ABSTRACT
That opinion on partnership is divided is the natural point of departure for any examination of partnership-based approaches to employment relations. As most of the chapters in this collection note, following Roche and Geary (2002), there are ‘advocates’ and ‘critics’. Whilst the partnership agenda raises questions around new management strategies and the potential for mutual gains (see Kochan and Osterman 1994), much of the British debate has focused on the implications for trade unions in engaging with the partnership agenda. Thus, for Ackers and Payne (1998), partnership affords the union movement a clear opportunity for increased social and economic influence after almost two decades in the political wilderness. Critics disagree, pointing to the potential dangers and risks for trade unions in engaging with partnership (Kelly 1998; Taylor and Ramsay 1998; Danford et al. 2002). Yet despite this caution, trade unions have continued to engage with the partnership agenda, through the signature of partnership agreements, via project-based support under the Department of Trade and Industry’s Partnership Fund (see Martínez Lucio and Stuart 2002) and, perhaps most significantly under the auspices of the Trade Union Congress (TUC), which has laid down a series of principles for partnership working.1 Such principles are considered to be central to underpinning the effective development of partnership-based approaches, in so far as ‘genuine’ partnerships (see Wray, this volume) are based on the establishment of reciprocity, trust and mutual gains.
