Workplace Empowerment and Disempowerment

This study of workplace union delegates in the education sector identifies a typology of the experience of workplace union representatives according to their assessment of their degree of influence in their workplace and their union and their degree of control over their work as a union representative. When combined, these two assessments yield different types of disempowerment and empowerment. While workplace context plays an important role in delegates’ degree of control, their influence in the workplace and union is strongly associated with different types of power resources (internal and external networks) and strategic capabilities (learning and articulating or bridging). Unions seeking to increase workplace representative influence should therefore look to the reinforcement of delegates’ power resources and strategic capabilities while looking at how to reinforce their ability to deal with more difficult contexts associated with feeling a loss of control.

[1]  G. Murray,et al.  Renewing Union Narrative Resources: How Union Capabilities Make a Difference , 2013 .

[2]  D. Peetz,et al.  A Synthesis of Research on Training of Union Delegates , 2013 .

[3]  G. Murray,et al.  Empowerment and Union Workplace Delegates: A Gendered Analysis , 2013 .

[4]  G. Murray,et al.  Workplace Representatives: Strategic Actors of Union Renewal? , 2013 .

[5]  J. Siltala.  New Public Management , 2013 .

[6]  Étienne Cantin.  The Politics of Austerity and the Conservative Offensive Against US Public Sector Unions, 2008-2012 , 2012 .

[7]  M. O’Donnell,et al.  The Aftermath of the Global Financial Crisis and Union Strategies in the Australian Public Service , 2012 .

[8]  P. Roby,et al.  The Experience of Leadership , 2012 .

[9]  C. Cranford.  Gendered Projects of Solidarity: Workplace Organizing among Immigrant Women and Men , 2012 .

[10]  N. Lichtenstein.  Labour, Liberalism, and the Democratic Party: A Vexed Alliance , 2012 .

[11]  Linda Briskin.  Union Renewal, Postheroic Leadership, and Women’s Organizing , 2011 .

[12]  Anne Junor,et al.  Unions and Globalisation: Governments, Management, and the State at Work , 2011 .

[13]  C. Capitaine.  Nouvelles identités professionnelles des femmes et syndicalisme : une possible compatibilité ? , 2011 .

[14]  S. Bach,et al.  Varieties of new public management? The reform of public service employment relations in the UK and USA , 2011 .

[15]  L. Bessette,et al.  Impact de la « nouvelle » gouvernance sur la gestion des établissements d’enseignement , 2010 .

[16]  G. Murray,et al.  Referential unionisms and globalization: A comparative study of workplace union dynamics , 2010 .

[17]  Gregor Murray,et al.  Understanding union power: resources and capabilities for renewing union capacity , 2010 .

[18]  C. Dufour,et al.  The legitimacy of collective actors and trade union renewal , 2010 .

[19]  D. Peetz.  Are individualistic attitudes killing collectivism? , 2010 .

[20]  T. Diefenbach.  NEW PUBLIC MANAGEMENT IN PUBLIC SECTOR ORGANIZATIONS: THE DARK SIDES OF MANAGERIALISTIC ‘ENLIGHTENMENT’ , 2009 .

[21]  B. Pocock,et al.  An Analysis of Workplace Representatives, Union Power and Democracy in Australia , 2009 .

[22]  Irvine Lapsley,et al.  1new Public Management: The Cruellest Invention of the Human Spirit? , 2009 .

[23]  L. Bordogna.  Moral Hazard, Transaction Costs and the Reform of Public Service Employment Relations , 2008 .

[24]  R. Givan,et al.  PUBLIC SERVICE MODERNIZATION AND TRADE UNION REFORM: TOWARDS MANAGERIAL LED RENEWAL? , 2008 .

[25]  D. Camfield.  Renewal in Canadian Public Sector Unions : Neoliberalism and Union Praxis , 2007 .

[26]  R. Hyman,et al.  How can trade unions act strategically? , 2007 .

[27]  Christer Thörnqvist.  Changing industrial relations in the Swedish public sector , 2007 .

[28]  C. Lessard.  La “gouvernance” de l’éducation au Canada : tendances et significations , 2006 .

[29]  Tracy F. H. Chang.  Local Union Leaders' Conception and Ideology of Stewards' Roles , 2005 .

[30]  M. Stuart,et al.  ‘Learners of the workplace unite!’ , 2005 .

[31]  P. Jarley,et al.  Unions as Social Capital: Renewal through a Return to the Logic of Mutual Aid? , 2005 .

[32]  J. Kelly,et al.  Union Revitalization Strategies in Comparative Perspective , 2003 .

[33]  G. Murray,et al.  Local versus Global: Activating Local Union Power in the Global Economy , 2002 .

[34]  Maurizio Zollo,et al.  Deliberate Learning and the Evolution of Dynamic Capabilities , 2002 .

[35]  Marshall Louis Ganz,et al.  Resources and Resourcefulness: Strategic Capacity in the Unionization of California Agriculture, 1959-1966 , 2000, American Journal of Sociology.

[36]  D. Figart.  Gender as more than a dummy variable: Feminist approaches to discrimination , 1997 .

[37]  L. Rouban,et al.  Changer la fonction publique , 2009 .

[38]  Marshall Ganz,et al.  Why David Sometimes Wins: Strategic Capacity in Social Movements. , 2005 .

[39]  M. Gagnon.  L’Europe syndicale au quotidien : la représentation des salariés en France, Allemagne, Grande-Bretagne et Italie par Christian Dufour et Adelheid Hege, Bruxelles : Presses interuniversitaires européennes, 2002, 256 p., ISBN 90-5201-918-5. , 2003 .

[40]  C. Dufour,et al.  L'Europe syndicale au quotidien : la représentation des salariés dans les entreprises en France, Allemagne, Grande-Bretagne et Italie , 2002 .

[41]  G. Strauss,et al.  Against the Tide: Projects and Pathways of the New Generation of Union Leaders, 1984-2001 , 2001 .

[42]  S. Frenkel,et al.  Shop stewards in action: The organization of workplace conflict and accommodation , 1977 .

[43]  G. Strauss,et al.  The Local Union , 1967 .