Trade Unions and Regional Government Working in Partnership? Emergent Lessons from Wales

Abstract

This article analyses relations between trade unions and the elected regional government in Wales as a hybrid form of `new social partnership' to manage change, using the case study of public service reform. Welsh unions have been able to achieve both improved consultative status and some bargaining aims, partly due to a stronger confluence of formal and informal political linkages than is evident on the wider national scene. Nevertheless, unions face longer-term resource and political threats to their ability to engage with regional government and to maintain their levels of influence within a more heterogeneous network of consultative stakeholders.