The Strike-Proneness of Public Sector Organisations AIDAN KELLY and TERESA BRANNICK Abstract: Through the use of a unique and original data bank on Irish strike data, this paper analyses strike trends at a disaggregated level, using degree of organisation involvement in strikes as the focal point of analysis. We review national strike trends over the period 1960-1979 and identify some fundamental differences in the strike patterns of the public and private sectors. We then concentrate on the most strike-prone sector, the public sector, and proceed to identify those organisations which are responsible for most strike activity. The paper also discusses why these organisations continue to be consistently more strike-prone than other areas of the public sector. JL part followed the emphasis in the voluminous international strike literature. In the main, the stress has been on macro-level analysis at the industrial sector level (Mulvey, 1968; Sapsford, 1979) and to a large extent, as in the Irish situation, the data available do not allow for an alternative approach. 1 In particular, it may be argued that with the exclusively aggregated specification of strike data it is difficult to identify and highlight the extent to which industrial conflict is of a recurring character at the organisational level. Thus, we know that certain sectors are consistently more strike-prone than others, but little is known of the strike-proneness of organisations within these sectors. Also, from the international perspective it is clear that this problem is not solely an Irish one. The literature shows clear limits on the extent to which 1. The data in the form collected and presented by the Central Statistics Office do not allow for any substantial degree of disaggregated analysis. I INTRODUCTION Ireland limited as it is, has for the most
Transcript
The Strike-Proneness of Public Sector Organisations
A I D A N K E L L Y and TERESA B R A N N I C K
Abstract: Through the use of a unique and original data bank on Irish strike data, this paper analyses strike trends at a disaggregated level, using degree of organisation involvement in strikes as the focal point of analysis. We review national strike trends over the period 1960-1979 and identify some fundamental differences in the strike patterns of the public and private sectors. We then concentrate on the most strike-prone sector, the public sector, and proceed to identify those organisations which are responsible for most strike activity. The paper also discusses why these organisations continue to be consistently more strike-prone than other areas of the public sector.
JL part fo l lowed the emphasis i n the voluminous international strike literature. I n the main, the stress has been on macro-level analysis at the industrial sector level (Mulvey, 1968; Sapsford, 1979) and to a large extent, as in the Irish si tuation, the data available do not allow for an alternative approach. 1 I n particular, i t may be argued that w i t h the exclusively aggregated specification o f strike data i t is d i f f icul t to ident ify and highlight the extent to which industrial conflict is o f a recurring character at the organisational level. Thus, we know that certain sectors are consistently more strike-prone than others, but l i t t l e is known of the strike-proneness of organisations w i t h i n these sectors.
Also, f rom the international perspective i t is clear that this problem is not solely an Irish one. The literature shows clear l imi ts on the extent to which
1. The data in the form collected and presented by the Central Statistics Office do not allow for any substantial degree of disaggregated analysis.
I I N T R O D U C T I O N
Ireland l imi t ed as i t is, has for the most
analyses of strike activi ty are pursued, w i t h no evidence of an in tent ion to present a t ru ly disaggregated analysis at the level of the organisation. For example, recent studies on strikes in Bri ta in (Cronin, 1979; Durcan, McCarthy and Redman, 1983), Australia (Waters, 1982), the Uni ted States (Edwards, 1981) and Western Europe (Crouch and Pizzorno, 1978) are broadly similar in the extent to which the authors take and present their analyses. A l l these studies do n o t proceed beyond industrial or regional boundaries, and therefore do not cont ro l for the possibility of impor tant organisational variations in the strike profile of a particular sector.
I n this paper, through our access to a unique Irish data set, we move away from the conventional preoccupation w i t h macro-level analysis. We study Irish strike activi ty at the disaggregated level, using frequency of organisation involvement i n strikes as the focal poin t of analysis. 2 Also, i n view of recent evidence on the high incidence of strike activity i n the public sector, (Kel ly and Brannick, 1983), we concentrate our at tention on that sector. For the purposes of this; study, the public sector is defined as covering all areas of State act ivi ty, f rom central and local government to State-controlled enterprise and various support agencies. The paper is organised as follows. Section I I contains detail on the data base. I n Section I I I , as a backdrop to the study, we examine national strike trends using degree o f organisational involvement in strikes as the principal dimension i n our disaggregated analysis. Section I V contains a comparative analysis of the public and private sectors. I n Section V we proceed to ident ify the most strike-prone areas of the public sector and Section V I provides details of the most strike-prone organisations. Section V I I contains a discussion and conclusions on the implications of the evidence.
