Umney, C and Coderre-LaPalme, G (2017) Blocked and new frontiers for trade unions: contesting 'the meaning of work' in the creative and caring sectors. British Journal of Industrial Relations, 55 (4). pp. 859-878. ISSN 0007-1080
Abstract
Many jobs feature tensions between workers’ own motivations, and the objectives imposed on them by management or economic imperatives. We call these tensions ‘meaning of work conflicts’. We ask whether trade unions can intervene in them, or whether they are simply too subjective to be a credible campaigning focus. We examine two professional groups in Britain and France, musicians and healthcare staff. Among musicians, workers tend to negotiate meaning of work conflicts themselves, seeing little role for unions in this process. This engenders legitimacy problems that unions have had to find ways around. By contrast, in the hospitals sector, there is more scope for unions to campaign over the meaning of work, thus potentially increasing legitimacy among staff and the public. The difference is explained by the more diffuse and fragmented nature of employer structures in music, and the more chaotic set of motivations found among music workers.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2017 John Wiley & Sons Ltd. This is the peer reviewed version of the following article: Umney, C. and Coderre-LaPalme, G. (2017) Blocked and New Frontiers for Trade Unions: Contesting ‘the Meaning of Work’ in the Creative and Caring Sectors. British Journal of Industrial Relations. doi:10.1111/bjir.12251, which has been published in final form at https://doi.org/10.1111/bjir.12251. This article may be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance with Wiley Terms and Conditions for Self-Archiving. Uploaded in accordance with the publisher's self-archiving policy. |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Leeds |
Academic Units: | The University of Leeds > Faculty of Business (Leeds) > Work and Employment Relation Division (Leeds) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Publications |
Date Deposited: | 23 Jun 2017 09:36 |
Last Modified: | 02 Aug 2019 00:41 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Wiley |
Identification Number: | 10.1111/bjir.12251 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:118131 |