Prepared to negotiate

Since 2021, the UK has witnessed the most intense period of industrial action yet this century. The recent waves of strikes made mostly by public sector workers, as well as those in the transport, storage, and communications sectors, have reportedly cost the UK economy upwards of a billion pounds. This period of ‘hot’ industrial action has also appeared to have paid-off for many workers; in the last three years, unions like the RMT and the CWU have won pay increases for their members ranging from 9% to 14%, and the BMA’s junior doctor members have accepted a deal of 22%, ending a 15-month dispute. The Chancellor has also signalled pay increases for other public sector workers too. The heat, for now, has been turned down.

Hundreds of ‘collective disputes’ – the term for when a disagreement between employees, represented by their trade unions, and their employer, has escalated and could result in industrial action – are successfully resolved every year with the help of Acas, the Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service. This year, NatCen conducted an evaluation of Acas’s collective conciliation service by interviewing and surveying representatives from both parties to workplace disputes. Our findings confirm that Acas are often successfully conciliating between employers and employee representatives, mostly union officials, that are involved in increasingly intense workplace disputes. These disputes are often about pay, and if existing economic pressures on workers and businesses don’t change, then more organisations may look to Acas’s help in the future.

Disputes have intensified

High-profile workplace disputes that led to rail strikes, as well as hospital and school closures, have highlighted to many of us just how strained that industrial relations have become in recent years. Strikes in critical industries show that deteriorating relations have increasingly resulted in open conflict, and that in both public and private sector organisations, disputes are intensifying. The public discourse around these disputes has seemed to coarsen in recent years, too; perhaps the clearest example of this was when RMT General Secretary Mick Lynch called transport minister Chris Philp a liar 15 times on live TV.  

Our evaluation of Acas’s services found that that many workplace disputes are reaching a stage of industrial action even before conciliation begins, and this number has grown in recent years. Between 2021-2022, 63% of disputes arrived at Acas with industrial action either threatened, or already having taken place. When the service was last evaluated in 2016, less than half of the disputes had reached this stage. It appears that after exhausting options to avert industrial action, many disputing parties are now turning to Acas at the critical juncture of resolving their conflicts. Both employer and employee representatives told us that they felt Acas had become their only option after workplace disagreements has reached an impasse. 

Disputes are about money 

An important reason for the increased tension in industrial relations is clearly the pressure that workers and employers are facing because of the cost of living crisis. On one hand, the widespread and sharp decline in disposable incomes in the UK has put both employees and employers under strain. Higher prices and living costs are stretching the incomes of relatively well-off workers and shifting low-income families into poverty. On the other hand, businesses have warned that wage increases place them under significant financial burdens, especially SMEs. Restraints on public sector budgets have added to this and have made the prospect of delivering substantial wage increases difficult to achieve for many employers, in both the private and public sectors.

In this squeeze, Acas have found themselves trying to resolve more disputes about pay than before. Other workplace problems arise too: disagreements arise over pensions, contract changes and redundancies, for example. But pay is the most significant factor for all of the disputes that Acas have helped to resolve recently, representing more than three quarters of disputes in this year’s evaluation. In 2016, the number of disputes in which pay was the main factor was only 46%. In the resolution of workplace disputes, Acas are also confronting the social problems derived from a difficult economy.  

What next?  

In spite of the challenging situation, our evaluation of the collective conciliation service has shown us that Acas can help reach positive agreements, and are demonstrating that intense conflicts and disruptions are not inevitable. Behind the high-profile protracted disputes, Acas are respected for their ability to bring about resolutions to workplace conflicts. People from both parties to conciliated disputes told us that they trust Acas negotiators to be impartial, trustworthy, and good listeners. It is also clear that while a successful outcome requires the skills of a good Acas conciliator, it is also necessary that both parties make concessions on their negotiating positions. One union official described their approach:

If we're going into the Acas process and we're not prepared to negotiate, then we're just wasting everyone's time.

The challenges that Acas will face in the coming years have much to do with the cost of living crisis and political decisions over public sector pay. While planned pay rises for public sector workers, who are often highly unionised, have softened the prospect of potential widespread disruption in some sectors, prices and costs are still rising for workers and employers. These pressures may well lead to problems in workplaces, but there are also actions that can prevent these problems from becoming disruptive disputes. By building relationships of trust with Acas at an early stage, large employers and trade unions can turn to Acas for advice, before workplace problems turn into collective disputes that require conciliation. Either way, Acas will continue to play a crucial role in the resolution of workplace disputes and shape the landscape of British industrial relations.