From 'the best kept company secret'

448556 2012

EID34210.1177/0143831X12448556Snook and WhittallEconomic and Industrial Democracy

Article

From ‘the best kept company secret’ to a more proficient structure of employee representation: The role of EWC delegates with a managerial background

Economic and Industrial Democracy 34(2) 355–378 © The Author(s) 2012 Reprints and permissions: sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav DOI: 10.1177/0143831X12448556 eid.sagepub.com

Jeremé Charles Snook Sheffield Hallam University, UK

Michael Whittall

Nottingham Trent University, UK

Abstract This article is a longitudinal case study that demonstrates how company middle managers acting as European works council (EWC) delegates are well placed to represent the interests of the wider workforce. Contrary to widely held assumptions about the role of management on EWCs, namely that such delegates represent nothing more than the ‘managerial capture’ of this European institution, the article exemplifies such delegates as possessing skills sets which incorporate communication, organization, strategy, assertiveness, tact and diplomacy that can benefit the EWC. The delegates in this study developed both solidarity and a shared sense of identity among employees that spanned national borders; delegates also influenced both company policy and strategy. Ultimately these delegates operating in a strictly non-unionized IT company helped transform the company EWC from its initial description as ‘the best kept company secret’ into a more purposeful structure of employee representation.

Keywords Employee representation, employee rights, European works councils, industrial democracy, management

Corresponding author: Jeremé Charles Snook, Sheffield Hallam University, Collegiate Crescent, Sheffield, S10 2BP, UK. Email: [email protected]

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Introduction The 1990s and the new millennium witnessed wide-ranging changes to workplace legislation and practices relating to workplace employee representatives. Foremost here were the European Works Council Directive 1994 (Directive 94/95/EC) and the Information and Consultation Directive (2002/14). Both encouraged the emergence of alternative systems of workplace employee representation different in nature from the established trade union or ‘single channel’ system prevalent in some member states such as the UK, Ireland and the accession countries (Barnard, 2007; Rogers and Streeck, 1995). Faced with these emergent and alternative systems, some companies launched pre-emptive strategies to ‘capture’ the employee representatives’ roles and activities. A strategy devised to achieve this end involved deliberately selecting or ‘cherry-picking’ delegates from a pool of middle and line managers (Whittall and Tuckman, 2008). This was often executed on the grounds that only management possess the necessary language skills, usually English, to function within a European Works Councils (EWCs) environment (Beirnaert, 2006). To ensure what he refers to as the question of ‘legitimacy’ Cox (2005) argues there is definite need to guard against such a company strategy: One such issue you (employee representatives) will want information on is whether you are likely to need to introduce an extra language for translation and/or interpretation. After all, you don’t want to end up creating a seat that can only be filled by members of senior management because of language restrictions. You would also want to think about how these EWC representatives will be selected (as there will be no national law on this) and whether you have some means of verifying that the seat is eventually filled by a legitimate workers’ representative. (Cox, 2005: 37–38)

Certainly, the question of legitimacy has been a key theme EWC researchers have returned to on many occasions. In some respects the issue reflects a historical tradition, clearly among trade unions, that is wary of works councils per se (Whittall, 2005). This ultimately involves a suspicion that such bodies could promote what Streeck (1995) terms ‘plant egoism’, a metaphor designed to explain how works councils become too closely associated with management interests. Concerning EWCs a number of authors have referred to this process as ‘capture and isolation’ on the part of management (Hanké, 2000; Martinez Lucio and Weston, 2000; Royle, 1999). In particular, EWC delegates with a managerial background are1 viewed with a degree of suspicion; question marks prevail over whose interests they represent, those of the workforce or those of the company? This article looks closely at this phenomenon. We focus on a case study of an EWC dominated by delegates with a managerial background and question the accepted wisdom that such individuals are puppets of their senior paymasters. We do not doubt that ‘cherry-picking’ among middle and line managers prevails, in which these individuals promote a company agenda. For example, in contrast to the other EWC delegates with a clear managerial background, the EWC chair was apparently approached by senior management rather than elected by local constituents. Nevertheless, we are wary of a position that fails to differentiate between ‘cherry-picked’ and independent managerial EWC delegates. Part of the problem, we would argue, concerns the issue of definition. At a


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theoretical level the definition of employee representative appears to lead to a too narrow analysis, one that fails to acknowledge the employee credentials of middle and line managers. Tuckman and Whittall (2002) take up this specific point by exploring how the nature of international business can lead to alliances between site managers and the local workforce once the former recognizes that it is not immune to company restructuring, a realization that their livelihood and that of their families depend on long-term investment in the local site. As we indicate in the section addressing ‘critical incident one’, this phenomenon could be observed in our case study. This stratum of management is not a member of the global managerial team parachuted into countries for brief periods of time to manage local affairs only to move on to another site once their task, whatever this may be, is completed. On the contrary, we present evidence to exemplify how a specific group of managers have distanced themselves from any notions of ‘capture’, and in doing so have been able to establish themselves as autonomous and legitimate representatives of employee constituent interests. Here we employ Hyman’s (1997) dimensions of employee representation, namely autonomy, legitimacy and efficacy, developed to measure the independence of representative structures, to demonstrate that managerial involvement in EWCs does not always have to mean such a body lacks the legitimacy to represent employees’ interests. Reviewing what we term ‘critical incidents’, the article considers three events involving the EWC in which delegates with a managerial background were able to demonstrate their legitimacy as an employee representative. The article makes a further assertion that might prove controversial, too. Not only do we argue in favour of caution when assuming that EWC delegates with a managerial background are nothing more than ‘company puppets’, but linked to this assertion is a belief that such individuals are well placed to make an important contribution to the functioning of EWCs. The focus here is very much on (1) the skills sets that managers possess and bring with them to EWC meetings and negotiations (see later section for a more extensive review of these skills sets) and (2) their inside knowledge of business developments and products. We are not naïve enough to contend that non-managerial employee representatives lack such cognitive skills, especially in the case of delegates from countries with a corporatist tradition of industrial relations. The nature of codetermination in Germany, Austria, Scandinavia and the Netherlands helps provide an informed understanding of the business, so much so that EWC delegates from noncorporatist countries tend to falsely associate such a role with that of a personnel manager (Whittall, 2000, 2010). However, we would argue that two factors have to be considered here. First, in Anglo-Saxon countries (Whittall, 2000, 2003), and possibly in Eastern European states, a skills deficit prevails among EWC delegates. The single nature of employee representation through trade union structures has not required individuals to be involved in co-management practices, an involvement that requires technical and economic understanding of the business (Whittall, 2010). Whittall (2003) has even suggested that UK shop stewards have been reluctant to take on such responsibility, arguing that this is a managerial prerogative. Hence, we advance a position which shows that given their possible insight into company developments EWC delegates with a managerial background are well placed to fill this void. Second, although we accept the positive experience of delegates with co-determination backgrounds, a recent study into


