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List of contents
List of Tables and Figures Foreword Preface Introduction: Part 1. Understanding Public Sector Employers’ Organisations – the case of local government. 1. Theories of the state and local government: central-local relations. 2. The politics of local government employment relations. 3. Private and public sector Employers’ Organisations. 4. Conceptual framework: understanding the impact of managerial reform on the local government employers’ organisation. Part 2: Forging Local Government Whitleyism: 1880s-1947. 5. The rise of municipal unionism - establishing Whitley Joint Councils. 6. Reception of Whitleyism - The inter-war years. Part 3: The Rise and Fall of the Progressive Phase: 1947-1991. 7. National bargaining 1947-1979: main negotiating groups; employers’ side; intra-organisatonal bargaining on employer and union sides; main negotiating issues: pay, grading; arbitration; settlements; disputes. 8. 1972-1991: Turning point: inflation, industrial conflict, reform. Part 4. The Changing politics of local government employment relations. 9. Public service reform: marketisation, competition, managerialisation and austerity. 10. Merger and rationalisation Employer-side: From LACSAB to the EO; Rise of the LGA; intra-organisational conflict. 11. Merger and rationalisation Union-side: Single status: job evaluation; equal opportunities under pressure. 12. The flexible national agreement? Workforce issues; job loss, outsourcing, performance management, market-led local pay solutions. Afterword: European comparative dimension: future directions for the LGEO. References Index
About the author
Whyeda Gill-McLure is Senior Lecturer in Employment Relations at the University of Wolverhampton Business School
Summary
Public sector organisations are large employers delivering labour intensive services that are under constant public and media scrutiny. Reforming public services has been high on the political agenda across Europe and internationally for over three decades. Despite this, the impact of neo-liberal economic policies on public service employment relations remains under-researched. In particular, local government employment relations has had little attention devoted to it by scholars.
The History of Industrial Relations in UK Local Government fills this significant gap. It presents an original empirical study of the changing role of the UK Local Government Employers' Organisation (LGEO) since 1991, conducted within a broader social science framework and embedded in an historical account of the sector since the 1880s. The LGEO, a key actor in the sector negotiating the pay and conditions of nearly 3m public servants, has undergone profound changes over three decades of reform that urgently require documentation and analysis.
This important book makes a number of key contributions. Firstly, it fills a significant gap in the field of employment relations research. Secondly, it extends employment relations research by linking it to a broader social science framework. And thirdly, it develops an interdisciplinary approach drawing on political economy, public administration, politics and employment relations. The book argues that an interdisciplinary approach is essential to understanding the politics of public service reform.
The book will be of interest to scholars and students of employment relations, institutional analysis, labour history, public administration and political economy as well as being a useful resource for HR practitioners, local authority councillors and other public policy-makers.
