Some Influences on the Operation of Joint Health and Safety Committees

In recent years a major theme in the organisational development literature has been the need to produce improved models of the change process. A major source of the need for such improved models is the fact that, although pressures for change occur in both union and non‐union establishments, “OD has had little to say about the role of unions and the part they play in OD”. This particular deficiency in the organisational development literature assumes significant problem proportions when one notes the existence of some theoretical argument and empirical evidence which suggest that existing organisational change models are inherently incapable of capturing the dynamics of union‐management interactions. According to Kochan and Dyer the specific reasons for this inherent weakness are as follows: