Non-unionised workplaces:While a majority of Irish workers (more than 60 per cent) are not in trade unions, companies with non-unionised workplaces seem reticent to talk about their arrangements.
The Irish Timesapproached a number of companies, including Microsoft, Aer Arann and Intel, asking if their personnel departments would talk about staff-management relations. All declined.
A management consultant, who also works with the trade union movement, says he is "not surprised" at the companies' stance. He did not want to be identified. "Generally on this issue, companies want to stay below the radar. They would take the view that their audience is their workforce and not Joe Public," he explains. Asked why such companies would not wish to share positive experiences of relating directly with their employees, he said: "Well as one company director said to me, 'I came to Ireland to make Panadol, not to be at the vanguard of a non-union revolutions'. They're here to do business - that's it."
A study of partnership models, carried out by the National Centre for Partnership and Performance (NCPP) in 2005, looked at 14 unionised and non-unionised workplaces to "identify good practice" in consultation processes. Of the four non-union companies Dell Sales and Supports and the Electric Paper Company are instructive. Both are cutting-edge technology firms requiring a flexible workforce.
The Electric Paper Company, an Irish firm with 80 employees, "claims it has achieved a great deal of competitive advantage and flexibility from communicating effectively with its employees", the report notes. Staff at the company, from team leaders to senior management, are involved in planning, design and work changes. The company is highly focused on developing the careers of its staff, the study says, with regular performance reviews and training.
Dell, in contrast, is a vast multinational company with a workforce here of 1,300. The report says "in the context of a non-unionised, multisite and multinational organisation excellent two-way communications between management and staff are seen as crucial". It has "numerous feedback mechanisms for employees to air views and influence local-based decisions".
The consultant who spoke to The Irish Timesdescribes Dell as a typical "high-tier non-unionised workplace" with "great employee care systems, benefit packages, career development, training . . . They would argue they are not anti-union but pro-employee and do not need a third party coming in and dictating to them."
Where unions are relevant, he says, are in the "low-tier, non-unionised" workplaces, where a union is absent because the workers are exploited and too afraid to seek a voice.
