project (Emery and Thorsrud, 1976), Power Electric became one of the participating companies. At that time, the company experienced problems in terms of low productivity, absenteeism and turnover. Between 1969 and 1975, IFIM, the predecessor of our research unit, 13 had the professional responsibility for carrying out the Industrial Democracy Project at Power Electric (Finne and Nilssen, 1998). The original scientific management design of the shop-floor was abandoned, and instead semi-autonomous work groups were introduced. After a year and a half of preparation in study groups, the first groups were launched in 1972. By 1978, all production workers were organized into groups. The semi-autonomous work groups at Power Electric are still in place, as the sole survivors from the era of the Norwegian Industrial Democracy Project. Several changes in the organization have taken place since 1978, however. The wage system has been reformed and refined several times. In 1988, the foremen were removed from the organization, to a large degree because the metal workers union had for years argued that the foremen ‘blocked developments in creativity and productivity’ (our translation). By 1998, group organization had also been introduced among the salaried employees, and both the company management and the union management maintained that group organization had become an inherent part of the company culture.
In 2017, Power Electric looks very different. 14 Most of the shop-floor mass production has been outsourced or sold. The main remaining units are the electrical workshop, which is what will concern us here. Power Electric employs about 120 people and produces and supplies power supply systems all over the world. The fact that they do not do serial production has not diminished the need for group organization; to the contrary, the whole production process can be described as an interacting team. Each product is based on a set of basic standards, but tailor-made to the specific requirements of the individual customers. Typically the customer is involved throughout the production process. It is not uncommon that the product gets redesigned a couple of times through this customer dialogue. The production process of Power Electric is not linear. Instead, development, and design run concurrently. The electricians and the other skilled operators of the assembly department and the engineers from the engineering and development departments are constantly interacting, and the product gets produced in this back and forth manner. We get another way to illustrate how far away from the traditional serial production line the present Power Electric is if we look at the labour-hour budget. Of the 120 people employed at the enterprise, fewer than half are blue-collar operators. On one occasion when we visited, a power supply system was about to be shipped to South East Asia: 4000 labour-hours had been put into this particular product by the operators, whereas 2500 labour-hours had been put in by the engineers.
Since the start of group organization at Power Electric, the groups themselves have elected their leaders (or coordinators as they call them), with no interference from the company. But the management has for some time wanted to have a say in this. This is because they see the need for investing company resources in competence development for the group coordinators, and they would like to express an opinion on who are best fit for this. In 2007, the metal workers union approved that management should have a right to rule out some of the candidates, and this was a unanimous decision. This illustrates in yet another way how the ‘business issues’ of the company and the industrial relations issues are getting increasingly conflated and mutually dependent in the ‘project industry’ organization of Power Electric. In a production process that is dynamic, shifting, dialogical and back and forth, the industrial relations system also must find another way of operating, beyond decision-making in well-structured and pre-planned meetings. Some of the industrial relations process has to take place in the midst of the bustle of the everyday work. And in a production process where the engineers are as much a production factor as the electricians are, the industrial relations system must encompass this by engaging white-collar representatives into the same dialogue and tradition over enterprise development as the blue-collar union and production management have established over the years.
Discussion: Merging identities?
Collective bargaining is the negotiation process through which are determined the conditions and rules for how employees offer their work effort and receive rewards from the employers who buy their work effort. If we look at the traditional agendas of the blue-collar unions, workers’ ‘objective interests’ consist of increasing wages, reducing working hours and minimizing the effort they have to put in. Traditional collective bargaining has focused on issues extrinsic to the work content itself, such as wage, benefits, working hours, job security, welfare and physical working conditions. From the perspective of motivation theory (Herzberg, 1959), we may say that such an agenda focuses on the hygiene factors of the workplace. Hygiene factors are work factors that may cause dissatisfaction if missing. They do not necessarily motivate workers if increased, however. They are important or notable only when they are lacking.
