Anti-Unionism: Contextual and Thematic Issues

Abstract

In recent years, there have been many studies of non-unionism (McLoughlin and Gourlay 1994, Dundon and Rollinson 2004, Kaufman and Taras 2010). However, very few have explicitly sought to trace the antecedents and emerging trajectories of conscious ‘anti-’ union intent among employers, employer bodies and state agencies. And there is also a wider gap when viewing anti-unionism on transnational and global scales, where few studies examine employer strategies for preferred individualistic and managerial-sponsored configurations of workplace governance. In such employer projects, ‘anti-unionism’ is not the same as ‘non-unionism’. Anti-unionism is defined in this study as a conscious, deliberate decision to undermine and erode hypothetical, potential and actual workplace collective unionisation and union organisation. It concerns issues of identity (individual and collective), power resources and power mobilisations, managerial and societal ideology, and the structure and configuration of material interests. Anti-unionism is distinct but not totally separate from non-unionism, which may emerge as a less deliberate and more organic approach to workplace regulation, including such arrangements as non-union representative forums or other individualised human resource management (HRM)-inspired techniques (Gollan 2007).