Voice at work...what do employers want? A symposium summary

From administrating payroll to providing incentives and opportunities for workplace involvement, the management of employees occurs across many dimensions. When employers treat these latter dimensions seriously, it can be said that a formal ‘voice regime’ is present at the workplace. The practices that form part of most formal voice regimes can be quite diverse (the papers in this symposium reflect this diversity). Typically, however, they involve two-way forms of communication between employers and employees, whereby management—in exchange for granting employees a meaningful ‘say’ at work—attempts to gain valuable information and improved worker performance with or without third-party (i.e. union) involvement. When unions are involved, one can think of this as an independent channel for delivering voice and due process to workers; one that also fulfils an agency function for employers. Unions, among other things, have been found to lower turnover, improve recruitment, develop promotional policies and codify job descriptions, all of which benefit the firm as much as the worker. Whether employers ultimately adopt a formal (union or non-union) voice regime at work or not, can be thought of in the same way that Albert O. Hirschman envisaged voice more generally three decades ago—as a costbenefit decision made by a firm under conditions of uncertainty and risk. The framework above may appear strange for those versed in American or Continental style labour legislation. While voice is certainly an option for firms, the assumption in the United States is that no firm chooses to adopt union voice. Indeed firms are often portrayed as doing everything in their power to avoid unionization. It is employees who choose to unionize and it is federal law (i.e. the Wagner Act) that grants employees the right to force an employer