TRADE UNIONS, NEW TECHNOLOGY AND INCOMES POLICY: DISCLOSURE AND USE OF COMPANY INFORMATION

NOTES AND REFERENCES

1. In the European Economic Community a draft directive (24 October 1980) outlines procedures for information and consulting the employees of undertakings with complex structures (including multinationals). This draft directive, known as the Vredeling Plan, stipulates that the management of a ‘dominant’ enterprise whose decision-making centre resides in a State Member of the Community, and which has one or more subsidiaries in the same State or at least one other member State, must supply the management of subsidiaries with relevant information every six months. Such information, to be communicated to the workers, should cover (a) structure and staff; (b) the economic and financial position; (c) the current state of affairs, production and sales and probable trends; (d) the employment situation and probable trends; (e) production and investment programmes; (f) rationalisation plans; (g) manufacturing and working methods, particularly the introduction of new working methods; and (h) all procedures and projects that could substantially affect the interests of the worker.

2. The European unions have pressed for modifications to certain definitions (for example, replacing “dominant influence” by “notable influence”). Although approved in an amended form by the European Parliament (October 1982), the Vredeling Plan will not come into effect as a binding directive for national legislative implementation by Members until it has been adopted by the Council of Ministers. Debate over an amended text, in both Parliament and Council, looks as though it will continue throughout 1983.

3. For a Ministerial revelation of communication and information deficiencies in the operation of the British Social Contract experiment of 1974–8, see Barbara Castle, The Castle Diaries 1974–6, Widenfeld and Nicholson, London, 1980, pp. 318–20.

4. The National Economic Summit (11–14 April, 1983) was a unique Australian forum for discussion of the economic policy context of incomes-prices policy. It was not an exercise in formulation of the configuration of incomes prices policy, which had been largely determined by the pre-election accord between the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) and the Australian Labor Party (ALP), but acted as a forum for the explosure of economic policy parties to new economic information relevant to the Labor Government's economic strategy. The final Communique (para.50) emphasised that, “the summit welcomes the wealth of information provided to participants. This move to a more open approach should be encouraged and the Government should ensure that sufficient resources are allocated on a continuing basis to collect, analyse and disseminate such information”. It was agreed to initiate an Economic Planning Advisory Committee to “expand the information base available for economic policy formulation through broad indicative planning” (para.54) and “to encourage the process of consultation at all levels of the community” (para.56). See National Economic Summit Conference April 1983, Communique, Parliament House, Canberra, 14 April 1983. See also, Statement of Accord by The Australian Labor Party and the Australian Council of Trade Unions Regarding Economic Policy, ACTU, Melbourne February 1983, pp. 1–11.

5. Edgar Schein H.. 1972. . Organizational Psychology . , p. 19 New Jersey : : Prentice-Hall. .

6. See Alan Boulton, Technological Change and Industrial Problems — The Legal Aspects. A Report Prepared for the Committee of Inquiry Into Technological Change in Australia, ACTU, Melbourne, 1980.

7. Alan Boulton, ‘Job Protection and the Test Case Approach’ in Industrial Relations Reform, University of New South Wales Occasional Paper No. 6, 1981, p. 17.

8. The National Summit agreed to “progress the development of a centralised wage system” through a series of conferences (begun in late April 1983) held under the auspices of the Australian Conciliation and Arbitration Commission. The notion of a ‘centralised’ system is, however, an ambiguous concept: to the ACTU it apparently implied the early replacement of the wage pause (due to end on 28 June 1983) by quarterly and fully-compensated cost of living adjustments. Following its decision to abandon wage indexation in 1981 — having concluded that none of the industrial parties share a concern to keep the system viable — the Commission's role was largely confined to ratifying wage agreements between unions and employers. The adoption of the wage freeze in December 1982 further inhibited the active scope of the Commission. Hence the Summit conference effectively resurrected the active role of the Commission while emphasizing “the need for a period of collective restraint”.

9. R. Moore, Disclosure of Company Information to Trade Unions (UK), South Australian Department of Labour and Industry, Adelaide, 1979, p. 9.

10. See S. Landekich, The Use of Accounting Information in Labor Negotiations, National Association of Accountants, New York, 1977.

11. B. Foley and K. Maunders, ‘The CIR Report on disclosure of information: a critique’, Industrial Relations Journal, 4, Autumn 1973, p. 18.

12. Moore, op. cit., p. 23.

13. The text of the Royal Order of 1973, supplemented by recently adopted regulations, lists in minute detail the types of information to be furnished to enterprise councils; fuller information than is provided in most cases to active general shareholders’ meetings in Europe. The 1973 Order was supplemented by a Royal Order (12 August 1981) providing for additional information upon State aid received and its deployment, as well as the Royal Orders Nos. 18 and 19 of 18 March 1982, and No. 92 of 9 September 1982 to facilitate supervision of the implementation of Government wage restraint policy at undertaking level. See also C. Breviere, ‘Communicating information to workers in Belgian undertakings', International Labour Review, 122, 2, 1983, pp. 197–210.

14. See John Corina and William Rees, The Disclosure of Company Information to Trade Unions and Employees. Australian Problems and Perspectives. University of Sydney Occasional Papers in Industrial Relations, No. 2, June 1981.

15. See European Trade Union Institute, Negotiating Technological Change, Brussels, 1982.

16. See Association of Professional, Executive, Clerical and Computer Staff, Office Technology: The Trade Union Response, London, 1979.

17. Cited in Mark L. Kahn, Labor Arbitration and Industrial Change, Proceedings of Sixteenth Annual Meeting, National Academy of Arbitrators, BNA Inc., Washington, D.C., 1953, p. 300.

18. See C. Goodrich, The Frontier of Control, Pluto, London, 1975.

19. Australian Council of Trade Unions, Decisions of the Australian Congress of Trade Unions, 1979.

20. It could be argued that in a well-established and stable company group (parent and subsidiaries), loss of employment or degeneration of working conditions in one plant are not necessarily disastrous if the skills of the workforce allow transfer to other organisations within the Group. Where the future of the industry, or the level of employment in an industry is seriously threatened, and the workforce has no transferable skills, the effect on both unionists and their unions can be traumatic. Under these circumstances, trade unions may be forced to look increasingly to the future of a company and their members' position within it. Labour law in Europe affirms the relevance of the Group entity in collective labour relations. West Germany, Belgium and Sweden, for example, require companies to inform employee representatives about the economic situation of the whole Group. In Germany, when a plant closes, negotiations between management and union representatives are obligatory, and must take into account the state of the entire Group when planning to mitigate the adverse effects. This situation of group employee information may be starkly contrasted with the case of the 1982–83 retrenchment within BHP; where recourse to the law (New South Wales Industrial Commission), for example, first implied union pressure for a State Government investigation into the steel and coal industries, and then management denial that plans for a major takeover of a US mining corporation were at all relevant to cutbacks in the steel operations of BHP.

21. In Europe, a (1982) pilot study by R. Moore and H. Levie, Workers and New Technology: Disclosure and Use of Company Information (Trade Union Research Unit, Ruskin College, Oxford), was submitted to the European Economic Commission. It was supplemented by a seminar in Brussels in April 1982 attended by trade union representatives throughout Europe. On the other hand, the original Vredeling draft was derailed in early 1983 by large employer pressure-group activity, upon the European Parliament, to give companies the right to refuse information if it constitutes a “company or business secret”.