I I T H E D A T A BASE
The data upon which our analysis is based were compiled by the Department of Industrial Relations at University College Dubl in . I t includes a comprehensive record of each strike (lasting at least one day and involving at least ten persons) which occurred during the twenty-year period 1960-1979. For each strike, this data file contains not only the conventionally recorded informat ion on durat ion, number of workers involved (strike breadth) and to ta l man-days lost, but also such characteristics as the union(s) and organisation(s) involved, region, and technology of the f i rm affected. Mult i -p lant organisations such as Coras Iompair Eireann and the Electr ici ty Supply Board are treated as single organisational units. The latter informat ion allows for a disaggregated analysis of the strike data, a procedure not
2. Information relating to the classification of organisations in this study was gathered from various sources, including the University of Dublin Research Bureau, the Companies Registry Office, the Industrial Development Authority, and the Labour Court.
possible w i t h the data published by the Central Statistics Office. Also, w i t h the CSO data i t is not possible to derive a complete picture of the public sector strike profile because the data are presented in the t radi t ional industrial and commercial classifications. I n a previous article Brannick and Kel ly (1983) focused on the problems associated w i t h the measurement of strike phenomena in Ireland. Some problems associated w i t h the strike frequency index emerged, but the difficulties associated w i t h the other two indices, man-days lost and workers involved, were no t easy to investigate, but they appeared to be less serious. While there are some small differences between this data base and that compiled by the CSO, at the aggregate level these are negligible; 3 therefore conclusions drawn from the disaggregated analysis should be regarded as being compatible w i t h the data used i n aggregative studies. Before examining strikes in the public sector, we begin w i t h a statement of the general strike situation in Ireland for the period 1960-1979, and a comparison of the public w i t h the private sector.
I l l G E N E R A L STRIKE TRENDS
The aggregative strike picture for the twenty-year period 1960-1979 has been described and analysed in a recent article (Kelly and Brannick, 1983). On considering the three tradit ional macro-level strike indices, the authors concluded that (i) the volume o f strikes continues to increase, ( i i ) the level of worker involvement remains at a relatively high level, and ( i i i ) the volume of man-days lost for the 1970s exceeded that of the previous decade by 29 per cent. In summary, they reported clear evidence of a general deterioration i n the Irish strike record.
A n examination of the same data base at a disaggregated level, using the organisation as the uni t of analysis, allows us to present a different dimension of Irish strike act ivi ty. For the 2,501 strikes recorded over the twenty-year per iod, a to ta l o f 523 and 799 companies were directly involved in the respective decades.4 Table 1 contains these data on strike numbers and organisations involved, and the evidence here is that, unlike the indications given by the macro-level indices, strike activity has varied l i t t l e over the period under study.
We see that the ratio of strikes to organisations involved has increased slightly, which means that the reported upsurge i n strike act ivi ty at national
3. See footnote 2 in Kelly and Brannick (1983), "The Pattern of Strike Activity in Ireland 1960-1979: Some Preliminary Observations".
4. In this disaggregated analysis, strikes which affected many unconnected companies, such as with the maintenance dispute in 1969, the printing strike in 1965 and the building and construction strike in 1964, are not included in this data bank. In all, fifteen such strikes have been excluded.
Table 1: Organisation involvement in strikes for five and ten-year periods, 1960-1979
Period Number of strikes Number of organisations* Ratio of strikes to companies
• E v e r y identified strike is an unique entity, but this is not so for organisations. A n organisation may have one or more strikes in a particular five or ten year time period, but this same organisation could have further strike actions in a subsequent time period. Therefore sub-period totals are not compatible for purposes of aggregation.
level has no t been matched by a similar growth in the number of organisations directly involved in strikes. Thus, the strike proneness of particular organisations may be a. more important variable in understanding the character of Irish strike activity.
Table 2 presents the conventional macro-level indices in the context of the strike proneness of individual organisations. Here, strike proneness is measured in terms of frequency of involvement of organisations i n strikes during a given per iod; four frequency categories are employed for two ten-year periods. Thus, during the 1960s i t may be seen that of the 523 organisations which experienced direct strike action 86 per cent were involved only once or t w e e , while less than 3 per cent of the to ta l were involved i n strike action on at least seven occasions. This pattern is maintained for the 1970s, where the 799 organisations involved are distributed i n broadly similar fashion in these two frequency categories. For the twenty-year period, Category 1 organisations (1 or 2 strikes) were responsible for over half of the recorded strikes, while Category 4 organisations (7 or more strikes) accounted for about one-fifth of strikes. The most noticeable change to occur in the strike frequency area between the two decades emerges in the Category 3 organisations (5 or 6 strikes); here, we see a doubling in the percentage strike frequency of these organisations in the 1970s compared w i t h the 1960s and i n absolute terms there were over three times as many organisations experiencing strikes 5 or 6 times as between the two periods.