If we look at the newer elements on the agenda of the blue-collar unions, we observe a change towards also focusing on the intrinsic dimensions of work:
In the 1960s, unions, employers, state and researchers took part in the Industrial Democracy Project. Out of this evolved, among other things, the concepts of the semi-autonomous work group (Herbst, 1974), workers’ direct participation in decision-making, and the six intrinsic work requirements (Emery and Thorsrud, 1976; Trist, 1981).
In 1976, the passing of the Work Environment Act gave workers the right to demand that their jobs conformed to the intrinsic work requirements.
In 1982, a supplementary agreement was brought into the Basic Agreement between LO and the Confederation of Norwegian Enterprise (NHO), stating that the partners commit to collaborate on issues of enterprise development.
Since the 1980s, LO and NHO have had a joint institution, HF, supporting collaborative enterprise development.
Through several R&D programmes, LO and NHO have supported companies who have tried to do enterprise development based on broad participation.
Philip Herbst once said that ‘The product of work is people’ (1974). The unions have taken to heart these wise words, and their view of work has changed. Instead of perceiving work purely as a means to something else (wage, etc.), the work content itself has been put into focus. From the perspective of Herzberg’s language of motivation, we could say that the unions have put a focus also on motivator factors. Motivator factors are factors that enable the individual to grow and develop. Among the motivator factors we find achievement, recognition, work content, responsibility, promotion and personal growth. When they are met, they create job satisfaction, and the individual rewards in work itself.
Dølvik and Waddington (2004) investigate trade union challenges and responses, in terms of unionization rate, to the growing sector of marketized services. On an overall level this trend is fundamental as it implies shifts in the organization of work, the content and value of different work tasks, the restructuring of value chains and consequently an increasing heterogeneity of work deliverables. From our case descriptions we identify a shift not only in the meaning of work, but also in the composition of skills, experience and perceived social roles into a defined work task. When traditional blue-collar workers and highly skilled professionals are co-working to solve the same tasks and are held responsible for the same deliverables, perceptions of ‘us’ and ‘them’ dissolve to form new identities both of work and of ‘class’ (Dølvik and Waddington, 2004).
When you look into the industrial relations of the cases presented in the previous section, they are not well understood if conceived as based on a simple labour–capital antagonism, or a Marxist conflict analysis whereby the interests of capital and labour could never be accommodated without a fundamental change to the nature of ownership and employment. As we have seen, the blue-collar unions have come a long way in expanding their interest. Moving away from the former agenda of a merely instrumental means-end perspective, this position is supplemented with an agenda of maximizing the meaningfulness of work itself. Initiating efforts of work enlargement for the blue-collar workers in terms of increased operational and managerial responsibility, the labour unions are promoting a new identity of what operational work includes and means. As at The Yard for instance, ‘doing management work’ has become praxis for the operators which will eventually strengthen their bargaining position as well as their motivation in work. The same tendency is envisioned in all the cases outlined, where the expansion of blue-collar work into areas which were formerly reserved for technical professionals or other groups of salaried staff is perceived as a means for increasing the workers’ autonomy and meaningfulness in work. Obviously this change goes the other way too: namely that salaried staff to a greater extent have to be more closely involved in the daily operation of the production system. This shift is not merely a matter of social negotiations over the division of work, but rather an emerging consequence of shifting industrial demands in the market. For both The Toolmakers and Power Electric future products will be more complex and extensive, requiring a production process which involves the joint competencies of blue-collar workers and salaried staff. At The Smelter the motivation for a reorientation of operational work is of another kind. Besides the motivational dimension, this kind of work is hazardous if critical attention is not paid to the parameters of temperature and pressure in the smelting pots. To operate safely means to operate as similarly as possible across teams and time schedules, an effort requiring continuous dialogue and knowledge transfer across the production teams and technical staff. Merging to a certain extent these two types of work thus ensures a safer operation of the plant. From all the cases we see that the character of work and the identities of workers are changing for two main reasons: first, it is in response to the call to increase workers’ motivation in work and to strengthen their bargaining position in the overall business system, and second, to meet industrial changes.
