26th May 2010
Five years have passed already since the introduction of the
Information and Consultation (I&C) Regulations. The Regulations, which
transposed an EU Directive on this matter, established for the first time legally-based
forms of information exchange and consultation between management and employees
on a permanent basis in Britain. An important aspect of the legislation is that
employers, employees and trade unions have been able to choose among a variety
of legal options which can be used as they see fit. These options include doing
nothing, pre-empting the use of the ‘standard’ information and consultation
provisions through the conclusion of the so called pre-existing agreements (PEAs)
or negotiated agreements or applying the ‘standard’ provisions. The Regulations
initially applied (from 6 April 2005) to undertakings with 150 or more
employees, but were extended in two further stages to cover undertakings with
at least 100 employees (from April 2007) and then those with at least 50 (from
April 2008).
Despite the fact that there is no requirement to register
I&C agreements with any public or other authority, research conducted so
far highlights a number of interesting issues. First, the most common employer
response has been to undertake reviews of their existing I&C practice.
Based on such reviews, a number of employers, mostly larger undertakings, have
proceeded to the introduction of new, or formalisation of existing,
arrangements. The majority of these arrangements are in the form of PEAs;
negotiated agreements have been less widespread and the application of the
‘standard provisions’ is reportedly very low.
While attention needs to be paid to the conditions for the
validity of PEAs, surveys have shown that in some cases the arrangements are
not designed in consultation with employees, do not cover the entire workforce
and are not in writing. While the coverage of the legislation extended
progressively, the evidence of take-up has become weaker. The absence of
take-up is partially explained by the lack of awareness by individual employees
of their statutory rights to information and consultation. Employers see no
need to establish/amend I&C arrangements as they believe their existing practice
complies with the legislation and/or their employees will not trigger the
process for negotiated agreements.
Under the Regulations’ ‘standard’ provisions, employee
representatives are to be elected by the entire workforce. While there are some
disparities between the approach of individual trade unions, they continue
generally to be interested primarily in collective bargaining and recognition but
have expressed concerns about the high thresholds required for the conclusion
of negotiated agreements. Some exceptions are noteworthy such as Unite GMP who
have concluded model I&C agreements with the relevant employers’
federations and tested the legislation through applications to the Central
Arbitration Committee (CAC). In unionised organisations, I&C arrangements
can be found in different varieties, i.e. supplementary arrangements for
non-union groups of employees alongside traditional collective bargaining
arrangements; I&C arrangements for which elections are held for all seats;
or ‘hybrid’ arrangements made up of representatives both union and non-union
groups. There is so far limited evidence that the division between issues for
negotiation and consultation is being blurred, as distributional issues
continue to be channelled into collective bargaining with the unions. However,
other discussions over, for instance, production, employee welfare and even
bonus arrangements have been channelled into information and consultation with
the newly established/amended I&C arrangements.
It is true that the evidence on the take-up of the
legislation appears wanting. It is perhaps now time to pay more attention to
any qualitative changes that have taken place in organisations where I&C
arrangements have been put in place in light of the legislation.
Dr. Aristea Koukiadaki
Centre
for Business Research, University of Cambridge
IPA will be publishing a new case study next month on
information and consultation at Standard Life, researched and written by
Aristea Koukiadaki. It will be available at www.ipa-involve.com
