Redundancy Rights – Rights for Whom?
The 1965 Redundancy Payments Act was amended by the 1975 Employment Protection Act to give substantial rights to trade unions to challenge managerial decisions on redundancies. These included advance warning of impending redundancies, the right to make representations to the employer, and to receive the employer′s reply. Cabinet ministers, introducing the legislation, felt that it would generate negotiations either to quash the redundancies or to provide alternative solutions to impending job losses. In investigating 74 incidences of redundancy, covering 10,500 workers, it was found that these rights have, for the most part, merely oiled the process of managerial decisions over redundancies, by enjoining trade unions to such decisions; decisions on which they have no real impact. Rights for trade unions, then, in practice translate to gains for employers. An important caveat to this situation occurs where an agreement on redundancies exists, generally giving workers substantial benefits, although there ar...
`Are there no Limits to Authority?': TQM and Organizational Power
In this paper we examine some of the problematic assumptions and concepts underlying Total Quality Management (TQM) through a case study of a major UK retail bank. We question traditional approaches towards power which assume it to be the property of individuals or groups. For us, power should be understood to be a condition of social relations. Thus, it is erroneous to ask who has power. Instead, it is necessary to explore how power is exercised. Notwithstanding this, it is essential to recognize that power is not simply an external agency, but that it penetrates the very essence of our being. We explore the structural and inter-personal tensions which emerge between the bank's mortgage division and its branches over mortgage applications. We examine how TQM, through the medium of `quality partnerships' is used to address these tensions. The article reveals that TQM is both a condition and a consequence of organizational power relations. Not only is TQM constituted by these power relations, but it is itself a vehicle for struggle between competing groups and individuals. This suggests that the problems confronting TQM are far more embedded than is often assumed to be the case. Critically, through opening up the notion of power as `relational' rather than `propertied', it is our aim to illuminate the continuing exercise of, and potential for, resistance during the operation of TQM regimes.
Research requirements to reduce maintenance costs of civil helicopters
The maintenance problems faced by the operators of civil helicopters that result in high costs are documented. Existing technology that can be applied to reduce maintenance costs and research that should be carried out were identified. Good design practice and application of existing technology were described as having a significant impact on reducing maintenance costs immediately. The research and development that have potential for long range reduction of maintenance costs are presented.