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of negotiation, consultation and information, and respondents were asked to give preference to the highest level of involvement in relation to the issues outlined in Table 2. MSF involvement was most prevalent in terms of pay and working conditions, and least prevalent with regard to business investment decisions. 65 percent of representatives claimed that pay and working conditions were the subject of negotiation, whilst just over a half reported no involvement what so ever over business investment decisions. Health and safety issues recorded the second highest level of negotiation, and were the issues least subject to non-involvement. Just 10 percent of respondents reported that they were not involved over health and safety issues.

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It often argued that training and development issues could act as the basis for the development of the 'new bargaining agenda'. The consensual nature of training and development, it is suggested, provides fertile ground for increased union involvement at the workplace; which, in turn, will allow access to broader business investment decisions. This is because if trade unions are to bargain over skills they will require deeper contextual information on staff and business planning. The survey findings provide little support for this thesis. Just 7 percent of respondents claimed to negotiate over the levels of training opportunities and staff planning, with even fewer (5 percent) negotiating over levels of training investment. Involvement over training opportunities (34 percent) and the levels of training investment (38 percent) was most likely to be restricted to the receipt of information. 39 percent of respondents claimed to have no involvement at all with regard to staff and manpower planning.

The degree of involvement over equal opportunities, performance appraisal and family friendly policies provides slightly more positive reading, being the subject of negotiation in 23 percent, 17 percent and 26 percent of cases respectively. The most frequent type of involvement reported, however, was consultation in the case of equal opportunities (36 percent) and performance appraisal (33 percent) and no involvement in the area of family friendly policies (31 percent). These 'new' industrial relations issues may provide trade unionists with an opportunity to increase their role at the workplace and leverage greater benefits for members. Much may depend on how MSF and other unions use these strategic opportunities to widen the industrial relations agenda. However, the overall story does not point to any major inroads in the involvement culture of British industrial relations (see also Cully et al, 1999).

The issue of involvement was also considered in terms of the mechanisms used by management to communicate with MSF members. To this end, questions were asked about the types of organisational practices and forms of employee involvement in operation. A prime concern here was to assess the extent of penetration into the workplace of a variety of human resource management practices. Again, such practices are often recognised as playing an important underpinning to partnership-based approaches.

Commentators often distinguish between 'types' of management communication depending on the degree of participation they afford employees (Marchington and Wilkinson, 2000). The fin