Essay on UK Employment Relations: Trade Unions or Brexit Impact

The assignment requires students to write an individual essay of up to 2,500 words on one of two given topics: 'Trade Unions have become unnecessary as guarantors of employee rights in the contemporary British workplace' or 'Discuss the possible implications of Britain's withdrawal from the European Union on employment relations in the UK.' The essay should be submitted by November 17th, 2016, via the Turnitin submission link on Learning Central.

BS2534 Employment Relations 2016-17
Semester One Assignment
The assessment requirement for Employment Relations in the first semester is an individual
essay of up to 2,500 words in length. The usual rules on deadlines, word length, and
plagiarism will apply. The assignment should be submitted by 2pm on Thursday 17
November 2016, via the Turnitin submission link on the module Learning Central page. Full
details of how to submit can be found under the ‘assessment’ menu tab.
Students should attach the assignment cover sheet to their assignments. This can be found
and downloaded from Learning Central. You should complete the form and attach it to your
essay before submitting it. Please note that we mark anonymously so your name should not
appear anywhere on the coversheet or the essay itself.
To complete the assessment, students should choose ONE of the titles given below and
word-process their answer, using size 12 font and 1.5 line spacing.
Assignment Questions
Either
1. ‘Trade Unions have become unnecessary as guarantors of employee rights in the
contemporary British workplace.’ Discuss.
Or
2. Discuss the possible implications of Britain’s withdrawal from the European Union on
employment relations in the UK.
Below is some reading that you may find of use in preparing your answers:
Blyton, P. and Turnbull, P. (2004) The Dynamics of Employee Relations, Third Edition,
Palgrave Macmillan.
Blyton, P. and Jenkins, J. (2007) Key Concepts on Work London, Sage.
Blyton P., Bacon N., Fiorito J., and Heery E. (Eds) The Sage Handbook of Industrial Relations,
London, Sage.
Bach, S. and Sisson, K. (ed.) (2000) Personnel Management, Blackwell.
Edwards, P. (ed.) (2003) Industrial Relations, second edition, Blackwell.
Heery, E. and Noon, M. (2008) A Dictionary of Human Resource Management, Second
Edition, Oxford University Press.
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BS2534 Employment Relations 2016-17
Heery E. and Salmon J. (Eds) (2000), The Insecure Workforce, Routledge.
Hollinshead, G., Nicholls, P. and Tailby, S. (2003) Employee Relations, second edition
Financial Times/Prentice Hall.
Hyman, R. (2001) Understanding European Trade Unionism: Between Market, Class and
Society’, London, Sage.
Kersley, B., Alpin, C., Forth, J., Bryson, A., Bewley, H., Dix, G. and Oxenbridge, S. (2006),
Inside the Workplace: Findings from the 2004 Workplace Employment Relations Survey,
Abingdon, Routledge.
Millward, N., Bryson, A., and Forth, J. (1999), ‘Changes in Employment Relations, 1980–
1998’, in Cully, M., Woodland, S., O’Reilly, A., Dix, G. (1999), Britain at Work: As depicted by
the 1998 Workplace Employment Relations Survey, London, Routledge.
Millward, N., Bryson, A., and Forth, J. (2000), All Change at Work? British Employment
Relations 1980–1998, as portrayed by the Workplace Industrial Relations Survey series,
London, Routledge.
Noon, M. and Blyton, P. (2007), The Realities of Work, 3rd Edition, Basingstoke, Palgrave
Macmillan.
Redman, T. and Wilkinson, A. (2006) Contemporary Human Resource Management: Texts
and Cases, Second Edition Prentice Hall.
Rose, E. (2001) Employment Relations, Financial Times/Prentice Hall.
Williams, S. and Adam-Smith, A. (2006) Contemporary Employment Relations: A critical
introduction, Oxford University Press.
Academic Journals
The main journals that contain articles on industrial relations are listed below. These are
good places to start to find the research-based material you will need.
British Journal of Industrial Relations
Industrial Relations
Industrial Relations Journal
Employee Relations
Industrial Law Journal
Human Relations
Human Resource Management Journal
International Journal of Human Resource Management
European Journal of Industrial Relations
Work, Employment and Society
Gender Work and Organization
Journal of Management Studies.
New Economy
Organization Studies.
Practitioner Journals
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BS2534 Employment Relations 2016-17
These are particularly useful for coverage of recent developments and policy debate.
Practitioner journals often contain accessible summaries of recent academic research.
People Management
IDS Focus
IDS Report
IDS Brief
IDS European Report
IDS Study
IRS Employment Review
Labour Market Trends
Labour Research
Websites
There is a wealth of information available on the web that is relevant to completing the
assignment topics. The following organisations have websites that may be worth visiting:
Advisory, Arbitration and Conciliation Service (ACAS): www.acas.org.uk
Department for Business, Innovation & Skills (BIS): www.gov.uk/bis
Labour Research Department: www.lrd.org.uk
Office for National Statistics: www.ons.gov.uk
Trades Union Congress: www.tuc.org.uk
Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development: www.cipd.co.uk
People Management: www.peoplemanagement.co.uk
European Industrial Relations Observatory: www.eurofound.europa.eu
Many university websites in Britain and overseas will also have material, often in the form of
research papers. You could try the website of the Industrial Relations Research Unit at
Warwick Business School or the Centre for Economic Performance at the London School of
Economics and Political Science (http://cep.lse.ac.uk). The websites at Harvard, MIT, UCLA
and other top US universities will also contain material.
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