UK: Collective bargaining and continuous vocational training
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CVT has increasingly become a focus of government policy and intervention since the election of a Labour government in 1997. In response to a skills shortages, major reviews of skills and training have taken place over recent years and increases in funding secured. Current policy is targeted at improving the skills of low-skilled workers and younger workers. Unusually, this is an area where there is concerted effort to encourage the social partners to work together with government to facilitate policy making. However, collective bargaining over CVT is somewhat patchy.
Main features of the national CVT system
The main features of the CVT system
Here please concentrate on statutory legislation and public policies. Please, also clarify whether and how statutory provisions in your country establish CVT as an individual right (for instance, through provisions on statutory leave periods that adults can use to engage in further education initiatives).
CVT systems are essentially national, supported by sectoral and regional structures, and are dependent on employer support. Each region (England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland) has slightly different implementation policies, but the overall directions are similar. National schemes are supported by Sector Skills Councils (SSCs) (http://www.ssda.org.uk/ssda/default.aspx?page=2). These are independent, employer-led, tripartite bodies bringing together employers, unions and government to discuss, plan and implement skills improvement initiatives in 25 sectors. The 25 sectors cover 89% of the UK workforce. There are also regional provisions through the Learning and Skills Council (LSC) (http://readingroom.lsc.gov.uk/lsc/National/nat-about-the-lsc161007.pdf) which focus on providing skills and education opportunities. Its main focus is on 14 to 19 year olds, but also provides services to some adult learners. Regional Development Agencies (http://www.englandsrdas.com/) are tripartite bodies focused in encouraging economic development and have a remit for regional skills evaluations and working with bodies such as the SSCs, LSC, employers, education institutions etc. to promote necessary skills development in their regional areas. The Leitch Review (see below) recommends a streamlining of this complex and often overlapping bureaucracy in the delivery of CVT.
The provision of training in the UK remains essentially voluntarist despite significant policy developments in recent years. There is no general statutory provision for CVT other than for specific professions e.g. medical, professions allied to medicine, education, legal services etc. Beyond these exceptions, there is no statutory responsibility for employers to fund training (although the government has conceded that it may consider this in future – see below). With very minor exceptions, trade unions have no automatic right to bargain over training and skills. Training is rarely a feature of collective bargaining. Only 9% of managers in workplaces that recognise unions actually negotiate over training (Stuart and Robinson 2007). This represents around 3% of all workplaces.
The Labour Force Survey (2006) shows that 30% of employees had participated in some kind of job-related training in the previous 12 months. This is an increase from 26% in 1995. This increase is largely attributable to a growth in training amongst women: 33% of women had participated in training in 2006, compared to 27% of men. The figures for 1995 were 26% and 25% for women and for men respectively in 1995. Coverage and incidence of off-the-job training have grown in recent years (Stuart and Robinson 2007). In only 16% of workplaces surveyed in the nationally-representative WERS 2004 survey (uk0509105), none of the largest occupational group (LOG) received time off for training in the preceding 12 months (Kersley et al 2006). At the other end of the spectrum, in 31% of workplaces 100% of the LOG received time off for training. Panel data indicate that these findings reflect an increase in training provision from the 1998 survey, although there are some difficulties measuring this accurately because of changes in wording to questions asked over that time.
However, although there does appear to have been some growth in participation in CVT, a recent Trades Union Congress (TUC) report (http://www.tuc.org.uk/skills/tuc-13698-f0.pdf) showed a clear ‘training divide’. The training divide in the UK based on levels of educational attainment is significant - the latest data (2006) from the Labour Force Survey show that 41 per cent of graduate employees participated in job-related training in the past three months compared with only 12 per cent of employees without any qualifications. There has been a relatively small improvement in training participation rates among low-skilled employees over the past 10 years. In 1995 eight per cent of employees without any qualifications had recently participated in training compared to 43 per cent of graduate employees.