Wi th the workers involved and man-days lost indices, we can identify several changes in the various organisation frequency categories. However, i t should be noted that, unlike the strike frequency index, these measures are particularly sensitive to the size of the organisation w i t h i n the categories; clearly, the presence of a large organisation in a particular category for a
protracted period w i l l result i n a considerable inf la t ion o f the measures produced by these two indices. Bearing this qualification i n mind , i t is useful nevertheless to take note of the changes that have occurred. As in the case of strike frequency, the workers involved index has risen sharply for Category 3 organisations, where the percentage of involvement in the 1970s has increased by more than IVi times the 1960s level. Categories 1 and 2 show l i t t l e material change and a 7 per cent fall i n the level of worker involvement is reported for Category 4. The most dramatic change in the man-days lost index between the two decades occurred i n Category 3. Here, there was a four-fold increase in the number of man-days lost accounted for by organisations w i t h a 5 or 6 strike number record; fall-offs in this index are to be found in Categories 1 and 2. The general picture issuing from the Table 2 data allows us to conclude that indisputable changes have occurred during the period: i n the period examined the number of organisations involved in strikes has no t grown at the same rate as strike frequency, but the percentage dis t r ibut ion of organisations across the strike frequency categories has altered. The most consistent change concerns the proport ionately greater number of organisations i n the 5-6 strike number category accompanied by a corresponding drop in Category 1. This change is also clearly reflected i n the proport ionate increases i n this category for the other two strike indices.
The data presented in Table 3 confirms our earlier comment in relation to the Category 3 organisations. A n examination of the means for strike duration and worker involvement per strike shows that only Category 3 experienced an increase in both these measures. Note that the mean duration of strikes for organisations involved in 5 or 6 strikes almost doubled in the 1970s compared w i t h the 1960s, and the mean number o f workers involved per strike increased by 7 per cent. The product of these two indices, man-days lost per strike, also increased, o f course, by 2.4 times between the two decades. Final ly, w i t h regard to the mean duration of strikes i t is wor th not ing other changes which have taken place. Organisations in all categories experienced longer durat ion strikes in the 1970s, while at the same t ime the organisations most frequently involved in strikes consistently experienced shorter duration conflicts and considerably greater work-involvement i n strikes than those organisations experiencing only one or t w o strikes.
I V PUBLIC A N D P R I V A T E SECTORS COMPARED
The public and private sectors differ considerably in their strike patterns. I n an earlier study (Kelly and Brannick, op. cit., p . 72-73) i t was reported that, for the 1960-1979 period, the public sector accounted for 18 per cent of all strikes, one-third o f the to ta l number of workers involved in strikes and almost 40 per cent o f all man-days lost. The data i n Table 4
Ox O
Table 2: Strike proneness of organisations as measured by percentage strike frequency, worker involvement and man-days lost, for period 1960-1979
Frequency of organisation involvement Strike frequence Workers involved Man-days lost Number of organisations
2: 3 /4 times 17.4 17.7 15.3 15.8 13.0 9.6 5 0 9.6 82 10.3 3: 5/6 times 5.9 11.6 4.9 13.1 2.6 10.4 10 1.9 33 4.1 4: 7 or more times 18.8 19.6 45 .8 38.0 31 .9 40 .2 14 2.8 23 2.8
w w n o 2 O g
>
O n
Table 3: Means and standard deviations of strike durations, workers involved and man-days lost per strike, by frequency of organisation involvement in strikes, 1960-1979
Frequency of organisation involvement in strikes
(per decade)
(Category) (Times on strike)
Strike duration (days)
1960-69 1970-79
Workers involved per strike
1960-69 1970-79
Man-days lost per strike
1960-69 1970-79
1. 1-2 times X 13.2 16.9 164.8 143.3 3001 .9 3 0 3 7 . 4 S D (20.6) (25.5) (587.4) (537 .6) (21534 .2 ) (32767)
2 . 3-4 times X 9.5 11.9 245.5 198.5 2467 .6 2124.5 S D (15.1) (16.2) (467 .5) (239 .7) (6535) (4123)
3 . 5-6 times X 6.2 12.0 233.5 249 .9 1472.7 3492.1 S D (5.1) (16.2) (277.2) (315.7) (2074) (8853)
4 . 7 or more times X 8.1 9.2 681 .9 4 2 8 . 4 5618 7971.9 S D (13.2) (15.5) (1823 .8) (1013 .9) (18520) (68271)
provide further evidence which illustrates the nature of the differences between the t w o sectors. Category 3 organisations again stand out. In bo th sectors, all three strike indices have risen dramatically between the two decades; that is, i n the 1970s the propor t ion of organisations engaged i n strike action 5 or 6 times rose sharply, f rom 3.2 per cent to 11.8 per cent in the public sector and 6.6 per cent to 11.6 per cent in the private sector. The degree of worker involvement and the resulting man-days lost tota l increased by considerably greater multiples. The corresponding falls in proport ionate strike activi ty are to be found mostly in Category 1 organisations, w i t h some lesser movement scattered across the remaining categories. Thus, over t ime, the principal change has been the greater prominence of Category 3 orgsmisations i n the organisation involvement framework.
