Survey to probe British employment relations and practices

Over the next seven months, the National Centre for Social Research will be contacting managers, employees and union/employee representatives to encourage participation in the Workplace Employment Relations Survey (WERS).

The survey - the fifth in the internationally acclaimed series which began in 1980 - is sponsored by the Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service (ACAS), the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI), the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) and the Policy Studies Institute (PSI).

Focusing more on behaviour and attitudes than on written policies, WERS 2004 will collect information on a wide range of industrial relations and employment practices in workplaces across Britain.

Like its predecessors, it will provide valuable information on working conditions, collective bargaining, employer attitudes and the changing role of trade unions.

The findings of previous surveys - the most recent of which took place in 1998 - have been summarised in Labour Research and have been cited extensively by academic and trade union researchers.

The current survey is endorsed and supported by the TUC.

The first findings from the survey are due to be published in February 2005, followed by a full report in January 2006.

Further information from the WERS 2004 website at www.dti.gov.uk/er/emar/wers5.htm.