Abstract
This Chapter concerns the substantive outcomes of employment relations associated with fight , flight , fright and falling-in-line . Unions have had no obvious or widespread success in preventing tens of thousands of redundancies in the sector. Where they have been able to exert some influence has been on the terms of severance and not on the numbers leaving. Even here, the influence has been rather marginal. Pay continues to be regulated under employer regimes of performance management so that union influence is again marginal—it has been restricted far more to establishing the size of the overall ‘pay pot’ and ensuring the procedural means by which pay awards are distributed are either adhered to or seen to be fair rather than exerting influence on what principles are used for individual distribution. In comparison to the past of collective bargaining establishing across-the-board rises for all staff, this emphasises not only the lack of co-determination but that employees are treated as a set of increasingly atomised individuals. Low pay is now becoming a feature of employment as is precariousness. No longer is there the basis of a psychological contract consisting of stable, long-term employment with increasing remuneration through either seniority or promotion. For those that are left in employment, the main outcome of flight has been the emergence of a more pronounced sullen resignation to, acceptance of, and acquiescence to, their fate under a regime of increased management power . ‘Performance management’ has now come to involve far greater scrutiny of work performance, meeting targets and monitoring of sickness and absence. Critically, it is now also linked to what are termed ‘market rates’ for the geographic region and pay bands in which employees undertake their roles. Chapter 5 comprises the conclusion, whereby the significance of the preceding substantive chapters is assessed and a number of important issues are drawn out for the study of employment relations and labour unionism in the sector.
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Gall, G. (2017). Outcomes. In: Employment Relations in Financial Services. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-39539-9_4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-39539-9_4
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