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employee representation in Europe revealed that such representative practices are not fireproof. Lucio et al. (2012) reveal that such individuals complain how difficult it has become to keep abreast of company developments in a world marked by globalization. In summary, the following article aims to address important gaps in the academic literature on EWCs. To this end it asks (1) to what extent and under what circumstances can EWC delegates with a managerial background be considered legitimate representatives of employee interests, and (2) how can generically learned management skills be transferred from professional management roles to inform and develop the EWC representative role? The article begins with a brief consideration of the ‘capture’ debate in the EWC literature. Here, we also consider the biographies of EWC delegates with a managerial background, in particular the tensions they have to contend with when functioning within two divergent environments. This is followed by a review of the methods followed and the concepts applied. The latter concerns a theoretical understanding of Hyman’s work on employee representation together with a review of the generic skills possessed by management sitting as employee delegates on EWCs. We also provide in this section important case study information. Next, we look at three critical incidents which we consider exemplify the representative credentials of EWC delegates with a managerial background. Finally, we reflect upon the issues raised in relation to the concepts used and explore our findings in greater detail.

European works councils: The extended arm of management? EWCs constitute representative structures that are part of a wider movement of ‘labour internationalism’ (Timming, 2010: 522), whereby employees attempt to cooperate across borders, develop collective identities (Knudsen et al., 2007) and articulate common interests (Lecher et al., 1999). In short, the EWC could be perceived as one transnational structure that flanks national industrial relations systems struggling to cope with the growing international nature of corporate policy making. However, EWCs also offer routes for non-union sponsored representatives, often individuals possessing a managerial title, to coexist alongside union supported colleagues in a structure of labour–management cooperation that can nullify adversarial relations and disputes. For this reason studies exist that report how some EWCs enacted under EWC Directive 94/95/EC are not cohesive structures of employee interests but rather have been ‘captured’ by company management for their own purposes (Martinez Lucio and Weston, 2000; Royle, 1999; Timming, 2007). Such capture often involves management using the EWC to raise the spectre of inter-plant competition (Martinez Lucio and Weston, 1994). Where captured by management, EWC representatives rarely play an active part in policy making, remaining vulnerable to management influences as an ‘employer-friendly device of HRM’ (Timming, 2007: 249). These developments are not insignificant because the success of EWCs is dependent upon individuals presenting themselves not as instruments of management, but rather as active independent participants in the corporate governance of the company (Lecher et al., 1999, 2001; Martinez Lucio and Weston, 2000). In fact, the presence of so-called ‘management lackeys’


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(Whittall and Tuckman, 2008: 247) has the potential to exacerbate what are already often brittle and not always sustainable relations between EWC delegates who have to continually contend with the parochial pressures promoted by international capital. When such a situation prevails the EWC remains to all intents and purposes a ‘symbolic’ edifice according to Lecher et al. (2001) – a European body in name only in which delegates use this platform to promote national interests. Certainly, a brief consideration of delegates’ biographies could offer some cause for concern. In their role as a manager the delegates we interviewed were responsible for project management, appraisals of employees and had the discretion to award individual wage settlements. To all intents and purposes they were well placed to promote company interests. Undoubtedly, these managers, in the main line managers, met potential difficulties when faced by these different identities. Although they were frequently obliged to privilege company individualist culture they were also required to defend constituents’ interests at EWC meetings – the latter task requiring them to associate with the collective interests of employees as against the unitary principles of the company. As the article demonstrates, though, such tensions, what we refer to as critical incidents, spurred these delegates on – even when doing so they faced risks to their career prospects – to stress their autonomy from senior management.

Methodology In this section we consider in some detail the data that were collected, the case study company and concepts applied which help inform the analysis. The last involves a review of Hyman’s theory of representation, a model which is applied to test the representative validity of EWC delegates with a managerial background. We conclude by considering the skills sets that these individuals are able to bring to the EWC negotiation table.

Case study and data collection PC Co. is a US-owned manufacturer of PCs with an established strategy of not recognizing trade unions for collective bargaining purposes. The company non-union stance underpinned its approach to industrial relations (IR), reinforcing the use of employee’s single status and line management rewards processes which together bolstered individualist rather than collectivist views among PC Co. employees (see Dickson et al., 1988). Additionally, PC Co.’s non-union traditions, IR and HR policies were sustained by a top-down ‘cascade system’ which detailed product ranges, productivity and business strategies. The company HR strategies included individualized pay and rewards systems, internalizing wage negotiations within a predetermined line management relationship. Thus, PC Co. established outwardly successful HR systems which emphasized individualism rather than collectivism, mediated against conflict and internalized dispute resolution. PC Co.’s EWC was formally established in 1999. One EWC representative suggested that the EWC was recognized for the purposes of legal compliance rather than resulting from legal initiatives: ‘The company would not have actually gone down the route with a EWC had it not been legislated for’ (EWC representative: UK). At the outset relations


