Workplace Trade Union Response to TQM and Teamworking

Unions are rarely mentioned in the writings of the quality gurus, and the industrial relations aspects of TQM can often be neglected by employers. However, because TQM involves changes in working practices and job control ‐ traditional areas of union concern ‐ industrial relations issues become increasingly important at lower levels in the hierarchy (Wilkinson, 1994). TQM, like much of the prescriptive writing on HRM, is unitarist in approach and is regarded as essentially a management policy, outside the union sphere of influence (Wilkinson, et al, 1992). Collard (1993) concludes that: