The Rhetoric of Power: The Case of Bettavalve Placid, Part 1

Abstract

Power forms part of the everyday common‐sense language and conceptual framework used by experts and laymen alike to describe industrial relations processes and phenomena. Yet, despite the obvious centrality and importance of power to the study of industrial relations, it may be argued that the concept represents a major lacuna in the theoretical development of the discipline. Thus, there is relatively little literature in industrial relations which focuses directly on the concept. From a study of this literature, and the much more voluminous and extensive work on power in other disciplines (notably sociology, economics and political science), one can discern two almost exclusive central foci. Firstly, there is one school of thought which conceptualises power as an outcome or the result of some other process. From this perspective, the power of social actors can only be ascertained by an analysis of their effects on outcomes or observable events. The second school sees power as a material resource which can be possessed, stored and deployed to achieve the goals of the actor. Whilst both these approaches throw valuable light on some aspects of power, it may be suggested that the predominance of these constrained perspectives has resulted in the relative neglect of other important aspects of power.

Reconceptualising employee silence

“…Others have drawn attention to how these structures have been found to wither away progressively once the union threat has subsided (Peetz, 2002). Even where there is no obvious threat to managerial prerogative, studies on NERs illustrate how such bodies can be substantively debilitated by management concerns to restrict voice to issues of business efficiency and little else (Kirkbride, 1986).…”

`I used to be an employee but now I am a stakeholder': Implications of labelling employees as stakeholders

“…Furthermore, a focus on shared employer and employee interests may result in the marginalisation of divergent interests and disempower employees from voicing or pursuing such interests. Kirkbride's (1986a;1986b) case-study demonstrates how managerial language can be framed to place the interests of the organisation first (emphasising the need for profitability). In this case a constant reiteration of same values, beliefs and ideology pervaded consultative processes with employees.…”

“…Employees face the possibility of being displaced by other employees if they fail to act in the interests of the organisation. A number of case-studies of employer-controlled consultative mechanisms with employees have revealed that employer interests are the overriding (and often the only) matter considered (Kirkbride 1986a(Kirkbride , 1986bLloyd 2001;Gollan 2002Gollan , 2003Butler 2005). In these case-studies employer-controlled consultative mechanisms did not enable effective representation of employee interests.…”

The One That Got Away: Rhetoric in Negotiation

“…Despite the previously mentioned general ideological hegemony and domination of Bettavalve management [1], there were occasions when the worker representatives were willing to challenge the established managerial prerogative and the "natural order" of the factory. One interesting example concerned the National Engineering Agreement of 1979 to which Bettavalve Placid, as a non-unionised and non-federated firm, was not a party.…”

“…In two previous articles [1], this author drew attention to the importance of the linguistic resources of legitimising principles, and the uses of ideology and rhetoric in bargaining and negotiation. It was argued that if we are fully to understand the processes of power in organisations generally, and in industrial relations in particular, we need to study in more detail the nature and uses of ideology, legitimising principles and rhetoric, and the ways in which these are used continually to reinforce and reproduce structures of power and domination.…”