New data published by the OECD (2006) also shows that the UK performs poorly compared with many other countries in respect of this particular training divide. Based on an analysis of a new indicator which estimates the total average amount of hours of job-related training that an adult would expect to receive over their working lives, the OECD concludes that the training divide in the UK based on levels of educational attainment poses significant challenges. Adults in the UK without a level 2 qualification currently should expect to receive around a fifth of the amount of job-related training that a graduate employee in the UK would expect to receive. According to the OECD analysis an adult in the UK without a level 2 qualification would expect to participate in 103 hours of job-related training over their working lives compared to 480 hours for a graduate employee. The OECD concludes that 'in the UK these differences are significantly larger than in most OECD countries'. The OECD also concludes that 'in the UK the intensity of participation is particularly low among persons without upper secondary qualifications [i.e. without the minimum of a level 2 qualification]'. According to the OECD analysis an adult in the UK without a level 2 qualification would expect to participate in 103 hours of job-related training over their working lives compared to an OECD average of 210 hours for this particular group. The OECD league table based on this indicator puts the UK in 12th position out of 18 OECD countries for which these particular data are available
Nevertheless, the UK 2006 Skills Survey (http://www.esrcsocietytoday.ac.uk/ESRCInfoCentre/PO/releases/2007/may/skills.aspx) shows a dramatic rise in skills demand in UK jobs over the past 20 years. In response to the skills shortage in the UK, the government initiated a review of skills and training provisions; the ‘Leitch Review of Skills in England’, action on which will be negotiated in the devolved regions as well as England (http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/independent_reviews/leitch_review/review_leitch_index.cfm) The recommendations of the Review are extremely wide-ranging. In brief, they propose to place greater emphasis on encouraging employers to provide more extensive training opportunities, to streamline the bureaucracy around public provision of training, and to raise training aspirations amongst low-skill workers. These recommendations follow a period of changing policy in relations to statutory responsibilities. The UK Labour government, elected in 1997, has attached a high priority to lifelong learning (LLL), education and training and raising the skills of the workforce. The government has emphasised the responsibility of individuals to invest in their own learning so as to enhance their employability and social inclusion, coupled with state support where there is market failure in the case of individuals with low or no qualifications. They have also introduced a role for trade unions through entitlements for union learning representatives (see below). There are current no statutory rights to training for the majority of workers. The government currently has no plans to change this. However, the Leitch Review has recommended that if there is insufficient improvement of employer provision of training to Level 2 (i.e. that employers commit to train all eligible workers to Level 2) by 2010, a statutory entitlement should be introduced. This is likely to be contentious.
Increasing policy emphasis is being placed on encouraging employers to commit to training through the flagship ‘Train to Gain’ initiative. (http://www.traintogain.gov.uk/). In the first two years, Train to Gain has had some success at targeting small employers. Around 95% of participants are from employers with fewer than 50 employees. Over 62,000 participants are engaged in Basic Skills and Level 2 training. (http://www.traintogain.gov.uk/FAQs/). The government established the University for Industry which runs the Learndirect programme. Learndirect provides both training and careers counselling (http://www.learndirect.co.uk/). A second initiative, Individual Learning Accounts, was wound up in England and Northern Ireland in 2001 due to concerns about the potential for fraud and theft. (http://www.nao.org.uk/publications/nao_reports/01-02/01021235.pdf) Similar schemes are still operating in Wales and Scotland. The government has stated its intention to re-open a redesigned scheme in England and Northern Ireland as soon as is reasonably possible (http://www.dfes.gov.uk/skillsstrategy/uploads/documents/World Class Skills FINAL.pdf). Finally, if passed into law, the Education and Skills Bill announced in 2007 (http://services.parliament.uk/bills/2007-08/educationandskills.html) will raise the participation age for education and training to 18 by 2015 (it is currently 16). To facilitate this, it is intended that far greater provision of accredited vocational training be available. The cost burden of these measures is not yet agreed. Further, there is likely to be a duty on the Learning and Skills Councils to secure provision of Basic Skills and Level 2 qualifications to all over-19s. (http://www.tuc.org.uk/skills/tuc-13949-f0.cfm).
