Employee participation has retained a central role in HRM over the last two decades. It can be seen as a key component of best-practice HRM and high-commitment management leading to improved organizational performance.

At the same time there has been a decline in union-channels of participation and an increase in Nonunion Employee Representation (NER). The mix of dual union and non-union voice has also received widespread attention from scholars and researchers. Some view NERs as a form of union-avoidance: that is a mechanism intent on by-passing unions and removing any demand among employees for a trade union to represent their interests. On the other hand, arguments abound that NERs may function as a complement to union-channels that may coexist in tandem. This case study reports on double-breasting in one large multinational organization, adapted from Cullinane et al., (2012).

The company and its context
BritCo is a former public utility that was initially privatized in Britain in the 1980s. It is now a multinational organization with operations in over 170 countries. The case described here is the story of how BritCo entered the Irish market and proceeded to implement a double breasting strategy for employee participation. BritCo entered the market in the Republic of Ireland through a process of commercial acquisition, which included the purchase of a non-unionized firm. Once established in the market place, BritCo management decided the company should operate on an all-island basis. This meant merging its operation in Northern Ireland (highly unionized, centralized and part of the UK management structure) with those in the South (exclusively nonunionized, decentralized and based on newer acquired operations).
The decision to structure BritCo on an all-island basis was not without its difficulties. To begin with, Brit Co (NI) has a deep history of collective representation and was a former State monopoly. There are two recognized trade unions in BritCo (NI) with over 90 per cent density, primarily operating through a UK industrial relations system with collective negotiations conducted centrally in London. In contrast, BritCo in the Republic is non-union and relations are locally rather than centrally based. The merger of BritCo across the island of Ireland resulted in negative repercussions as some functions moved from the South to the North. Significantly, redundancy caused problems as terms and conditions were much lower in the South than those that had been collectively negotiated for staff in the North. Indeed, no compulsory redundancy agreement exists for unionised staff from BritCo (NI); a legacy that remained post-
nationalisation.
Because of what appeared to be superior employment conditions for BritCo (NI) employees, a trade union organising campaign was instigated by some workers in BritCo in the South. Unlike UK law, there is no comparable statutory trade union legislation in the Republic of Ireland. In response to the union recognition campaign in the Republic of Ireland, management instigated a double-breasting strategy with union representation in BritCo (NI) and exclusively non-union participation channels for BritCo in the Republic.

Worker Participation in BritCo Northern Ireland
In Northern Ireland BritCo has a long history and tradition of collective participation through centralised negotiation and joint consultation and two separate trade unions are recognised for these purposes. At the same time the company has several other ‘direct’
forms of employee involvement, including staff/team briefings; weekly newsletters from management; regular use of the company’s intranet for communications;
and an annual company-wide survey. These direct employee participation techniques have increased at BritCo NI in recent years, with the CEO supportive of direct and transparent management communications.
The newsletter, for example, provides staff with information on new business developments and how the company is performing. In addition, the intranet provides employees with direct access to a wide range of human resource policies (e.g. pension information and other company procedures, such as discipline)..........

Question

1 In the BritCo case, to what extent would you say that NER forms of employee representation are deep or shallow?
2 Does a strategy of double-breasting (union and non-union) participation serve managerial or worker interests?
3 Imagine you have been asked for your professional advice and opinion from the BritCo Ireland Board of Directors. They would like you to make a short presentation about the feasibility of a strategy of doublebreasting voice in which one or two plants are unionised, and other sites have exclusive non-union employee participation mechanisms. What would you include in the presentation and why?
4 Given what has been described at BritCo, should trade unions be worried about the introduction of employee information and consultation regulations?
5 What implications are there from the BritCo case for the meaning of employee participation?