System, Society and Dominance Effects and the Demise of Management-Labour Pluralism Under Neo-Liberalism
Scholars emphasize mutual gains possibilities from pluralist socio-economic work regimes in which management and labour cooperate, pointing to collaborative balancing of efficiency, equity and voice concerns (Johnstone and Ackers, 2014, Budd, 2004).
However, this paper will show that sustainable mutual gains cooperation is unlikely owing to neo-liberal constraints. Using data collected from six case study organizations in the Republic of Ireland, operating in different sectors of economic activity, the paper will advance a threefold theoretical contribution by extending a multi-level System, Society and Dominance (SSD) effects framework (Smith and Meiksins, 1995) to illustrate why pluralist management-union collaborations are unlikely to last in highly voluntarist, marketized and financialized neo-liberal economies (Thompson, 2013; Dundon and Dobbins, 2015). Three interrelated conditions show why the incidence and longevity of pluralist cooperation is restricted.
First, System effects associated with stages of globalized capitalist accumulation mean there is high probability that managers, even when they want to be pluralist, will find it difficult to honour workplace bargains owing to external forces. Second, Society effects associated with the role of the nation State (and attendant State institutions), notably advocacy of voluntarism in political economy and industrial relations regulatory policy, inhibits the capacity of workers and unions to share power with capital. Finally, Dominance effects stemming from the role of dominant economies and multinational corporations, such as American MNCs, almost compel local (subsidiary /plant-level) employers to adopt individualistic management control practices rather than collective forms of labour-management pluralism (Smith and Meiksins, 1995). These patterns are acute in a country like Ireland, whose political economy is heavily reliant on foreign direct investment (FDI) from US multinationals. The analysis has relevance to other neo-liberal and voluntarist regulatory regimes such as the US, UK, Australia, New Zealand.
The research in this paper will advance analysis questioning the sustainability of pluralist management-labour cooperation. Voluntarist workplace partnerships of the kind hoped for by advocates seem increasingly to resemble a chimera. Revisiting Fox’s (1979) important analytical distinction regarding pluralism, endorsing mutuality as part of a pluralist set of values (something that ought to be) is very different to believing enduring cooperation is adequately realizable in the current political economy (actual practice). In reality, voluntarist management-labour cooperation is largely devoid of an enduring distributed ‘balance’ of efficiency, equity, and voice.
References
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