In January 2008, the government announced its intention to try to harmonise academic and work-based skills qualifications by accrediting and recognising employer skills training (http://www.dius.gov.uk/vqreform/issues/training.html). This is a further significant move away from the voluntarist tradition and has attracted considerable media and policy attention.
The funding of the CVT system
Funding for training is typically provided by State bodies and voluntarily by employers. It is difficult to ascertain with any certainty the relative proportion of State-funded training to employer funded training because of the voluntarist nature of the UK system. The 2006 Learning and Development Survey (http://www.cipd.co.uk/NR/rdonlyres/97BE272C-8859-4DB1-BD99-17F38E4B4484/0/lrnandevsurv0406.pdf) undertaken by the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) indicated that 73% of (larger) organisations have a formal training budget and that the average annual expenditure on training is around GBP 469 per employee. Employers report that employees receive an average of around 5 days training per year. The 2004 survey (http://www.cipd.co.uk/NR/rdonlyres/0F4F5726-735C-4B78-A93E-4F8908B70456/0/tdsurvrept04.pdf) specifically asked about interactions between organisations and government bodies. 86% of organisations had contact with higher education institutions, but only around one third had contact with government bodies such as Sector Skills Councils, the Learning and Skills Council, or Regional Development Agencies. Satisfaction in dealings with these government bodies was rated as overall quite low, with around a third of respondents rating them as ‘poor’.
The 2007 Comprehensive Spending Review pledged an increase in spending over the three year period 2008/9 to 2010/1 to GBP 4.3 billion per year for adult skills and apprenticeships. Financial support from government operates in various ways.
- Train to Gain refunds employers a proportion of wage costs. Employers with fewer than 50 full-time employees are eligible for a contribution to wage costs for employees to achieve their first full level 2 and/or approved Skills for Life qualifications. Employers will be offered two levels of contribution; GBP 5 per hour or actual hourly wage costs.
- Unionlearn also receives public funds. Around 4.8 million GBP of the 11 million GBP Unionlearn budget comes directly from the government. The Union Learning Fund receives around 3 million GBP annually to promotion union learning initiatives. Around GBP 2.5 million comes from the European Social Fund. In 2007-8, the Unionlearn budget rises to just under 27 million GBP, reflecting both an increase of around 1.5 million GBP from the government, and the fact that Unionlearn takes responsibility for distributing the 12.5 million GBP Union Learning Fund (funded directly from central government) this year.
- The Learning and Skills Council is entirely publicly funded with a budget of around 10.4 billion GBP.
The role of social dialogue and collective bargaining in the CVT system
In 1998, the government established the Union Learning Fund (ULF) which funds unions’ learning projects and Union Learning Representatives (ULRs). There are now just under 18, 000 ULRs in workplaces promoting access to union-run learning. ULRs have a statutory right to time off work for training to facilitate their role. The establishment of ULRs represents a considerable shift in policy, reflecting a political will to involve unions in access to CVT and government funds to support this objective.
There is also considerable co-operation between the social partners, which is relatively significant by UK standards. In May 2007, the Confederation of British Industry (CBI), TUC, the Department for Education & Skills (now the Department for Children, Schools and Families) and the Department of Trade and Industry (now the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform) launched a joint project to produce best practice guidance, helping employers, employees and trade unions develop workplace dialogue on training and skills (http://www.berr.gov.uk/employment/employment-legislation/ice/workplace-dialogue/index.html). This has not yet been published (as of January 2008) but is a significant development in dialogue between the social partners.
There is at present provision for consultation with recognised trade unions over training as opposed to collective bargaining. Under section 70B of the Trade Union and Labour Relations Act 1992 a union has a right to: be consulted on the employer’s policy for training every 6 months; require that the first meeting must take place within 6 months of the bargaining method being agreed/imposed; receive from the employer any information on training without which it would be impeded in participating in the meeting within 2 weeks of the meeting; receive a report on training undertaken since the previous meeting and have 4 weeks to make written representations to employer on their plans.
However, the employee- not the union - has a remedy at an Employment Tribunal for failure to consult on training, and these rights only apply where recognition has been awarded and a method of collective bargaining has been specified by the Central Arbitration Committee (CAC). This has been applied by the CAC in only a handful of cases. The rights to be consulted on training do not apply to workplaces where there is voluntary recognition, i.e. almost all cases. Nevertheless, an effect of rights for consultation on training in statutory recognition awards has been to promote provision for consultation to be included in agreements where there is voluntary recognition.
Collective Bargaining on CVT
Collective bargaining in the UK typically happens at company level. This makes it difficult to generalise about the provisions of individual agreements. However, Unionlearn states that bargaining over training at workplace level is ‘minimal’ (http://www.unionlearn.org.uk/policy/learn-189-f0.cfm). The coverage of CVT by collective bargaining is certainly low. Of those workplaces that have recognised trade unions (29% of all workplaces), 9% negotiate on training, 31% consult on training, 24% inform on training, and 36% do not negotiate, consult or inform about training. Furthermore, only around 12% of all workplaces have a Union Learning Representative. (Stuart and Robinson 2007).
An analysis of new voluntary union recognition agreements found that training was explicitly included in fewer than one in ten cases (7%) and specifically excluded in nearly a third (31%) (Moore et al. 2004). Many agreements (57%) referred to discussions on ‘terms and conditions’ which neither ruled discussions on training in or out. Although training was not generally specified as a bargaining issue, union learning representatives (ULRs) were facilitating joint activity in the workplace which go beyond employer-led work-related training and cover employee personal development. In over one third of the agreements (38%) there was some provision for organisational change: such as the introduction of new technology or new working practices. It is interesting to note however that training/upskilling is often involved in such change yet it is a third less likely to be included in agreements.
A follow up research report analyses of the nature of the discussions in the voluntary agreements (as opposed to the text of the agreements) in relation to employer perceptions (Moore et al 2005). Training was the most likely of the non-core issues to have been discussed following recognition. Over two-thirds of the employers (68%) stated that there had been discussions over training (same as for holidays). Their perception of the nature of the discussions ranged from negotiation (18%), consultation (54%) and information (23.5%). This perception was significantly different from the actual text of the agreements. There was an employer perception that in practice most of the discussions set out in the agreement as collective bargaining were consultative or representational in nature. This might however change when unions develop their role within these agreements, which by their nature are relatively new.
Overall, workplaces that have union recognition and a structure of union representatives have higher levels of training than those that do not. Similarly, workplaces that recognise unions are more likely to report higher levels of training incidence than those that do not (Stuart and Robinson 2007). We can disaggregate these figures to differentiate between workplaces that recognise unions, where managers negotiate, consult or simply inform representatives over training issues. This data shows that where managers negotiate (rather than consult or inform) there is a discernable impact on training received by the workplace: the co-existence of union recognition alongside negotiating over training increases the probability of receiving training by 24% (Stuart and Robinson 2007). This also impacts on the length of training received; workers in these workplaces receive longer training than those elsewhere.
Unionisation not only increases female access to training, but that benefit may be significantly greater than for males, in which case unions reduce inequality of access to training. This might reflect the significant effect of union membership on the gender pay gap, which has been greater than the introduction of the national minimum wage (Metcalf, 2004). If there were no unions, the pay gap would be 2.6% wider (Labour Force Survey, Autumn 1998).The pay off to training is greater for union workers than non-unionists. For male union members the post-training wage was 21% higher than the pre-training wage, but corresponding increase for non-union members was only 4%. This challenges the notion that egalitarian union wage policies reduce the return to investing in human capital (Metcalf, 2004).
The TUC offers examples of good practice. In two TUC case studies (VT Shipbuilding and Siemens, Lincoln – see http://www.unionlearn.org.uk/policy/learn-189-f0.cfm for more detail) there is evidence of union representatives (including ULRs) being involved in both collective bargaining and consultation over a wide range of training and related issues. These are simply indicative cases, but illustrate key developments.
