... compares this EF with traditional employers’ associations (EAs) in order to establish what is significant and distinctive about EFs. Design/methodology/approach BITC Wales is a “typical case” (Patton, 2014; Seawright and Gerring, 2008) that shares key characteristics and functions with other EFs across...

... changed markedly over the past half century. Membership of trade unions has fallen from around half of the workforce to one-quarter. Employers who mainly conducted collective bargaining through employers’ associations now negotiate, if at all, on a firm-by-firm basis. Collective bargaining coverage has...