Wi th in bo th sectors the shape of strike act ivi ty, as far as frequency of organisation involvement is concerned, is quite different. I n the public sector the great majori ty of strikes, workers involved and man-days lost are accounted for by organisations in the high strike frequency category. By contrast, in the private sector most of its strike activity falls w i t h i n the lowest strike
Table 4: Percentage distribution of strike frequency, workers involved and man-days lost per strike in the public and private sectors, by frequency of organisation involvement
in strikes, 1960-1979
Frequency of organisation Sector involvement in strikes
,„ , /- . ., , Public Private (Category) (limes on strike) 1 Q 6 ( ) _ 6 g 1 Q W _ l g 1 Q ( . Q _ 6 Q i g 7 0 _ 7 g
1 1-2 times Strike frequency 24.2 19.5 64.9 57.8 Workers involved 9.2 10.9 53.7 43 .4 Man-days lost 14.3 7.3 72.7 59.4
2 3-4 times Strike frequency 16.6 10.7 17.7 19.2 Workers involved 10.4 3.7 19.2 21.5 Man-days lost 9.4 1.5 14.9 14.5
3 5-6 times Strike frequency 3.2 11.8 6.6 11.6 Workers involved 0.4 6.5 8.5 16.1 Man-days lost 0.3 4.8 3.9 13.8
4 7 or more times Strike frequency 56.0 58.0 10.8 11.3 Workers involved 80.0 78.9 18.5 19.0 Man-days lost 76.0 86.5 8.5 12.3
Table 5: Means of strike duration, workers involved and man-days lost per strike, by frequency of organisation involvement, 1960-1979
Frequency of organisation involvement in strikes Sector
(per decade)
,„ . ., , Public Private (Category) (Tzmes on strike) i g f . Q _ 6 g l g 7 Q _ 7 g l g 6 Q _ 6 g l g 7 Q _ i g
1-2 times Mean duration (days) 11.1 19.3 13.2 16.7 Mean workers involved 265 221 158 138 Mean man-days lost 3 ,800 3,068 2,966 3 ,050
3-4 times Mean duration (days) 8.9 7.7 9.6 12.4 Mean workers involved 435 138 207 206 Mean man-days lost 3 ,645 1,148 2,227 2,242
5-6 times Mean duration (days) 4.0 9.3 6.4 12.6 Mean workers involved 97 219 248 257 Mean man-days lost 579 3,339 1,568 3,526
7 or more times Mean duration (days) 9.2 8.8 6.8 9.7 Mean workers involved 992 537 328 308 Mean man-days lost 8,707 12,255 2,089 3,206
frequency province. To understand more clearly the differences between the t w o sectors, the means of the various strike indices are given i n Table 5. Here, we note further differences.
In both sectors, strikes are of considerably longer duration and shorter breadth among Category 1 organisations, and in the 1970s public sector organisations i n this category experienced longer drawn-out strikes than their counterparts in the private sector. However, the source of most conf l i c t i n the public sector is to be found in Category 4 organisations. While the mean strike durat ion for these organisations is comparatively short, the degree of worker involvement is exceptionally high and the consequent volume of man-days lost a t t r ibuted to this category is substantial. Furthermore, for the 1970s the strike duration and worker involvement means were lower than those recorded for the previous decade. The private sector, by contrast, does no t contain the same degree of variation in the changing strike patterns; strike duration increased while workers involved per strike remained comparatively static.
V PUBLIC SECTOR STRIKE TRENDS
The remainder o f this article Is concerned w i t h the identif ication of the most strike-prone areas of the public sector, w i t h the emphasis placed on the organisation involved in strike activity. Fol lowing the structure used i n previous tables, we start w i t h a consideration of strike performance by industrial and commercial sector,1' and by frequency of organisation involvement in strikes. Table 6 contains data on the percentage dis t r ibut ion of public sector strike activi ty w i t h i n the industrial and commercial groupings and Table 7 shows the means and standard deviations for the various strike indices.