In the Siemens case study, collective bargaining took place in the Works Committee where pay rates and fixed term contracts for apprenticeships were negotiated (possibly distributive in nature). The way agreements on working practices and over strategic issues are addressed initially was consultative in nature, through a management/union communications forum. These discussions then lead to formal collective bargaining. The Lifelong Learning Agreement which established a joint/employer learning partnership committee for implementing and monitoring learning initiatives such as a learning centre, and supporting ULRs is a good example of integrative bargaining.
In the VT Shipbuilding case study, there were collective bargaining agreements over apprenticeships and recruiting and training trainee welders and older unskilled workers (distributive bargaining) and joint management/union working parties to monitor some of these agreements (possibly more integrative in nature). The learning agreement establishing a workplace learning centre was very much initiated by the unions and joint union/management learning partnership committee was like that in Siemens based on an integrative collective bargaining model.
Main positions of the social partners on the CVT
The TUC has lobbied hard for a development of the skills and training agenda in the UK. It has welcomed the Leitch Review recommendations (http://www.tuc.org.uk/skills/tuc-12778-f0.cfm) and is particularly pleased that CVT is now regarded as an issue for joint involvement between employers and unions.
The CBI is broadly supportive of the efforts to improve skills provision, but is particularly concerned about the speed of change. It accuses the government of being slow to respond to key initiatives and sees this as having likely cost implications for employers (http://www.personneltoday.com/articles/2007/08/31/42124/cbi-chief-richard-lambert-condemns-governments-slow-response-to-leitch-review-of-skills.html).
Some employers (e.g. Honda and Cable and Wireless) have directly attacked the Leitch Review proposals for being aspirational rather than practical. They have had difficulties mapping their training provision to the level descriptors and have therefore been unable to sign ‘Skills Pledges’ (http://www.personneltoday.com/articles/2007/05/21/40690/honda-and-cable.html). Other employer organisations such as the Institute for Leadership and Management (http://www.i-l-m.com/default.aspx) have broadly welcomed the increased attention on skills provision, but have added that they are keen to avoid a ‘one size fits all’ approach which would force employers into accepting inappropriate training options. In line with many other aspects of labour market policy, many employers are concerned to ensure flexibility in CVT provision and are lobbying hard to avoid compulsion.
Commentary
CVT is notable within the UK employment policy debate for two key reasons. First, it is a policy focus of considerable current attention for the government, suggesting a political will to implement change. Second, despite some concerns from some employer groups, there seems to be a willingness of both unions and employers to work together to promote CVT. There is a debate as to whether or not the lightly regulated, flexible UK labour market conforms to the values of flexicurity . But in the area of CVT, the government is considering extending statutory provisions, is increasing budgets available for CVT, and is working hard to encourage employer provision through incentives. In this sense, a recent paper (Clough 2007) described an increasing tendency from ‘voluntarism’ to ‘post-voluntarism’ in relation to training and skills.
References
Clough, B, (2007) From voluntarism to post-voluntarism: the emerging role of unions in the vocational education and training system. TUC Unionlearn. Available at: http://www.unionlearn.org.uk/files/publications/documents/103.pdf
Metcalf, D. (2004) British Unions: Resurgence or Perdition, Centre For Economic Performance Working Paper No. 1347.
Moore, S., McKay, S. and Bewley, H. (2004) The content of new voluntary trade union recognition agreements 1998-2002 – An analysis of new agreements and case studies. Department for Trade and Industry. ERRS No. 26. Available at: http://www.dti.gov.uk/files/file11501.pdf
Moore, S., McKay, S., and Bewley, H. (2005) The content of new voluntary trade union recognition agreements 1998-2002 – findings from the survey of employers. Department for Trade and Industry. ERRS No. 43. Available at: http://www.dti.gov.uk/files/file11435.pdf
OECD (2006) Education at a Glance.
Melanie Simms, IRRU, University of Warwick