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between parties appeared cordial: ‘We didn’t always want autonomy. We wanted dialogue with senior management’ (EWC delegate). However, these objectives proved sometimes difficult to achieve as the representatives were to discover during the events surrounding the critical incidents described later. EWC representatives reported that the company’s lawyers drafted the EWC agreement based upon the French EWC model (Lecher et al., 2001), traditionally allowing substantial senior management influence (Lecher et al., 1999; Royle, 1999) exercised through the chairperson (Bailey, 2009): ‘The EWC agreement is phrased to reserve powers to senior management and weakens the EWC position’ (EWC representative: Finland). French law provides EWC representatives with procedural guarantees to information and consultation in writing from senior management, and specifies that decisions cannot be made before committees have appropriate time to examine the issues (Lecher et al., 1999). This was reported as not being universally the case by these middle management representatives during the critical incidents of restructuring, challenges to management and in formal meetings with senior management, which are analysed later in the article. Senior management reports to the EWC representatives included financial data, the company economic and financial situation, changes in activities, production and sales, research and development, working methods, mergers, reductions or closures of businesses (EWC agreement). The EWC comprised 20 employee representatives with elections decided in accordance with national law and practice in each country. Representatives were sponsored for election by trade unions in some cases, or stood independently themselves when non-union candidates. One PC Co. EWC representative described its company profile in the following manner: ‘The EWC is one of the company’s best kept secrets. PC Co. senior management called for nominations to the EWC. I assumed that what I was actually signing up for was the domestic Works Council’ (EWC representative: UK). In labelling the EWC as ‘PC Co.’s best kept secret’ this representative highlighted the difficulties initially encountered in stimulating employee interest in and connections with the EWC in a company where this was the only form of representative structure. A trade union influence upon the EWC is acknowledged, but it was not deemed influential by the representatives interviewed. The following EWC representatives held trade union membership affiliations: Austria (GPA), Denmark (HK), Finland (TEK), France (CFE, CGC), Germany (Verdi and IG Metal), Italy (RSU), Norway (Stafo), Sweden (Unionen/ SIF) and the UK (AMICUS). The EWC representatives are listed in Table 1. Table 1. PC Co. EWC employee representatives. 1. Austria 2. Belgium 3. Cyprus 4. Denmark 5. Finlanda 6. France aEWC

7. Germany (two seats) 8. Greece 9. Hungary 10. Ireland 11. Italy 12. Luxembourg

general secretary. Total 20 seats (including chairperson).


13. Netherlands 14. Norway 15. Portugal 16. Spain 17. Sweden 18. UK

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Snook and Whittall Table 2. Interview respondents. Interviews total

UK sites

Telephone

Job title

UK delegate 10 Dutch delegate 10 Finnish delegate 3 Austrian delegate 2

4 0 0 0

5 10 3 2

Line manager Marketing manager Line manager Line manager

The case study data for this article consisted of 25 semi-structured interviews conducted over a three-year period with EWC representatives who had line and middle manager responsibilities and were interviewed on more than one occasion during the three-year research period. These delegates identified with their EWC representative roles as evidenced by the three critical incidents analysed in a later section. In addition, documentary and archival materials were consulted. Face-to-face interviews were conducted at various organizational sites, and also by telephone with EWC representatives and company senior management (see Table 2). Interviews were then formally and professionally transcribed and categorized according to subject area and critical incidents. At the time of the interviews it was understood that a small majority of delegate representatives were line or middle managers with cumulatively several years of experience in the IT industry, predominantly in project management or marketing roles. The interview data emerged using the critical incident technique (CIT), capturing the thought processes and personal feelings about incidents that were meaningful for the interviewees (Chell, 2005). The chronology of workplace events was gained from interviews, which helped better understand the importance of three critical incidents relating to the case study.

Concepts EWC representatives and the dimensions of autonomy, legitimacy and efficacy. As already indicated, one crucial factor for employee representation concerns how structures such as EWCs function especially in the light of the relationships between representatives and senior management. Where EWC representatives develop an autonomous and legitimate identity they avoid senior management capture and influences and can become more proficient and purposeful in their attempt to represent employees’ interests. As a means of testing the EWC credentials of delegates with a managerial background we consult Hyman’s (1997) three dimensions of employee interest representation, comprising autonomy, legitimacy and efficacy, as the central issues in employee interest representation. Autonomy. Hyman (1997) views autonomy as occurring first in representatives’ autonomy from workplace managers, stating this is as of crucial importance to representatives in securing their constituent employees’ support (see also Bryson, 2004; Butler, 2003; Davies and Kilpatrick, 2004). EWC representatives’ autonomy depends upon developing independent relationships from managers (Lecher et al., 1999). Second, Hyman explains that autonomous representatives articulate employee voice by filtering and prioritizing ‘multiple, fragmentary and often contradictory grievances’.


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This process requires representatives to adopt considered and reasoned perspectives upon costs, benefits, risks and opportunities, and hence these processes are ‘often seen to pre-suppose a certain institutional distance’ (Hyman, 1997: 311). Therefore, Hyman views autonomy as demanding that representatives adopt objective positions both from employers and employees in order to best represent the interests of those constituent employees. Representatives’ autonomy requires independent articulation of voice and the ability to create, sustain and direct strategy towards achievement of collective goals. In a similar fashion Lindley (1986: 5–6) describes autonomy as sovereignty or ‘selfrule’, and the autonomous person is ‘not someone who is manipulated by others . . . and acts in pursuit of self-chosen goals’. In sum, we assert that representatives’ autonomy involves openly questioning, challenging and delivering communiqués between EWC delegates, which were then delivered to their senior management in response to company personnel policies and strategy. Legitimacy. Hyman (1997: 311) suggests that evaluations of legitimacy are possible through employee representatives ‘delivering the goods’ and, in contrast, legitimacy is lost by their failure to deliver, making employee representation ‘difficult in hard times’ (Hyman, 1997: 311). Employee representatives lose legitimacy with employees by failing to influence management decision-making, or not delivering outcomes equating to employee expectations, situations which can create a ‘legitimacy gap’ between representatives and employees (Hyman, 1997: 311). Legitimacy also focuses upon representative processes identified as ‘the ability to inform, explain and argue’ with management and employees (Hyman, 1997: 311). Representatives gain legitimacy while in office by sometimes presenting alternative views to those of company senior management and then arguing for alternative strategies, e.g. over workplace restructuring. A positive relationship between EWC representatives and senior management depends upon mutual interaction and senior management’s acceptance of EWCs’ legitimacy (Lecher et al., 1999), which studies suggest has proven difficult to establish and maintain (see Bailey, 2009; Banylus et al., 2008; Butler, 2003). This is no small issue because as other studies imply employee representatives require legitimacy to mobilize employees in the pursuit of worker interests (Butler, 2003; Chaison and Bigelow, 2002). Efficacy. Efficacy is the potential for degrees of success and achievement in the representation of employee interests and tests representatives’ abilities to acquire relevant information or intelligence, to coherently formulate policies, and to competently implement those policies (Hyman, 1997). There exists no central defining measure of objective success for employee representatives, as outcomes demand an understanding of what was materially possible or attainable at the time and according to Hyman (1997: 311) is therefore ‘always somewhat hypothetical’. Representatives’ ability to influence policies depends upon skills, acumen, judgement, sensitivity and imagination (Hyman, 1997). Representatives’ efficacy emerges when assuming positions independent in character from senior management, often opposing them, thus creating the environment for the mobilization of constituents (Whittall and Tuckman, 2008). Therefore, efficacy requires not just autonomy, but also


