Open AccessUnion Complaints in Industrial Relations Negotiations
Author(s) -
Esther Walker
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
hermes
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.759
H-Index - 7
eISSN - 1903-1785
pISSN - 0904-1699
DOI - 10.7146/hjlcb.v6i11.21535
Subject(s) - complaint , negotiation , phenomenon , industrial relations , political science , orientation (vector space) , public relations , business , process management , epistemology , law , philosophy , geometry , mathematics
This paper details the design features of a potentially highly confrontational sequence of activities which is found in formal, industrial relations negotiations: a union complaint followed by a management defence. It is observed that the complaint is accomplished implicitly and that that implicitness is a joint accomplishment of all the participants; they collaborate to ensure that the talk constitutes and facilitates cooperative discussion, thereby avoiding confrontation. Through the description of this phenomenon, the author builds an account of how the participants' orientation to 'doing negotiation' inheres in the design of the talk.