While six industrial or commercial sectors appear consistently i n public strike statements, our records show that three of these together accounted for approximately 85 per cent of all public sector strikes between 1960 and 1979; 6 thus, public sector strike activity is concentrated largely in the communicat ion, storage and transport (42 per cent), professional and public services (33 per cent) and energy and power conversion (10 per cent) sectors. Aside f rom the volume of strike act ivi ty , the data in Tables 6 and 7 show h o w strike activity has altered In recent years in terms of frequency of organisation involvement.
I n two industrial sectors, extraction, t u r f mining and o i l and energy and power conversion, all strikes recorded over the 20-year period are at t r ibuted to organisations w i t h the highest frequency of involvement i n strikes (Category 4 organisations). While bo th these sectors are each dominated by one large state company, the significant issue is their respective regularity of involvement in strike activity. From Table 7, we may also identify interesting changes which have occurred in the strike patterns i n these two sectors over t ime. Comparing the records for the t w o decades we see a decline in the average length of strikes, a fall-off i n the average workers involved i n strikes and a resulting decline i n the average man-days lost per strike. A n examination of the relevant standard deviations shows that large and long-drawn-out strikes i n these sectors mostly occurred i n the 1960s.
5. This classification is the same as that adopted and used by the University of Dublin Administrative Research Bureau, which is an adaptation of the United Kingdom Kompass classification, under licence from Kompass Publishers Ltd.
6. Strikes in Public Sector by Industrial Commercial Group, 1960-1979
Industrial/commercial group
Extraction, Turf, Mining and Oil Manufacturing Energy, Power and Conversion Commerce and Financial Services Communication, Storage and Transport Professional and Public Services
Table 7: Means and standard deviations of strike durations, workers involved and man-days lost per strike for each industrial group, by frequency of organisation involvement, 1960-1979
Professional D 11.7 10 16.8 20 9.8 5 8.2 10 4.0 3 6.0 7 _ 6.0 10 and Public WI 277 1037 228 752 1101 1499 193 272 97 73 154 135 — - 286 313 Service M D L 4205 19759 2646 7860 9635 17338 1384 2003 579 804 1538 3329 — — 2249 6381
H
w o o o
> D cn O n
s
I n the manufacturing and commerce and financial services sectors, where the to ta l volume of strikes for the period was very small, there is a noticeable shift i n the frequency o f organisation involvement index. Throughout the 1960s all strikes in these two sectors occurred in organisations i n Categories 1 and 2, while i n the subsequent decade organisations in Categories 3 and 4 produced significant proport ions of the strike act ivi ty .
The two sectors which together produced 75 per cent of the to ta l volume of public sector strikes during the period display very different organisation involvement trends. I n the communicat ion, storage and transport sector, for bo th decades, the overwhelming major i ty of strike action, as expressed by all three indices, occurred i n Category 4 organisations; that is, organisations w i t h the highest frequency o f involvement i n strikes produced most of the activi ty in terms of frequency, worker involvement and aggregate man-days lost. We also note the increase i n strike durat ion during the 1970s, a decline in the average worker involvement and a significant rise i n the mean man-days lost per strike; here, the respective standard deviations suggest the occurrence o f several long-drawn-out strikes.
I n the professional and public services sector an almost reverse situation is reported. During the 1960s the majori ty of strike activi ty took place in Category 1 organisations, and the 1970s saw a shift o f around 25 per cent to Category 4 organisations. Also, the average length o f strikes increased between the decades, average worker involvement per strike decreased and the man-days lost per strike fell o f f considerably i n the Category 1 and 2 organisations.
F rom the data in Table 8 we can see that i n b o t h decades the great majori ty o f strikes in the public sector occurred in the largest organisations, that is, those w i t h more than 1,000 employees. A n d i n the 1970s almost 93 per
Table 8: Percentage strike frequency in the public sector by organisation size and frequency of involvement in strikes, 1960-1979
cent of these strikes t ook place in Categories 3 and 4 organisations, that is, those w i t h the greatest involvement i n strikes, wh ich is 20 per cent greater than the level recorded for the previous decade. I n the smaller organisations the majori ty of strikes are to be found in the Category 1 organisations, those w i t h the lowest frequency of involvement i n strikes. Thus, i n the public sector i t is evident that most strikes occur i n large organisations and many of these organisations are said to be strike-prone in that they have had strikes at least seven times in a decade.
