"The existence of high commitment management in unionized workplaces suggests that such management is compatible with trade unionism." Discuss

 High commitment management is greatly dependent on a partnership between employees and management.  This assumes that there aren’t agency problems because it is expected that employees have a deep understanding of the firm’s interests and that they go about their job as if those interests were their own.   In order for the partnership between employees and management to flourish however, a workforce must have a collective voice in decision-making.  Firms encounter many problems when trying to give individual workers decision-making authority.  For instance, there is always the fear that a worker will abuse his decision-making authority by using it to further his own ends rather than to help the entire firm advance.  Another problem is that it is extremely difficult to have a partnership between management and a fragmented workforce.  Unions however facilitate a partnership by providing ‘a channel of communication between management and the entire workforce.’  This enhanced communication is made possible by unions because just as management speaks with single voice, having a union allows the employees it represents to speak to management with a unified voice.  Thus unions give their members decision making authority by taking into account the needs of the workforce and communicating it to managers.  As a result, there is an improved match between what employees want and what they get from management and this is an important ingredient in high commitment environments.  Allowing workers to have a say in how their firm is managed increases their job satisfaction and is a major reason why “on average, turnover is lower in union settings.”   In addition, unions tend to fight more for the benefits of employees with longer tenures in firms.  This gives union members an increased incentive to commit themselves to their firm in the long term and also may be a factor contributing to lower turnover.  This is compatible with high commitment management strategy in many occupations such as teaching and nursing where goals such as low turnover and worker longevity are important.    

However, any high commitment based partnership can break down if there is a lack of trust and accountability.  Unions though can be trusted by management to act cooperatively because managers know that union officials want to protect their union’s reputation with a particular firm and oftentimes this “ concern for its reputation can be the guarantee that management needs of good, constructive behavior”. In addition, a long-term partnership between unions and management can permit a greater degree of trust and objectivity than can the partnership between management and individual workers.  This is because there is a greater frequency of interactions between management and a union.  The partnership’s experience in collectively dealing with past disputes makes it possible for future disputes to be settled in a promptly in a way that doesn’t disturb work practices.   This partnership also presents a checks and balance system to ensure that both parties act cooperatively.  Just as “a union is a party that can be held accountable for the actions of its members”, management can also be held responsible for bad behavior of any single manager.  For instance, if a manager is engaging in an activity that the workforce views unfavorably, a union representative can give notice to management to put an end it before it goes too far.  

One of the biggest obstacles not permitting employees from fully committing themselves to a high commitment firm is if they perceive there to be unjustified unequal treatment.  This can decrease employee performance incentives as well as hurt the morale of a high commitment firm.  Unions however, have a ‘sword of justice’ effect and are successful in eliminating many of the adverse affects that occur because of unequal employment opportunities. A major reason for this is that unionized can better monitor firm practices to ensure fairness because they are much more likely to have managers and supervisors who are trained in people management skills and in addition, managers in unionized firms put a greater emphasis on ensuring that there is equal treatment among their employees.  Studies indicate that when taking into account workplaces where all the supervisors are required to have training in people management skills,  “20% of those in unionized environments, [as] compared with only 12% of those in non-unionized places, have responsibility for equal opportunities.”  Two of the most common and documented forms of unequal opportunities are employee promotions and employee selection.  When compared to non-unionized firms, firms with a union presence are “four times as likely to monitor promotions by gender and three times as likely to review selection procedures to identify indirect discrimination.”.  There is also evidence that the increased monitoring in unionized firms has helped reduce sexual discrimination as it regards to promotions and this has thus helped women advance up firms’ hierarchy.  Studies indicate that “about one in seven managers in the union sector reported that the proportion of women in the managerial post had risen markedly in the last 5 years; [while] only one in ten managers in the non-union sector reported this. ”  Furthermore, unions have also traditionally been seen as defenders of an egalitarian pay structure.  High commitment work environments value and oftentimes even require worker solidarity.  However, when some workers are paid more than others for essentially the same job, the existence of this solidarity is difficult to maintain.  A union presence in a high commitment work environments facilitates the presence of solidarity as they prefer to pay each occupational group a single rate.  This takes the wages out of competition among co-workers, and ensures that the high-commitment working environment won’t be harmed due to ruthless competition practices such as undercutting between co-workers.   Thus unionized workers have less wage inequality than their non-unionized counterparts.  Studies indicate that the standard deviation is “.457 in unionized setting [while it is] .592 in a non-union setting.”  Furthermore, unions help decrease wage inequality by ”2.6% between males and females, 1.4% between blacks and whites, .6% between the healthy and those with health problems, and 3.1% between non-manual and manual employees.”.  Thus by ensuring that firms pay equal wages for equal work, unions help maintain workforce solidarity which aids firms in maintaining high commitment work environments.  

In recent years, it had become apparent that the relationship between firms and unions doesn’t necessarily have to be an adversarial one.  In fact, the popularity of partnerships in high commitment firms indicates that the two institutions are indeed compatible.  The evidence stated above indicates that when this partnership is properly utilized, unions can be a great asset to a high commitment management work design.  This is because unions facilitate the existence of many of the necessary ingredients that go into high commitment work environments such as flexibility, increased employee voice in decision making, distributive justice, and worker solidarity.  Major firms such as Tesco have recently taken advantage of this compatibility and are now realizing the formerly untapped benefits that a partnership between unions and high commitment management schemes can bring about.