ABSTRACT Dr Ritson published an article in this journal on Employer Associations (EAs) in the UK. He set out a case study of a sub-UK EA within the Engineering Employers’ Federation before criticising an article we published on countervailing power in the Human Resources Management Journal. Dr Ritson argues that we misunderstand the structures and roles of EAs, and that as a result our argument on countervailing power was misguided. We do not accept this critique, as he misread our empirical findings and misunderstood our arguments within the first period we examine, from the 1960s to 1979. Dr Ritson also criticized our arguments within our second period, from 1979 to 2016. But he does not have sufficient data to either substantiate his critique or develop an alternative argument. Such gaps prompt the question: what happened to sub-UK employer organisation after 1984? We argue that sub-UK EAs of the type analysed by Dr Ritson were marginalised by the decline of collective industrial relations. But a partial rejuvenation took place after 1999 as employers organised to countervail the power of devolved parliaments and assemblies, although revival was narrowly focussed and very different to the previous pattern.

中文翻译：

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次英国雇主组织的衰落和复兴：对 Ritson 博士的回应

摘要 Ritson 博士在该杂志上发表了一篇关于英国雇主协会 (EA) 的文章。在批评我们在《人力资源管理杂志》上发表的一篇关于反补贴权力的文章之前，他对工程雇主联合会内的一个英国次级 EA 进行了案例研究。Ritson 博士认为我们误解了 EA 的结构和作用，因此我们关于反补贴权力的论点被误导了。我们不接受这种批评，因为他在 1960 年代至 1979 年的第一个时期内误读了我们的实证研究结果并误解了我们的论点。Ritson 博士也在我们第二个时期（1979 年至 2016 年）内批评了我们的论点。但他没有有足够的数据来证实他的批评或提出替代论点。这种差距引发了一个问题：1984 年之后英国次级雇主组织发生了什么变化？我们认为，由于集体劳资关系的衰落，Ritson 博士所分析类型的英国次级 EA 被边缘化了。但 1999 年之后发生了部分复兴，因为雇主组织起来对抗下放的议会和议会的权力，尽管复兴的重点很窄，并且与以前的模式大不相同。