ILPC 2027

This paper explores the transposition of the EU Information and Consultation of Employees (ICE) Directive in the liberal market economies of the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland by examining how employers have occupied the ‘regulatory space’ for workplace voice in a context of permissive voluntarism and changes in the regulatory role of the state (at national and EU levels), and how employees and their representatives are largely excluded from this voice space. The paper outlines the analytical concept of ‘regulatory space’ (Crouch, 1986; Hancher and Moran, 1989; Barry, 2009) and conceptualises employment regulation as a fluid contestable arena shaped by the balance of power. By tracking the implementation of the ICE Directive from EU-level down to the workplace, we compare its regulatory impact in 7 case study companies in ROI and NI.   

 

 

Using the example of the EU ICE Directive, the rationale for the paper is to explore what impact a reassessment of the purpose of labour market regulation by the state, and the associated devolving of regulatory decisions to organizational level, has had on occupation of regulatory space for workplace voice in ROI and NI. In sum, our research issue is what impact has a recasting of employment regulation had on ‘regulatory space’ for workplace information and consultation (I&C) arrangements? The literature contains many studies considering employee voice practices (Freeman et al., 2007; Budd et al., 2010; Wilkinson et al., 2010), and on new I&C arrangements (Storey, 2005; Dundon et al., 2006; Hall, 2010). But a theoretical and empirical examination of changes in occupation of regulatory space, linked to a reassessment by the state of the purpose of employment regulation, and what this means for I&C outcomes, can import a significant contribution. We also offer a comparative analysis of the ‘regulatory space’ for I&C in the two political economies of ROI and NI.

 

 

In terms of research methods, the data in this paper is extracted from an ongoing research project examining the impact of I&C Regulations in 16 organizations across the island of Ireland. The research design is multiple case studies and, for the purpose of this article, draws on five cross-border organisations, plus two single-country companies (one in ROI only and one in NI only). The seven organizations operate in four sectors: manufacturing, services, retail, and hospitality, and across the two jurisdictions of NI and the Republic. The research methodology is qualitative and primarily involved semi-structured interviews with senior and middle managers, line managers, employees, employee representatives and union officials.

 

Overall, we found that the minimalist nature of the ROI and UK ICE Regulations transposing the EU ICE Directive, and union vacation of the regulatory space at national level, has generally enabled management in our seven organizations to colonize and dominate regulatory space for I&C at enterprise-level. Invariably, employees and their representatives in our cases tended to have little real influence over I&C arrangements and agendas. But while management generally dominated regulatory space for I&C in all seven cases, there were notable contextual differences in the two jurisdictions of ROI and NI, within individual companies, and depending on if I&C was mainly union or non-union based (union I&C was more robust and unions controlled more regulatory space than non-union employees). We also found that while employers in LMEs have generally captured regulatory space for I&C, this may not produce the most optimal performance outcomes - in our case organizations and more generally.  A key point is that power imbalances at the workplace in permissive voluntarist regimes can restrict the potential of I&C structures to create enduring mutual gains, and this was evident in many of our cases. In LMEs, management tend to limit the requisite space required to enable a distribution of power necessary for genuine participation, as they seek to preserve managerial prerogative. This power imbalance is likely to render most I&C structures unstable and short-term.

 

 

Barry, M. (2009) ‘The regulatory framework for HRM’, in A. Wilkinson, N. Bacon, T. Redman and S. Snell (eds) The SAGE handbook of Human Resource Management. London: SAGE Publications Ltd.

 

Crouch, C. (1985) ‘Sharing public space: states and organised interests in Western Europe’, in J. Hall (ed), States in History. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.

 

Hancher, L. and Moran, M. (1989), ‘Organizing regulatory space’. In Hancher and Moran (eds), Capitalism, culture and economic regulation. Oxford: Clarendon Press.