V I D E N S I T Y A N D PERVASIVENESS OF PUBLIC SECTOR STRIKE A C T I V I T Y
The character of strike activity in the public sector may be seen as being closely compacted around a relatively small number of organisations and, at the same t ime, affecting almost all parts of the public sector. I n all , we have identif ied nine organisations which have had seven or more strikes i n either the 1960s or 1970s and these are reported in Table 9. Here, we see almost all o f the largest state companies involved i n considerable strike activity and between them they contribute substantially to the public sector's total industrial action recorded for the period. These nine organisations, over the 20-year period, accounted for 62 per cent of public sector strikes, 85 per cent o f workers involved and 86 per cent o f man-days lost. Most of these organisations also contr ibuted to the so-called one-strike-major-effect phenomenon. The Irish strike pattern is particularly sensitive to the large strike and during the 20-year period under study all bu t two of the organisations identif ied in Table 9 were part of the large strike effect; that is, seven o f these organisations had at least one strike which resulted in at least the loss o f 30,000 man-days and in the year o f occurrence i t contr ibuted substan-
Table 9: Public sector organisations experiencing seven or more strikes, 1960-79
Organisation 1960-69 1970-79 1960-79
C I E 21 39 60 Dept . P + T 18 33 51 E S B 21 26 47 B o r d na M o n a 13 16 29 B +1 19 6 25 A e r Lingus 4 17 21 D u b l i n Corporat ion 4 13 17 C o r k Corporat ion 2 9 11 N E T 3 8 11
t ia l ly to the annual strike record (Kelly and Brannick, 1983, op. cit., pp . 69-71).
The pervasiveness o f public sector strike activity is i l lustrated in Table 10 where the data are categorised in terms o f various organisational contro l configurations. 7 Here, the first category represents those organisations to ta l ly w i t h i n the ambit o f the pol i t ica l system w i t h regard to bo th pol icy determination and day-to-day operations; i t includes organisations in central government such as the Department o f Posts and Telegraphs (which was, during the period of study, a government department i n the charge o f a cabinet minister) , the national educational system and local authorities. The second category represents organisations where pol icy and executive management functions are separated; i t includes the wide range of nationalised industries such as Aer Lingus, the Electr ici ty Supply Board, Bord na Mona and regional health boards, where long-term pol icy is controlled by polit icians, bu t where day-to-day management is the responsibility of a largely autonomous management board. Clearly, the predisposition to engage i n industrial action is not a funct ion o f particular forms o f administrative contro l . A l l parts o f the public sector, w i t h the exception o f the civil service, the Garda Siochana and the Defence Forces, have experienced strike act ivi ty , albeit some more so than others. A further observation to be made about the data in Table 10 concerns the change in the dis t r ibut ion o f strikes: for the semi-state companies the volume o f activity as expressed on all three indices has declined proport ionately i n the 1970s compared w i t h the 1960s, even though the public sector showed a general increase in its p ropor t ion o f strikes vis-a-vis the private sector during the period (Kel ly and Brannick, 1983, op. cit., Table 6). The remaining three public sector areas all have experienced increases i n proportionate strike act ivi ty , bu t i n no case on all indices; i n the central government area there have been proport ionately fewer strikes during the 1970s, but the proportionate volumes of activity ascribed to the workers involved and man-days lost indices have increased three- and four-fold respectively. 8 The local authori ty and health board areas demonstrate similar disparate movements on the three strike indices. The data in Table 1 1 , showing the means and standard deviations of strike durations and workers involved in the various public sector areas, provide further illustrations of the changes occurring and reinforces the foregoing comment. Organisations in the semi-state area show a trend which runs
7. For example, this mode of organisational classification in the public sector has been used successfully by Charlton (1984) in her investigation of aspects of British public administration.
8. The industry-wide strike in the Post Office in 1979, the largest strike in the State's history in terms of days lost, clearly distorts the workers involved and man-days lost indices for the central government area during this period.
