Marks and Spencer Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

Marks and Spencer - Essay Example The above merge resulted to the creation of a union with over three million members (Towers and Terry 1991, p.53). The last two decades a trend for Europeanization of unions has appeared (Towers and Terry 1991). More specifically, unions from various member states have started to be organized at the level of the Union ignoring the national labour systems and laws (Towers and Terry 1991, p.54). An example of this form of union response is the following one: a cooperation/ membership agreement has been signed between ‘the GMB union (Britain) and the IG Chemie-Papier-Keramik (German)’ (Morely et al. 2006, p.77). It is implied that the union responses influence the union types; this result to the increase of union’s power to confront policies which are against the rights of employees. For example, through the research developed by Dreiling and Robinson it was revealed that certain unions in USA and Canada were stronger than others in confronting NAFTA (Dreiling and Ro binson 1998), a fact which was related to the types of the unions (Dreiling and Robinson 1998). On the other hand, it has been proved that trade unions are not so strong in order to face effectively the challenges of globalisation (Dolvik 2001). In the case under examination of particular importance is a specific category of union response: Europeanization. Indeed, since Marks and Spencer is established in UK the labour laws of UK should be used for resolving the dispute between the firm and its employees in France. However, it should be examined whether the unions in France had the right and the potential to cooperate with unions in Britain so that the rights of employees in the firm’s stores in France to be protected. According to Platzer (2010) the EU Reform Treaty of 2007 (Lisbon) emphasizes on the promotion of social rights and highlights the power of the EU to intervene in order to secure employment rights of people in member states (Platzer 2010). Therefore, the develo pment of a strategic alliance between the unions in France and those in Britain would be an initiative aligned with the existing European law on industrial relations. Under these terms, top managers in Marks and Spencer cannot ignore the trade unions in France, which could ensure the support of other European countries so that the rules of the above Treaty are applied. A different assumption would be developed if the study of Kip (2011) is taken into consideration. The above researcher notes that still, the most critical arrangements related to employment relations are developed at national level (Kip 2011), i.e. it seems that European Union is not, still, ready to support effectively the unions wishing to cooperate at European level. According to the above view, the decision of top managers in Marks and Spencer to use the British labour laws for resolving labour disputes in regard to their stores in France is considered as justified. It seems that the courts handling the case have accepted the second view; even if at a first instance the court’s decision was negative for Marks and Spencer, the firm managed to support the case effectively at the next level, an effort, which was successful; when reviewing the case at the next level, the court decided that the decision should be overruled (case study, p.39). A2. The infrastructure of Unionism and common interests Trade unionism is