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mobilization to act independently, not simply receiving company information, but also examination, analysis and passing judgement upon it. This, in turn, requires considerations of the relations between representatives and senior management, the processes involved in relationships and the representation itself. For example, do representatives act as informed, meaningful and purposeful, strategic in nature and motivated delegates? Alternatively, do representatives merely accede to senior management expectations, are unquestioning and ad hoc in responses, content to pursue activities and roles without impact upon strategy thereafter? This section has reviewed the theoretical issue of representation. However, the story would not be complete if we failed to consider the issue of skills sets that delegates with a managerial background transfer to the EWC environment. Because, as we argue, these aid such individuals’ contribution to the EWC as legitimate representatives.

Managerial skills: Transfers from the generic to the representative In line with Lecher et al.’s (2001) findings, we consider that in practice EWCs can move from a ‘symbolic’ to the ‘project-oriented’ structure, one comprising autonomy, successful negotiations, improved information systems, stable internal workings and cooperation among representatives across shared agendas and participation with management. As indicated in the introduction we contend that this transition process can profit from the transfer of generic managerial skills learned in their day-to-day operational roles as line or middle managers. Delegates who proficiently and strategically apply generic skills to the process of employee interest representation may improve their role performance and also overcome contradictions between their managerial and representative roles. Principally, delegates’ generic management skills focus upon communication, information exchanges, task-setting, project management, negotiating and fostering trust and cooperation among team members. A typology of generic managerial skills is provided here to illustrate how these might be identified (Table 3). Generic skills used in the managerial role are transferred to their representative roles, but this transfer needs to be undertaken strategically so as to achieve the most positive results for the EWC and constituents. For example, managerial skills are reassigned to the representative role to maintain communications across different media with fellow

Table 3. A typology of generic managerial skills. Skills

Communication Information exchanges

Task-setting

Negotiating

Trust/ Cooperation

How

Establishing and maintaining strong links between team members

Delegating responsibility to team members to undertake specific tasks

Conferring and consulting with team members and others within the organization

Instilling confidence, reliance and faith in team members

Networks and routes of information of mutual interest to team members


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delegates, to assign tasks between them, project-manage new ways of working for the EWC, negotiate with management and encourage trust and cooperation across varying representative activities. By transferring managerial skills during critical incidents which unfolded at the case study organization, delegates learn how to switch between the identities of either line manager or representative roles, and also where to demonstrate the dimensions of employee interest representation, namely autonomy, legitimacy and efficacy, in their representative roles (see Hyman, 1997). Over time, the continued programme of delegates’ skills transference helped move the EWC from its position of virtual anonymity among many employees (i.e. ‘the company’s best kept secret’), towards one of both prominence and permanence in the representation of employee interests. These skills and how they were exercised in three critical incidents which unfolded at PC Co. are described in the next section.

Challenging management hegemony The case study data revealed three critical incidents which proved crucial in promoting the EWC representatives’ profiles. As the events unfolded, representatives closely scrutinized senior management’s strategic intentions, which led to the development of a value system that was ultimately critical in its assessment of senior management and helped EWC delegates with managerial backgrounds distance themselves from the interests of the company. In particular, these events provided opportunities for representatives to exercise generically learned management skills and apply them to their roles and activities.

Critical incident one: The PC Co. redundancy and restructuring programme One thousand redundancies across business divisions were announced to employees by internal communication in 2002. One EWC representative commented that: ‘It wasn’t any particular location, more virtually whole teams’ (EWC delegate). Senior management established Employee Consultative Councils (ECCs)2 to clarify redundancy criteria and locate volunteers. The company compulsory redundancy process strictly complied with the legal rules, i.e. ‘PC Co. did manage the process . . . redundancy rules were followed to the letter’ (EWC representative: UK). There were, however, some dissenting voices from affected employees: ‘PC Co.’s tradition is that of a fair and open company, but in my experience the company hides behind e-mails. HR never spoke to us about the redundancies’ (PC Co. employee: UK). This comment confirmed other workforce concerns that information and consultation required under EU employment laws prior to redundancy programmes were widely interpreted from the employer’s perspective. EWC representatives immediately expressed their collective wish to sustain working relationships with senior management over redundancies, specifying this was to be achieved through ‘a shared sense of mutual co-operation’ (EWC delegate). However as further events revealed, these particular objectives proved sometimes difficult to achieve. Non-disclosure of information to the EWC representatives. As the literature testifies, senior management frequently inform affected employees and EWC representatives only after


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decisions about company restructuring have been made (Buschak, 2004). Such a situation was to be observed at PC Co.’s EWC, where representatives sometimes felt hamstrung by the formulaic and predictable nature of information exchanges in EWC meetings, a fact which resulted in them being bypassed by senior management over restructuring issues. The PC Co. case confirms the view that EWCs are often advised that restructuring is a national affair, and hence not within its remit (Buschak, 2004; Telljohan, 2007). One respondent noted that: I was not contacted as EWC representative. I raised this with ‘Z’ [head of operations: HR] and was told that this redundancy process was a ‘one country matter’ and therefore not subject to EWC consultation. (EWC representative: UK)

These comments show that information and consultation exchanges remained on senior management’s terms by interpreting Directive 94/95/EC and the company agreement as allowing incomplete explanations of operations and strategy (see Bailey, 2009). Waddington’s (2003) studies also show that information and consultation laws in relation to redundancy are often interpreted by senior management in ways that frustrate EWC representatives’ efforts to play a role in this process. PC Co.’s EWC representatives’ collective response to the news was to recycle the information through a series of overt and covert communications in intranet networks to employees and also to attempt to engage senior management in dialogue. Covert and overt communications networks. Lecher et al.’s (2001: 135) studies show that EWC representatives are frequently constrained due to a ‘lack of communications infrastructure and procedural rules for information exchange’, delaying representatives’ collective response to senior management policy on redundancy and restructuring. EWC representatives communicated with one another covertly (undercover) away from the usual company infrastructures and internal systems such as its intranet: We exchanged information on an ad hoc basis. This became the precedent for our actions following other ‘one country’ actions across EU programmes. (EWC delegate)

