Dr Cecile Guillaume
About
Biography
I am a scholar in the field of organisation studies and employment relations and SBS Director of internationalisation .
I joined Surrey Business School in 2021 after four years at Roehampton Business School. Previous to that I have held posts at Queen Mary University and University of Lille (France).
One strand of my research focuses on gender equality in the trade union context. In a variety of publications – journal articles, book chapters, books – I have explored how and why women embark on trade union careers, women’s union and gender identities, the influence of feminism on union women, union women’s participation in women’s structures and groups. My work has attempted to uncover the ways in which women are constrained and enabled by the male dominated union movement, in the UK and other European countries. Moreover, I have led numerous research projects investigating how trade unions have mobilized legal or non legal repertoires of action to advance gender equality in the workplace.
I am a member of the Editorial Board of Work, Employment and Society and I am a frequent reviewer for Human Resource Management Journal, Gender, Work and Organisation and Sociologie du Travail. I am a member of the scientific committee of the French Agence Nationale de la Recherche (ANR). I am also a board member of the Institut de Recherches Economiques et Sociales (www.ires-fr.org/) since 2008.
Affiliations and memberships
ResearchResearch interests
- Employment relations
- Trade unions
- Equality and diversity
- Workplace discrimination
- Legal mobilisation
I am willing to (co)supervise PhD theses in these subject areas and discuss topics with potential candidates.
Recent grant awards:
March 2020: £9,600*
Returners’ Programmes: a solution to motherhood penalty and skills shortage ?, BA/Leverhulme Small Research Grant (with Gill Kirton and Carole Elliott)
Sept 2018: £8.500*
Public service trade unions and employment relations in a context of crisis. The cases of NHS nursing and midwifery, BA/Leverhulme Small Research Grant (with Gill Kirton)
Sept 2016: 45.000 euros
Union legal practices and the evolution of strike movements : a CFDT case study, Institut de Recherches Economiques et Sociales (with Jean-Michel Denis and Vincent-Arnaud Chappe)
Sept 2014:300.000 euros
Trade unions, discrimination and legal mobilization : making rights effective, Individual Marie Curie Fellowship
Research projects
Returners’ Programmes: a solution to motherhood penalty and skills shortage ?This project investigates the fast development of returnship programmes in the UK, ranging from SMEs to FTSE100 firms and spreading to the law, banking, telecoms and construction sectors. It seeks to address the lack of academic research on these highly sensitive programmes designed to address critical issues for employers in a post-Brexit economic environment such as skills and staff shortages, as well as gender pay gap. The project builds on the investigators’ previous research on workplace gender equality and diversity. Utilizing qualitative methods, the research seeks to examine employers’ and government’s motivations for launching returners’ programmes; evaluate the impact of these programmes on existing HR and diversity policies; investigate returners’ experiences during the recruitment process as well as the impact of returnship on their working and family lives.
Exploring Parenthood in Collective Bargaining and Management Practices. The case of FranceThe place of parenthood in social dialogue practices remains under-researched in France and other countries. However, some French companies with advanced equality and diversity policies have developed specific managerial practices in order to deal with the growing issue of parenthood, for men and women, with the aim to bring about a "cultural transformation". This research aims to analyse how French social partners take this subject into account in their managerial practices, as well as in the context of collective bargaining, looking into several measures (flexible working, parental leave, maternity and paternity leave).
Public service trade unions and employment relations in a context of crisis. The cases of NHS nursing and midwiferyIn collaboration with RCN and RCM, this research investigates the work, career and union experiences of nurses and midwives in the NHS, the largest employer of women in Europe and one of the most racially/ethnically diverse. Previous research has highlighted career barriers for women and black and minority ethnic workers in the NHS as well as generally deteriorating working conditions for all. Critical issues include pay, job security, working hours, flexible working, career progression, employee engagement and voice, discriminatory practices. The aim of the project is to give voice to nurses and midwives and to provide an evidence base to assist RCN and RCM to improve their understanding of their members’ greatest concerns around careers and working conditions and to develop their equality and diversity work. This research will help unions to understand how they can effectively represent and defend their members especially women, migrant and black and minority professionals, and particularly in the context of persistent and possibly increasing staff shortages following Brexit.
Research interests
- Employment relations
- Trade unions
- Equality and diversity
- Workplace discrimination
- Legal mobilisation
I am willing to (co)supervise PhD theses in these subject areas and discuss topics with potential candidates.