Table 10: Percentage distribution of strikes (N), workers involved (WI) and man-days lost (MDL) in the public sector by industrial sector and organisation control type, for 10-year periods, 1960-69 and 1970-79
Category I Category I I Industrial/ Central Local Health boards/ Semi-state commercial government authorities hospitals companies
E x t r a c t i o n , N 13 .4 10.4 T u r f and WI 11.6 6.5 Mining M D L 21.7 7.9
N 9.3 12.3 Manufacturing WI 1.4 7.9
M D L 1.1 8.6
Energy and N 19.6 16.2 Power WI 18.5 6.7 Conversion M D L 23.3 3.6
Commerc ia l and N 1.0 4.5 F inanc ia l W I 0.1 1.2 Services M D L 0.01 4.7
Communica t ion , N 60.0 75.6 14.3 — 51.2 50 .0 Storage and WI 34 .4 84 .4 17.7 — 67.8 75.6 Transport M D L 13.0 95 .6 4.7 52.8 72.8
Professional N 40.0 24 .4 100 100 85.7 ] 00 5.2 6.5 and Public WI 65.6 15.6 100 100 82.3 100 0.6 2.0 Services M D L 87.0 4.4 100 100 95.3 100 1.1 2.4
100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100
N 19.1 16.5 14.7 18.0 4.5 8.8 61.8 56 .6 Tota l sector WI 10.9 29.1 9.1 8.7 0.2 5.5 79.8 56.7
M D L 15.0 59 .4 7.7 4.2 0.2 1.8 77.2 34.7
H K in m n o z o n > CO O n f
Table 11: Means and standard deviations of strike durations (L) and workers involved (WI) per strike in the public sector, by organisational control type, for 10 year periods, 1960-1969 and 1970-79
Central Local Health Semi-state government authorities boards companies
counter to that i n the rest o f the public sector and also the private sector. Here, the average duration of strikes has fallen during the 1970s, while increases are reported elsewhere.
V I I DISCUSSION A N D CONCLUSIONS
I n a recent article an analysis o f the aggregative strike posi t ion over the 20-year period 1960-1979 showed evidence o f a general deterioration i n the Irish strike record (Kelly and Brannick, 1983). On l inking strike activi ty to employment levels the authors concluded that employees i n the public sector have been more prone to engage in industrial action than their counterparts i n the private sector. 9
While this study of strikes for the 1960-1979 period identifies further movements i n general strike trends and structures, the most salient aspects for the purposes of this article involve the evidence for the public sector. These findings for the public sector are presented for the first t ime in a new format and should help to improve our understanding of industrial action in this sector. Some o f these findings, relating to general trends, and public sector developments are wor thy of restatement and some comment.
This study began w i t h an examination o f the general strike picture i n Ireland, using the frequency of organisation involvement as the un i t of analysis. Our findings show clearly that a small number of strike-prone organisations continue to be responsible for large proportions o f the aggregate man-days lost and worker involvement and there is no evidence that this posi t ion is changing. Thus, i n the context o f proposals for reform, i t wou ld be useful to examine the organisational context which produces this high
9. During the 20-year period under review, the proportion of the workforce employed in the public sector rose from 17 per cent in the 1960s to 25 per cent in the 1970s. However, one would not anticipate any significant change in the number of organisations which make up the public sector, which is a principal denominator in this analysis.
rate of strike-proneness. F rom our studies we know that these strike-prone organisations have certain strike characteristics which persist in bo th the private and public sectors; such organisations have a greater record of worker involvement when compared w i t h those which strike infrequently and they also strike for much shorter periods. Thus, the strike configurations for bo th types are quite different. The organisation which rarely goes on strike usually experiences a long-drawn-out dispute when there is a strike, which suggests perhaps that the parties are less knowledgeable about the settlement boundaries of their respective opponents; i t wou ld also appear that the comparatively low level of worker involvement is possibly related to the fact that the strike is a most unusual event. Where organisations do no t have a "regular s t r ike" culture, or where various groups of employees are no t continually expected to offer support i n open conflicts to each other, then i t is less l ikely that widespread support w o u l d be for thcoming when the rare strike occurs.
By contrast, i t may be argued that employees in the strike-prone organisations demonstrate greater wisdom in their behaviour. The existence o f a resident strike culture probably ensures a greater famil iar i ty o f the management's and trade union's respective negotiating l imi ts , gained through long experience, w i t h the result that conflicts, although regular, are inclined to be of shorter duration. Also, because of the frequency of confl ict , i t is l ike ly that more widespread support is available from otherwise disparate occupational groups, because of the necessity to maintain a long-term cohesion o f all employees' interests. However, i n recent years there is some evidence of change w i t h i n this "regular s t r ike" culture, where we note that strikes are becoming even shorter than before, and also there has been a dramatic decrease i n the mean number of workers involved. But at the same time the absolute number of strikes for strike-prone companies has increased. Thus, the cohesion of a previous period seems to have been supplanted by a propensity for particular groups of workers to engage i n unilateral strike actions. Indeed., the brief strike action in the ESB during September 1984, where widespread support of all groups was available only for days rather than weeks, illustrates this breach in the tradit ional cohesion, thus leading to the l ike l ihood o f shorter strike durations. One may also speculate about the extent to which employees in the strike-prone organisations are more inclined to engage in strike action either because their past experience has shown their strategy to meet w i t h success, or they believe i t is the only way to achieve their objectives. Clearly, i n purport ing to explain strike-proneness, the latter suggestions also raise matters concerning management style, and particularly the extent to which i t may be autocratic, bureaucratic, or defensive i n character.