In the absence of continuous interaction with employees, EWC representatives depend upon cross-border links with one another (Lecher et al., 1999; Timming, 2006). Extra-company networks frequently emerge cementing relationships between EWC representatives (Royle, 1999), providing ‘a new arena of engagement and a potential resource for trans-national employee representatives’ (Martinez Lucio and Weston, 2000: 209). Covert networks became integral to the representatives’ strategic response to company redundancy policies. Networks involved developing ‘databases transferred onto a website with text, graphs, budgets and translations’ (EWC delegate). Other representatives commented that: ‘We have a network of information-gathering systems designed to alert EWC members about issues of interest, when they will be implemented and in what time scales’ (EWC delegate). These methods allowed representatives to liaise with employees at a geographical distance, providing news on company, departmental or divisional restructuring and


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redundancy proposals. Representatives initiated bespoke communication links with objective views and confidential advice and provided these directly to employees – these links were outside the normal cascade systems operated under company policy. Studies identify that sometimes ‘employee representatives may not act as perfect agents of their principal’ (Kaufman and Kleiner, 1993: 26) –which might also be one interpretation here. As other studies demonstrate, PC Co.’s EWC representatives were often met with information alternating between what authors refer to as opaque and transparent (Lecher et al., 2001; Stirling, 2004; Timming, 2006; Waddington, 2003). Responding to the same situation, these representatives showed leadership and demonstrated a collective will that their activities were not to be curtailed by senior management because of inadequate information and consultation. Their covert communications activities increased their autonomy by deliberately distancing themselves from senior management, also assuming legitimacy for constituents’ views and responsibility to them (see Whittall and Tuckman, 2008). Representatives’ efficacy increased by acquiring relevant intelligence and by both examining and analysing it, thereby developing common positions against senior management. By implementing those views through jointly agreed communiqués to senior management in what was a difficult period, these representatives displayed the transference of generic IT skills from middle manager to EWC representative by employing IT, communication and organizational skills in a coherent and strategic fashion.

Critical incident two: Challenges to senior management in formal meetings The second critical incident affecting representatives was noted from interviewees’ accounts about scheduled formal meetings with senior management. Prior to the redundancies programme discussed above, EWC representatives were reluctant to force sectional demands and avoided antagonizing senior managers at formal meetings (see Butler, 2003; Watling and Snook, 2003). However, as the redundancy plans unfolded, EWC representatives increasingly questioned and challenged the senior management’s presentation and interpretation of data at meetings – similar trends in representatives’ strategy towards senior management are recorded elsewhere (Waddington, 2003). Buoyed by a collective solidarity to oppose senior management, a strategy of enforcing changes to the formal EWC meeting’s agenda was evidenced from our data. For example: In one meeting we asked the speakers to stop because we were not interested any more. We wanted short and factual information with questions to follow. (EWC delegate)

Representatives acted with increasing confidence, employing particular tactics and strategies, for example collating data across the company from employees, and then expressing employee concerns directly to senior management in the formal meetings with them. Meanwhile, representatives’ frustrations with the quality of information received from senior managers and procedures for consultation with them created a collective mindset which militated against simply accepting senior management’s interpretation of data during meetings. Subsequent efforts by representatives moved the emphasis away from information delivery by senior managers, towards covering areas of immediate concern to EWC representatives and employees: ‘The [senior Downloaded from eid.sagepub.com at Inst fur Strafrechtswissen on April 12, 2016

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management] presentations to the EWC were very limited. We raised it officially at the meeting and then got some responses from senior management’ (EWC representative: Finland). Representatives’ challenges to senior management in meetings changed their approaches from passive recipients of information and accompanying consultation processes to autonomous and legitimating events (see Hyman, 1997). Furthermore, representatives’ direct challenges were supplemented by post-meeting communiqués to senior management. EWC representatives drew upon organizational knowledge, and crossborder communications to pressurize and expose senior management to scrutiny, openly questioning company policy. This system of deliberate challenge was motivated by representatives’ belief that if this was not done then their constituents might label representatives as weak for being co-opted by senior management (see Oxenbridge and Brown, 2004). Therefore, representatives’ management skills of organization, communications and planning were transferred into actions that deliberately distanced them from senior management’s positions and agendas: The EWC put out communications directly critical, that is, constructively critical of the company. We forced more consultations with management and became more effective. The EWC collectively knew the questions to ask of management and then we [EWC representatives] would go for the jugular. (EWC delegate)

The comment that representatives were ‘going for the jugular’ confirmed that they examined and analysed information and were unafraid of taking risks. The raising of unconstitutional issues increased representatives’ levels of autonomy, legitimacy and efficacy by aggregating their own and constituents’ views before mobilizing support for counter-argument to senior management. Studies confirm that senior managements can be persuaded and then manoeuvred by strength of argument, determined representatives and a forceful resistance into company policy changes that alter irrevocably their relations with the EWC (Whittall and Tuckman, 2008). One senior representative confirmed how they promoted the EWC as a structure of employee representation: The EWC is more effective than anything else currently in operation. It’s the first body with country to country effect, and the only body that is pessimistic about management decisions within the hierarchy no matter where they sit. It ensures that information is being much more freely, readily and rapidly disseminated. (EWC representative: Finland)

Significantly, their activities forced senior management to acquiesce, and then to formally announce reductions in the numbers of planned job losses and also to acknowledge the emergence of a new working relationship with EWC representatives. By identifying with employees’ day-to-day grievances and concerns (Hege and Dufour, 1995), EWC representatives avoided the ‘legitimation gap’ (Hyman, 1997: 311) between themselves and employees. Instead they built coalitions between themselves and their constituents. A respondent pointed out: I took advice from the EWC representative and was very impressed with the avenues of other representatives and line managers which then opened up to discuss issues at EU levels. (PC Co. employee: UK) Downloaded from eid.sagepub.com at Inst fur Strafrechtswissen on April 12, 2016

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Noticeably, EWC representatives did not muster support for PC Co.’s employees to undertake industrial action in response to company redundancy proposals. Rather, by forceful and clear alignment to employees’ agendas, EWC representatives held their own notions of professionalism very highly. For example, when they felt marginalized in their roles and activities, they undertook collective actions and positions to address issues of concern which are explored here as critical incidents. These positions established the EWC as the primary structure aggregating employees’ opinions, which were then voiced to the senior management.