Recent grant awards:
March 2020: £9,600*
Returners’ Programmes: a solution to motherhood penalty and skills shortage ?, BA/Leverhulme Small Research Grant (with Gill Kirton and Carole Elliott)
Sept 2018: £8.500*
Public service trade unions and employment relations in a context of crisis. The cases of NHS nursing and midwifery, BA/Leverhulme Small Research Grant (with Gill Kirton)
Sept 2016: 45.000 euros
Union legal practices and the evolution of strike movements : a CFDT case study, Institut de Recherches Economiques et Sociales (with Jean-Michel Denis and Vincent-Arnaud Chappe)
Sept 2014:300.000 euros
Trade unions, discrimination and legal mobilization : making rights effective, Individual Marie Curie Fellowship
Research projects
This project investigates the fast development of returnship programmes in the UK, ranging from SMEs to FTSE100 firms and spreading to the law, banking, telecoms and construction sectors. It seeks to address the lack of academic research on these highly sensitive programmes designed to address critical issues for employers in a post-Brexit economic environment such as skills and staff shortages, as well as gender pay gap. The project builds on the investigators’ previous research on workplace gender equality and diversity. Utilizing qualitative methods, the research seeks to examine employers’ and government’s motivations for launching returners’ programmes; evaluate the impact of these programmes on existing HR and diversity policies; investigate returners’ experiences during the recruitment process as well as the impact of returnship on their working and family lives.
The place of parenthood in social dialogue practices remains under-researched in France and other countries. However, some French companies with advanced equality and diversity policies have developed specific managerial practices in order to deal with the growing issue of parenthood, for men and women, with the aim to bring about a "cultural transformation". This research aims to analyse how French social partners take this subject into account in their managerial practices, as well as in the context of collective bargaining, looking into several measures (flexible working, parental leave, maternity and paternity leave).
In collaboration with RCN and RCM, this research investigates the work, career and union experiences of nurses and midwives in the NHS, the largest employer of women in Europe and one of the most racially/ethnically diverse. Previous research has highlighted career barriers for women and black and minority ethnic workers in the NHS as well as generally deteriorating working conditions for all. Critical issues include pay, job security, working hours, flexible working, career progression, employee engagement and voice, discriminatory practices. The aim of the project is to give voice to nurses and midwives and to provide an evidence base to assist RCN and RCM to improve their understanding of their members’ greatest concerns around careers and working conditions and to develop their equality and diversity work. This research will help unions to understand how they can effectively represent and defend their members especially women, migrant and black and minority professionals, and particularly in the context of persistent and possibly increasing staff shortages following Brexit.
Publications
A persistent problem in trade unions is the discrepancy/tension that exists between their progressive national equality-seeking agenda and the translation of equality principles into workplace activism and their application to members' everyday working lives. Building on the notion of 'feminising' the union agenda, this article explores professional unions' efforts towards 'racialising' the agenda, which is a neglected equality focus in extant literature. The study is located within nursing and midwifery in NHS workplaces where the existence of racism has long been recognised by all employment relations actors. It investigates how the national union anti-racism project is implemented by workplace union representatives. While it reveals recognition of the existence of workplace racism among union representatives, a degree of denial and discomfort also exists. This, combined with the absence of the empowering union strategies that might be expected, hinders the delivery of a racially inclusive union agenda on the front lines of healthcare.
Based on in-depth qualitative research conducted in one of the major French trade unions (the CFDT), this article explores to what extent and under what conditions trade unions adopt different legal practices to further their members' interests. In particular, it investigates how 'legal framing' has taken an increasingly pervasive place in trade union work, in increasingly decentralised industrial relations contexts, such as France. This article therefore argues that the use of the law has become a multifaceted and embedded repertoire of action for the CFDT in its attempt to consolidate its institutional power through various strategies, including collective redress and the use of legal expertise in collective bargaining and representation work.
This chapter argues that a methodology based on the interactionist concept of career offers an innovative research design for understanding the (un)making of women's underrepresentation in union leadership positions. Drawing on a comparative research project that investigated four unions in France and the UK, it presents and illustrates this methodology. It investigates how different institutional, organizational and individual processes shape union careers and contribute to the reproduction of inequality regimes within trade unions, while unveiling the conditions, including individual agency and equality policies, that have enabled progress to be made in some unions.
