The Death of Statutory Union Recognition in the United Kingdom

Abstract

This article examines the context to the declining use of statutory recognition machinery to achieve collective bargaining in the UK, using Thaler and Sunstein’s recent work on ‘choice architectures’ as a way of understanding the dynamics of preference formation in this context. It suggests that the prospects for regulatory innovation within the structural confines of the North American Wagner Act model are not promising as a way of reversing this pattern of decline. The article then explores ‘regulatory’ models of collective bargaining as an alternative strategy, and it suggests ways in which the conceptualization of representational legitimacy might be developed to support such a strategy. In so doing, it draws upon comparative perspectives on European systems of collective bargaining.

Keywords: labour law, collective bargaining, choice architectures, North American Wagner Act, regulatory models of collective bargaining, European law, comparative law