Conclusion: The practice of IR ‘collaborability’
We have in the foregoing identified two major change processes within Norwegian industrial work life. First, there is a shift in the industry itself. For many reasons for sure, not least because of the educational revolution, industrial work has changed its shape. The old division of labour between the manufacturing workers and the administrative salaried staff does not reflect the contemporary industrial workforce. Second, the role and meaning of work have changed for the blue-collar unions. We can observe how they now also focus on the intrinsic dimensions of work. Within this context of industrial systems under restructuring, it is necessary to rethink the industrial relations systems as well. Acknowledging that the interests and perspectives of the total workforce should not be equated with the points of view of the blue-collar union (since the other employee groups have grown in size and importance), it becomes crucial to find new strategies for collaboration and negotiations between the various unions in a company.
Based on our discussions and empirical outline we agree with Kaufman (2008) and others that the field of industrial relations must be brought up to date and revised in order to survive and prosper in the years ahead. However, we diverge from Kaufman when he argues that the problem of industrial relations is the abandonment of the broad employment paradigm in favour of the narrower labour–management perspective (Kaufman, 2008). Rather, we claim that the dimensions of the labour–management perspective must be adjusted, not relinquished, as industrial models and work arrangements of the contemporary world have changed. Kaufman’s argument that the emphasis on unions and labour relations are outdated, measured for instance by declining unionization rates, must be complemented with a view which gives room for a continued union presence in the workplace and in the development of the workplace.
From our analysis of the Norwegian industrial relations system, based on national statistics and exemplified by the four company case studies, we identify three issues that complement the argument of whether the system is ‘modern’, ‘original’ or ‘in-between’ (Kaufman, 2008):
Instead of abandoning the blue-collar union we must complement it with the other significant unions in a particular social work sphere. The issue is not whether the employment relations are based on unions or not, but on whether the participatory systems are representative or not.
The system of industrial relations is based on a labour–capital dichotomy, where for the blue-collar worker work has been a means to achieve other ends. In the contemporary industrial models we observe among the Norwegian ‘blue-collar’ unions that work also has become an end it itself. As work content and not merely work outcomes has been put on the union agenda, emphasis is now placed on the need to bring the ‘white-collar’ unions’ and their interests into the practice of labour–management collaboration on issues related to company development.
From this follows that the new employment relations span diverse professions and diverse unions. This calls for new skills in collaboration and communication, as well as a renegotiation of the participatory system.
Within the industries and cases studied in this article a tradition of extensive union co-determination has been formed. The practice of union representatives and company management collaborating beyond what is regulated by legislation and collective agreements we call IR ‘collaborability’ (see also Finnestrand, 2011; Finnestrand and Ravn, 2007; Levin et al., 2012; Øyum et al., 2010; Ravn, 2012). IR collaborability refers to the practice of both blue-collar and white-collar union representatives collaborating closely with company management on strategic decision-making on company development. This practice is not yet established within the Norwegian IR system as it extends representatives’ participatory practice as regulated by law or collective agreements. It is also our argument that in order to reach the level of IR collaborability, it is a prerequisite that the unions and management at micro level must be skilled in cooperation and negotiations according to the law and agreements. Only then can the social partners enter into the terrain of jointly taking responsibility for future company development in the interests of both employees and the employer.
IR ‘collaborability’ as a practice of social partnership dialogue and joint decision-making on a company level is a practice which must be understood as both a union and managerial response to changing modes of industrial operation and hence organization of work, due to demands caused by market liberalization and globalization. Industrial relations in Norway are quite unique due to the tradition of both negotiation and collaboration between employers and employees, but the system must be expanded to include this ‘new’ way of union–management collaboration and educate all parties in the practice and prerequisites. Democratization and class struggles were important ends and means in the formation of the bipartite industrial relations system on the micro level in Norway, but they need to be complemented. It is critical to re-examine and formulate the way in which job enlargements, or rather job mergers, taking place due to novel models for industrial production will require that salaried staffs’ interests, competencies and struggles be included in the participatory practice characterizing the industrial relations system in Norway at the individual workplaces.
Footnotes
Funding
This study was funded by the Research Council of Norway’s Value Creation 2000 programme and the Skills project (Ref 247749), the Norwegian Confederation of Trade Unions (LO) and the Confederation of Norwegian Enterprise (NHO) through the PALU project.