Based on cross-national comparative research conducted in France and the UK, this article explores to what extent and under what conditions trade unions situated in different legal systems have turned to the courts to challenge discrimination at work. It investigates the interplay between a broad range of structural factors that offer specific opportunities, and the way trade unionists interpret contexts to promote legal mobilisation in addition to or in place of other repertoires of action. In so doing, it contributes to the understanding of employment discrimination law enforcement and the role of micro-level actors in enabling litigation strategies.
This book explores the representation of women and their interests in the world of work across four trade unions in France and the UK. Drawing on case studies of the careers of 100 activists and a longitudinal study of the trade unions' struggle for equal pay in the UK, it unveils the social, organizational, and political conditions that contribute to the reproduction of gender inequalities or, on the contrary, allow the promotion of equality. Guillaume’s nuanced evaluation is a call to redefine the role of trade unions in the delivering of gender equality, contributing to broader debates on the effectiveness of equality policies and the enforcement of equality legislation.
Additional publications
Selected publications
Guillaume, C. (2021) Organizing Women. A study of gender equality policies in French and British trade unions, Bristol: Bristol University Press.
Kirton, G., Guillaume, C. (2021) “Representation and voice in two feminized professions”, in: H. Conley and P. Koskinen Sandberg, Handbook on Gender and Public Sector Employment, Palgrave.
Guillaume, C., Pochic, S. (2021) “Understanding the variations of the glass ceiling within and across unions: the heuristic interest of a “union career” methodology”, in: C. Elliott, S. Mavin and V. Stead, Handbook on Research Methods in Gender and Management, Routledge.
Guillaume, C. (2020) “Legal expertise: a critical resource for trade unionists? Insights into the Confédération Française Démocratique du Travail”, Industrial Law Journal, Advanced Access publication on October 31, 2020.
Kirton, G., Guillaume, C. (2019) “When welfare professionals encounter restructuring and privatization: The inside story of the probation service of England and Wales”, Work, employment and society, First Published June 29, 2019.
Guillaume, C. (2018) “When trade unions turn to litigation: ‘getting all the ducks in a row’”, Industrial Relation Journal, 49(3): 227-241.
Guillaume, C. (2018) “Women’s participation in a radical trade union movement that claims to be feminist”, British Journal of Industrial Relations, 56(3): 556-578.
Guillaume, C., Pochic, S., Chappe, V-A, (2018) “The promises and pitfalls of collective bargaining for ending union victimization. Lessons from France”, Economic and Industrial Democracy, 39(3): 536-557.
Kirton, G., Guillaume, C. (2017) “Work, employment and engagement conditions in a female dominated public service occupation after restructuring/outsourcing”, Industrial Relations Journal, 48(5): 482-499.
Guillaume, C., Kirton, G. (2017) “Challenges and pitfalls for workplace unionism in the restructured Probation Service”, Economic and Industrial Democracy, first published on March 13, 2017.
Guillaume, C., Kirton, G. (2017) “NAPO, un cas exemplaire des difficultés rencontrées par les syndicats britanniques du public », Sociologie du Travail, 59(1), online.
Guillaume, C. (2017) “Overcoming the Gender Pay Gap: Equal Pay Policies in France and the United Kingdom”, in: D. Auth, J. Hergenhan and B. Holland-Cunz (eds), Gender and Family in European Economic Policy: Developments in the New Millennium, London: Palgrave Macmillan, pp.63-80.
Guillaume, C. (2015) “Understanding the variations of union’s litigation strategies to promote equal pay. Reflection on the British case (1970-2000)” Cambridge Journal of Economics, 39(2): 363-379.
Guillaume, C., Pochic, S. (2013) “Breaking through the union glass ceiling in France: between organisational opportunities and individual resources”, in: S. Ledwith and L.L. Hansen (eds) Gendering and Diversifying Trade Union Leadership, London: Routledge, pp.385-414.
Guillaume, C., Pochic, S. (2011) “The organisational nature of union careers: the touchstone of equality policies ? Comparing France and the UK”, European Societies, 13 (4): 607-631.
Guillaume, C., Pochic, S. (2009) “What would you accept to sacrifice? Access to top management and the work/life balance”, Gender Work and Organisations, 16(1): 14-36.