Critical incident three: The ‘country effect’ The company EWC agreement provided that ‘the EWC will not involve itself in matters that . . . concern only one of the countries represented’. This clause permitted company senior management to appropriate policy over, for example, restructuring and redundancy and direct that its impact affected only one EU member state (Wills, 2000). For example: ‘The rules apply where there is going to be a “significant impact” on the potential employment in any one country – but there has never really been a finite agreement as to what the “significant impact” actually is’ (EWC delegate). The phrase ‘significant impact’ remained undefined and flexible, blurring senior management’s information and consultation obligations over issues of importance to EWC representatives and employees. The ‘country’ clause initially permits senior management to set parameters predetermined by them, allowing them to ‘sustain and reinforce management’s position, [and] not to transform relations to a new position’ (Ramsay, 1983: 215). It also permits senior management to preserve hegemony over workplace decisions, identifying issues as affecting employment levels in one country only, therefore defining this situation as beyond the EWC’s remit. Consequently, EWC representatives’ information and consultation rights remained inoperable until certain events arose (e.g. restructuring and redundancies) and were focused upon two or more countries. EWC representatives’ attempts to stall or reverse company policy affecting only one country were originally blocked by the ‘country effect’, a position which impacted significantly upon the critical incidents of redundancies and restructurings as discussed above. However, over time, representatives’ skills, including robust questioning of senior management in meetings and the distribution of information via the intranet about the company responses, raised constituents’ awareness and encouraged their resistance to the enforcement of the ‘country’ clause. These activities stimulated dialogue among both representatives and constituents across the company about the redundancy and restructuring programme. Therefore, the representatives’ actions demonstrated their autonomy from senior management, and contemporaneously showed they were the legitimate voice of their constituents, empowered to forcefully challenge the company’s strategy over redundancies and restructuring.

Critical reflections The case study suggests that EWC representatives with a management background are not automatically subordinate to company senior management just because they hold


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the title of manager. Moreover, when motivated they can use their skills competently to make important contributions to the EWC as a representative structure. At three critical stages in the development of PC Co.’s EWC these representatives became formidable opponents of specific company policies, demonstrating free thinking and affiliation to their representative roles and activities. As the preceding subsections dealing with autonomy, legitimacy and efficacy indicate, they developed an identity separate from their workplace middle management roles and presented a unified front to senior management.

Autonomy Autonomy was expressed by representatives’ direct challenges to senior management in openly confronting, constructively criticizing and debating company policy (see Hyman, 1997). For example, in this case study employee representatives challenged management during formal meetings over workplace strategies, which can be classified as autonomous actions (see Table 4). A unity of purpose emerged between representatives from the strong internal dynamics between them, which studies suggest is crucial both for autonomy from management and also the representatives’identity-building processes (Telljohan, 2007). Representatives took up reasoned and considered responses to senior management policies considering risk, costs to the business and opportunities to challenge the senior management’s agenda (Hyman, 1997). Representatives demanded a better quality and content to information and consultation. They resisted senior management’s versions of events and orthodoxy, and constructed alternative accounts of the critical incidents for employees. These Table 4. How EWC representatives demonstrated autonomy, legitimacy and efficacy in their roles and activities. Autonomy

Legitimacy

Efficacy

Representatives’ self-rule from Representatives debated issues Representatives acquired senior management with constituents and also relevant intelligence and senior management mobilized counter-arguments to senior management Representatives’ movement Representatives argued with Representatives explored, from accommodation senior management and analysed and scrutinized senior to resistance of senior explained policies to employees management policy through management via IT networks formal meetings and covert networks Representatives exercised Representatives successfully Representatives moved senior control over the agenda and exercised responsibility for management to change EWC communiqués towards senior constituents’ views meetings policies management Representatives challenged Representatives delivered Representatives developed a senior management views over a change of policy over collective identity which opposed restructuring and in formal redundancies senior management policy meetings


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activities raised representatives’ profile and decoupled them from restraints under the company agreement (such as the ‘country’ clause) and interrupted senior management’s policies. These autonomous actions required representatives to apply their knowledge of the business, their IT capabilities and their communications and organizational knowhow towards establishing and maintaining solidarity. This set the pathway to a new sovereignty and identity (see Knudsen et al., 2007). We suggest that the representatives’ increased levels of autonomy separated them from the company agenda of restructuring and led them to independence in decision-making and policy. They took responsibility for the strategic direction of the EWC. Moreover, by maintaining autonomy, these representatives acquired the foundation from which legitimacy and efficacy could be assured, and improved.

Legitimacy The EWC representatives at PC Co. mobilized debate among themselves and also with senior management, and gained support from constituents for their standpoints in questioning management policy during the critical incidents. Legitimacy was therefore both influenced and shaped through representatives’ skilful exercise of purposeful activity in office, such as delivering alterations to senior management’s redundancy policy (see Table 4). Representatives’ legitimacy with constituents was augmented by simultaneously identifying with their day-to-day grievances and informing, explaining and arguing with their senior managers, thereby ‘delivering the goods’ for constituents (Hyman, 1997: 311). By applying their organizational professional skills, representatives avoided the ‘legitimation gap’ (Hyman, 1997: 311) where a lack of engagement sometimes emerges between representatives and constituents. The legitimacy to act on behalf of constituents was assisted by successful interactions with them via the covert communications over the company intranet, a situation which moved from accommodation to one of encouraging more resistance to senior management’s policies (see Chaison and Bigelow, 2002). Therefore, the representatives’ legitimacy with constituents increased over time through these activities, a fact that also persuaded senior management to accept the representatives as legitimate agents and so include the EWC in its strategic planning.