We also identif ied a marked difference in the way i n which large volumes
of strike activity were concentrated i n opposite provinces o f the strike distribu t ion maps o f the public and private sectors. I n the public sector i t is the strike-prone organisations which are responsible for most of the sector's strike act ivi ty , while i n the private sector those organisations which rarely experience strikes account for most of that sector's act ivi ty. A n d i t should be noted that the pattern identif ied above, concerning the behaviour of the strike indices o f the strike-prone and non-strike-prone organisations, also persists w i t h i n bo th the public and private sectors.
When examining the strike performance in both sectors one must consider the different organisational structures. The public sector, organisationally, is highly concentrated i n the main industrial and commercial groups i n which i t functions, while the private sector is comprised of a large number of comparatively smaller organisations in the manufacturing and commercial areas. Thus, setting aside for the moment the question as to why public sector employees should be so regularly engaged in strike action, i t should not be surprising to discover the concentration of strike activities already identif ied. Large organisations i n the public sector, even i f only a few are strike-prone, w i l l inevitably account for a disproportionately high level of the sector's to ta l strike act ivi ty . By contrast, strike-prone companies i n the private sector, because of their lower level of dominance in employment terms, w i l l rarely be responsible for such large proportions of the strike volume as identif ied for the public sector. But apart f rom this structural explanation, which is no t di f f icul t to accept, there remains the more emotive question concerning what some might regard as an immoderate incl inat ion by public sector employees to engage in strike action. A close inspection of strike behaviour w i t h i n the public sector is necessary i n addressing this issue.
Wi th in the public sector strike-prone organisations are to be found in all sectors, except in the commerce and financial services sector. Almost all strike activity i n three industrial sectors, namely (i) extract ion, t u r f and mining, ( i i ) energy and power conversion and ( i i i ) communicat ion, storage and transport occurred i n strike-prone organisations. Wi th in each of these sectors one or two organisations, due to their t radi t ional monopolist ic posi t ion, accounted for most i f no t all of the sector's volume of strike act ivi ty . I n the professional and public service area where the State is involved through its control of central and local government, and the health boards, the recorded strike activity is accounted for mainly by organisations which are no t strike-prone. Thus, i t is the strike-prone organisations i n these sectors which should be the focus of at tention in future examinations of strike phenomena. Here, the State-controlled manufacturing or commercial organisations such as Coras Iompair Eireann, the former Department of Posts and Telegraphs, the Electr ici ty Supply Board and Bord na Mona (Table 9) are identif ied as the principal transgressors. Besides holding monopolist ic
positions in their respective sectors, they also have other characteristics in common. By Irish standards, all are large organisations i n terms of employment. A l l have a long existence, w i t h some having been founded a few years after the setting up o f the new Irish State. A l l may be classified as mu l t i -plant and they include i n their workforces many disparate occupational groups, which are in tu rn represented by large numbers of trade unions. These organisations are also highly unionised. Furthermore, w i t h regard to pay and conditions, while they may be subjected occasionally to government strictures, they are more l ikely to take their cue f rom developments i n the private sector.
Organisational size, therefore, looms large i n our evidence on strike-proneness and this phenomenon is supported i n studies of strike patterns i n other countries (Prais, 1978; Geary, 1980; Prais, 1982). That is, as organisational size increases so also does frequency of strikes. However, while the most highly strike-prone organisations i n Ireland are large this condi t ion need not persist over t ime. Note , for example, the contrasting positions o f the Brit ish and Irish Steampacket Company and Aer Lingus for the two decades under review. Clearly, size of organisation is only one factor i n the effort to understand strike-proneness. Also, there are many large organisations i n bo th the public and private sectors which only rarely or never experience strike act ivi ty .
In conclusion, i t is impor tan t to note that causal relationships between certain environmental characteristics and a high incidence of industrial confl ict are no t claimed.' This is not a model of strike causation. We have concentrated on the description and analysis o f the public sector strike universe, and in an exploratory sense we have identif ied organisational characteristics which co-exist w i t h exceptionally high levels o f industrial confl ict . Thus, we are precluded f rom drawing any f i rm conclusions as to the precise causes of high strike incidence, but clearly further research is warranted at the organisation level. I t is surely the sources of recurring confl ict which need to be addressed i f improvements i n the strike profile are to be achieved.
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