The Memorandum of Understanding negotiated with the EU/IMF in 2010 committed the government to reform the Joint Labour Committee (JLC) system covering low pay workers. A significant rationale for the proposed reform was the claim that JLC regulations unduly added to the cost of labour regarding...

In this paper a variety of union recognition procedures and their effect on union density levels in a number of countries are considered. The crucial importance of the national institutions that govern industrial relations are emphasised. While in Ireland, conditions such as social partnership...

The growth of service employment and new forms of work has supposedly fostered the diffusion of individual orientations at the expense of traditional forms of union solidarity. These developments suggest that academics are likely to manifest an individualist orientation and a weak attachment to...

In the Irish context of national partnership and the promotion of workplace partnership at firm level, unions might be expected to have achieved, at least, a pragmatic acceptance by employers. Using a survey of full-time union officials in eight trade unions organising in the private sector,...