Efficacy Over time, levels of autonomy and legitimacy increased leading to changes in the representatives’ performance of roles and activities. These changes provided the leverage through which higher degrees of efficacy emerged when representatives explored, analysed and assessed information received from senior management (see Whittall and Tuckman, 2008). EWC representatives’ efficacy was also evaluated in this article through their successes in questioning company policies and mobilizing countervailing views and opinions to them (see Table 4). Representatives’ efficacy with employees also improved by introducing the IT covert communications system primarily through acquiring intelligence, then formulating and implementing new policies (see Hyman, 1997). Representatives delivered reductions in redundancy numbers, and increased their


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efficacy by successes in formulating policies and implementing them competently (Hyman, 1997) (i.e. forcing management to modify and alter decision-making processes). Representatives used their knowledge, political manoeuvring and business acumen to resist senior management policies over restructuring, which demonstrated elements of ‘skill, sensitivity and imagination’ required for efficacy (Hyman, 1997: 311). These attributes provided concrete examples of representatives addressing what other studies have recognized as barriers to EWCs’ ability to ‘deliver’ (Gollan, 2003). Therefore, efficacy was shaped by the interactions of autonomy and legitimacy. Table 4 explains how EWC representatives demonstrated autonomy, legitimacy and efficacy in their roles and activities. In combination, autonomy, legitimacy and efficacy allowed representatives to separate themselves from senior management, then capture and develop a collective identity with a clear conscience (see Table 4). In short, this involved viewing themselves as ‘the other’, i.e. as having identities separate from their managerial roles (see Timming, 2007). Ironically, as the following section suggests, this developmental process was assisted by the generic skills they had attained functioning as middle managers.

Critical incidents and the transfer of generic managerial skills to the representative roles As a response to the critical incidents described in this article, EWC representatives learned which generic management skills to transfer to the representative role and when to do this. Three examples are noteworthy. First, the representatives’ collective and unified response to the redundancy and restructuring programmes transferred their generic skills of management, including communication, information exchange, networking and organization and planning, to their representative roles. For example, they purposely applied these managerial skills to design policies that limited the barriers resulting from the multiplicity of factors discussed here, i.e. company IR practices, low employee interest in the EWC as a structure, sparse information and consultation and the management’s attempts on occasion to bypass the EWC and its delegates (see Table 5). Furthermore, they also transferred managerial skills of negotiation to the representative role by encouraging employee counter-argument, raising employees’ awareness and vigorously challenging company policies (Table 5). By employing their networks and IT expertise allied to leadership and organizational skills, the representatives shifted their skills from management to representative roles and exposed senior management to employee scrutiny. Moving their skills allowed representatives to lobby senior management through reasoned opinion, resisting policies and airing constituents’ views (see Table 5). Second, EWC representatives transferred their knowledge of communication and negotiation as managers to undertake representative activities that deliberately fell short of destabilizing the employment relations’ traditions or of threatening company profitability (Dundon and Rollinson, 2004). Significantly, representatives demonstrated political acumen by preserving dialogue with the senior management. For example, they avoided promoting employee militancy or encouraging workplace conflict (Whittall and


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Tuckman, 2008). However, over time representatives strategically moved the EWC’s position from one of accommodation to greater resistance to senior management and company policies, but notably, this was done within the constraints of the EWC agreement (Table 5). These policies showed how management skills can be integrated into the representative roles. Third, although constrained by the company agreement, management skills were refocused upon informing their collective representative function. For example, representatives jointly undertook tasks such as presenting a joint communiqué to senior management (Table 5). As one EWC representative remarked: ‘We [EWC representatives] acted as a collective conscience of the workforce. We were looking at people, not just at profits’ (EWC delegate). Throughout their activities EWC representatives transferred other managerial skills such as assertiveness, tact, diplomacy and organization to mould strategic responses to company policies (Table 5). In summary, the representatives moved from bureaucratic stewards of the EWC, to agents of change, interceding in events, mobilizing challenges and debating freely and openly senior management policy and strategy: ‘We entered the EWC as a representative voice. The majority of employees perceived it as an effective activity’ (EWC delegate) (Table 5). The process of skills transfer signified a developmental process whereby the EWC’s remit originally constrained by management thereafter broadened (Knudsen et al., 2007). Moreover, as the next section outlines, these representatives’ skills and strategies gave them confidence to progress the EWC to a new level of representation.

Table 5. Critical incidents and skills transfer. Incident one: Redundancy and restructuring

Incidents two and three: Formal meetings and the ‘country’ clause

Skills employed by representatives • R aising the profile of the EWC with constituents and senior management • C ommunication, counter-argument, IT expertise, leadership and planning • R aising employee grievances and pressurizing senior management • M obilizing employee challenges to company policy • A pplication of managerial experiences and knowledge to oppose the company’s business strategy • R epresentatives avoided destabilizing the company or affecting its profitability • Issuing joint communiqués to senior management • Organization and project management

Skills employed by representatives • R aising the profile of the EWC with constituents and senior management • O rganization, communication, counterargument, assertiveness, tact and diplomacy • R aising employee grievances and pressurizing senior management • L obbying senior management through reasoned opinion • O penly debating senior management policy and strategy • R epresentatives avoided destabilizing the company or affecting its profitability • Issuing joint communiqués to senior management • O rganization and project management


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New beginnings for the EWC Following the critical incidents described in the case study, the representatives’ steering committees formulated and proposed an innovative strategy described as ‘moving the EWC to a more project-oriented structure’ (EWC representative: the Netherlands). Clusters of teams headed by specific representatives took responsibility for infrastructures including cross-border communications strategy, EWC internal issues and project management. Senior management accepted the clusters and provided the services of lawyers to assist in establishing these changes. Senior management support confirmed a new company approach towards EWC business: The project built representatives’ expertise and knowledge. We intended to professionalize the EWC systems. By practically resolving problems we openly question company policies. (EWC delegate)

The fresh clusters marked a new identity-building practice for the EWC, one that emerges from representatives’ practical experiences and their learning processes (Telljohan, 2007). This phase strengthened the EWC structurally, projecting its profile towards a structure with influence and power (see Banylus et al., 2008). EWC steering committees tasked representatives with moving it proactively to a new phase. These tasks mirrored this EWC’s shift from the ‘symbolic’ to ‘project-oriented’ in nature (Lecher et al., 2001). As shown in other studies, parochialism between EWC delegates made them more questioning of their roles, and over time, also more progressive and purposeful in their attempts to scrutinize senior management’s policies (Tuckman and Whittall, 2010). These EWC delegates developed affiliations with, and a sense of responsibility towards both their constituents and workplaces, while also combining knowledge, skills and experience in their representative tasks. We suggest this skills transfer assisted in transforming the PC Co. EWC from the ‘symbolic’ (i.e. ‘the company’s best kept secret’), to one engaged in participative projects (i.e. ‘the project-oriented EWC’). Table 6 illustrates these skills transfers. Table 6. How the EWC representatives transferred their management skills to representative skills. Skills Communication Information exchanges

Task-setting

Negotiating

Trust/ cooperation

How Established and maintained strong links between delegates and constituents between and during formal meetings

Delegates allocated specific tasks and took responsibility for implementing new EWC clusters and showed the EWC as a participatory structure

Delegates conferred with each other at formal meetings and over the intranet, consulted with team members and others within the organization

Delegates instilled confidence in one another so as to assertively contest company policy and develop trust among team members

Networks and routes of information of mutual interest were established over the intranet and were used to inform delegates and members


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We suggest therefore that generic management skills can be transferred to the role of employee representation. In this article the skills transfer triggered momentum to move the EWC along a continuum from the ‘symbolic’ to the ‘project-oriented’. These skills became engrained in their representative roles, allowing them to identify with and limit the contradictions between management and representative roles. The confidence to make distinctions between these respective roles was facilitated by increased levels of autonomy, legitimacy and efficacy providing a more purposeful focus for their activities and duties.

Conclusion The data reviewed here show that even when faced by a managerial pre-emptive approach to EWCs, a determined, organized and efficient cadre of representatives can generate group cohesion and promote uniform activity against senior managers by, for example, counter-argument, and the voicing of employee concerns to those managers (Kelly, 1998). This finding also confirms Whittall and Tuckman’s (2008) views that the act of creating EWCs predicated upon ‘cherry-picking’ delegates or representatives with a managerial background can backfire. Certainly, EWC delegates at PC Co., two-thirds of whom had a managerial background, were faced by certain tensions associated with the different environments they had to function in. Resolving these tensions, however, did not stop individual representatives from taking up autonomous positions. This involved a reasoned assessment of the risks they faced (Hyman, 1997). Ultimately, they associated with their constituents’ views by assuming legitimacy to argue on behalf of the people they represented (see Hyman, 1997). For example: I asked a particular question and [the ER operations director] said, – ‘Are you asking this from a personal perspective or a EWC perspective?’ I said, – ‘My discussions with you are at a EWC level. I expect to be able to communicate anything that you tell me out to the workforce.’ (EWC delegate)

This interviewee exemplified the contradictions and tensions in alternating between the roles of line manager and EWC representative, showing that identities are rarely stable and move according to time and encounters (Knudsen et al., 2007). Studies confirm that, as here, EWC representatives faced by questions of affiliations and loyalties often assume the identity of ‘workers’ rather than ‘company stakeholders’ (Timming, 2006: 16). This particular representative temporarily vacated the identity of line manager, and by using skills of communication and assertiveness, immediately adopted the EWC representative identity, irrespective of risk or competing career interests. However, identity relations between representatives often demand solidarity against management (Knudsen et al., 2007), and this was tested as the critical incidents unfolded. Ironically, the skills of these managerially trained EWC representatives can present a critical platform through which communications are channelled and constructive criticism voiced. In the case of PC Co. they helped to thwart senior management manoeuvres that had previously made the EWC a distant, passive and symbolic body (see Lecher et al., 1999, 2001). In short, the EWC profile was raised by its representatives, from ‘the best kept company secret’ to a competent, assertive and


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resistant voice with the capacity to openly question, challenge and then persuade senior management to amend policy. The representatives influenced policy through demonstrating competence over workplace issues, partly achieved by professionalizing their agency function. By so doing, representatives used autonomy, legitimacy and efficacy to build and sustain credibility with constituents. Skills transference therefore enabled representatives to organize and resist senior management, which also had the effect of revamping the employee–representative interface. This helped the representatives move the EWC from being a symbolic structure to a project-oriented one acting in a cohesive, strategic and systematic manner and pursuing the objective of becoming a participative EWC through implementing joint projects with senior management (see Lecher et al., 2001). Finally, the article points to the emergence of a new vanguard of representatives in non-unionized companies with a collective identity and abilities to effectively influence the conflicting agendas of ‘labour’ and ‘capital’. In short, we maintain that representatives’ skills transfer underpinned the success of these particular EWC representatives and helped progress the development of the EWC as a structure of employee representation. These findings we contend open up a new explorative front that should be paid greater consideration in future EWC and managerial research. Acknowledgements The authors acknowledge with grateful thanks the assistance of Professor Nicholas Bacon, Professor Susanne Tietze, Dr Peter Prowse and the comments of the two anonymous reviewers in advising on drafts of this article. We also acknowledge with thanks the assistance of the company representatives and its officers.

Funding This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.

Notes 1. Note we use the term ‘managerial background’ to differentiate between the delegates’ representative and managerial roles, i.e. that within an EWC environment they are not managerial delegates but employee delegates who outside of EWC meetings function as managers. 2. Employee Consultative Councils were specially elected consultative committees of employee representatives tasked with overseeing transparency in company criteria and its operation of the redundancy selection and implementation in UK sites.

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Author biographies Jeremé Snook is a Senior Lecturer in Law at Sheffield Hallam University with principal research interests lying within the fields of employment law and employment relations. One particular focus for his research comprises the alternative forms of workers’ employee representation within non-union employee forums such as European works councils and other works councils. His recent publications include: Harris L, Tuckman A and Snook J (2012) ‘Supporting workplace dispute resolution in smaller businesses: Policy perspectives and operational realities’, International Journal of Human Resource Management 23(3): 607–623. Michael Whittall teaches and researches in a wide range of areas relating to employment. These include the sociology of work, precarious employment, posted workers, equal opportunities, industrial relations and European industrial relations. He is particularly renowned for his work on European works councils. Recent publications include journal articles in Education and Society, Economic and Industrial Democracy and Industrial Relations Journal. He has a couple of chapters forthcoming in Empowering European Employee Representatives to Negotiate Flexible, Fair and Innovative Labour Relations, Report for the European Commission (with Lucio M and Pulignano V) (2012).
