This book covers in depth the widespread and prolonged political struggle surrounding the Three Mile Island nuclear accident of 1979. Walsh documents the dynamics of the conflict between local communities and national nuclear elites in the wake of the worst nuclear power disaster to occur in the United States to date. How citizens living in the shadows of the Three Mile Island cooling towers have made their voices heard--particularly in their efforts to prevent the restart of Unit 1--is thoroughly analyzed. Extensive fieldwork over a period of six years, systematic survey data from activists and sympathizers, interviews with industry defenders, and reports of the accident reflecting both sides of the issues all were used to create this important book. In a preface that discusses Three Mile Island within the context of the Chernobyl nuclear accident in the U.S.S.R., Walsh provides a thoughtful perspective on the complex relationships between democracy, technology, and social movements. A historical overview of the nuclear power industry provides a framework for the analysis. Walsh addresses the accident and evacuation, early community mobilization, the formation of coalitions, targets of protest, the final court appeals, life in the shadows, and theoretical implications. Democracy in the Shadows is indispensable for students of sociology and political science, as well as community activists and others with significant interest in nuclear power issues.

This book offers an inquiry into the construction of employment practices in a multinational company across Western & Eastern Europe. In the complex corporate & host-country influences, social interaction between the firm & local actors is presented as the underlying social mechanism through which work practices are constructed.

While there are many analyses of capital-labor relations in oligopoly industries, such as auto and steel, very little work has been written on competitive-sector industries, such as textiles. Truchil has written the only systematic case study in book form on the textile industry covering the post-World War II era. This book reveals the profound transformations the textile industry has undergone.

This book takes a fresh look at the issue of job quality, analyzing employer behaviour and discussing the agenda for policy intervention. Between 1997 and 2002, more than twelve million new jobs were created in the European Union and labour market participation increased by more than eight million. Whilst a good deal of these new jobs have been created in high-tech and/or knowledge-intensive sectors providing workers with decent pay, job security, training and career development prospects, a significant share of jobs, particularly in labour-intensive service sector industries fail to do so. This volume provides new perspectives on this highly debated and policy relevant issue.

Volume 15 of Advances in Industrial and Labor Relations (AILR) contains ten papers, four of which deal with human resource management and six of which deal with unionization. Six of the papers were originally presented in Best Papers sessions at the 57th and 58th annual meetings of the Labor and Employment Relations Association (LERA). In keeping with AILRs global perspective and global sourcing of leading research, the studies contained in these papers draw on data from the United Kingdom, France, Asia, Canada and the United States.
*Contains 10 papers that address human resource management and unionization
*Global perspective with data from the UK, France, Asia, Canada, and the US
*Six of the 10 papers were "Best Papers' from the 57th and 58th annual meetings of the LERA

This the first account of the emergence and demise of preventive health care for workers. It explores how trade unions, employers, doctors and the government reconfigured the relationship between health, productivity and the factory over the course of the twentieth century within a broader political, industrial and social context.

This book examines the form and character of the internationalization of employee relations in the automobile industry. It goes onto examine the impact of the new forms of regionalization and their impact on employment relations within firms. Case studies are used to examine the transformation of employment standards, including General Motors, Toyota, Renault, FIAT and Peugeot. The book also assesses the significance of the emergence of regional integration processes in the form of regional economic spaces (EC, Nafta, Mercusor and ASEAN).

In this volume, Alexander sketches the history of organized labor in the countries of Uruguay and Paraguay. He covers such topics as the role of organized labor in the economics and politics of these two countries and their relations with the international labor movement. It is based on extensive personal contacts of the author with the labor movements over almost half a century. It may seem unusual at first to have both of these countries in one volume because there does not exist anywhere else in Latin America such historical political disparity between neighboring countries as that between Uruguay and Paraguay. However, in spite of the political contrasts, there are certain similarities in the history of the labor movements of these two republics. In both Uruguay and Paraguay, the earliest organizations to be founded by the workers were mutual benefit societies, rather than trade unions. But in both countries, trade unions which sought to protect their members against employers began to appear. By the early years of the 20th century, these unions began to demand that employers negotiate with them, and there were an increasing number of strikes, attempting to make these demands effective. There were soon efforts to bring together the various trade unions into broader local, national, and international labor organizations.

This book provides an understanding of the processes in which unions engage with young people, and views and opinions young people hold relating to collective representation. It features a selection of specific national cases of high relevance to contemporary debates of precariousness, trade union revitalization strategies and austerity policies.

When it first appeared in hardcover, Which Side Are You On? received widespread critical accolades, and was nominated for a National Book Critics Circle Award for nonfiction. In this new paperback edition, Thomas Geoghegan has updated his eloquent plea for the relevance of organized labor in America with an afterword covering the labor movement through the 1990s. A funny, sharp, unsentimental career memoir, Which Side Are You On? pairs a compelling history of the rise and near-fall of labor in the United States with an idealist's disgruntled exercise in self-evaluation. Writing with the honesty of an embattled veteran still hoping for the best, Geoghegan offers an entertaining, accessible, and literary introduction to the labor movement, as well as an indispensable touchstone for anyone whose hopes have run up against the unaccommodating facts on the ground. Wry and inspiring, Which Side Are You On? is the ideal book for anyone who has ever woken up and realized, "You must change your life."

In the most comprehensive work on the subject published to date, McCabe presents a thorough analysis of internal dispute resolution systems in 78 of the nation's leading nonunion companies. The study's primary focus is on the procedural requirements involved in processing employee complaints for companies desiring to establish or improve internal grievance resolution programs. Three major types of procedures are examined in depth: nonunion grievance arbitration systems, nonunion internal tribunals and peer review systems, and nonunion open-door policies and formal appeal systems.

McCabe's organizing precept is the belief that it is always in management's own self interest to recognize the need for sound and equitable nonunion complaint and grievance procedures. Following his analysis of complaint procedures as stipulated in the employee relations manuals of the 78 companies under study, McCabe appraises the effectiveness of these procedures in actual practice. He demonstrates that in order to be successful, each company must tailor an individualized package of dispute resolution techniques to fit its own corporate philosophy of employer-employee relations. A comprehensive literature review and a bibliography for both practitioners and scholars of strategic human resources management complete this definitive study of dispute resolution in nonunion settings.

This is a book for engineers that covers the hardware and software aspects of high-reliability safety systems, safety instrumentation and shutdown systems as well as risk assessment techniques and the wider spectrum of industrial safety. Rather than another book on the discipline of safety engineering, this is a thoroughly practical guide to the procedures and technology of safety in control and plant engineering. This highly practical book focuses on efficiently implementing and assessing hazard studies, designing and applying international safety practices and techniques, and ensuring high reliability in the safety and emergency shutdown of systems in your plant.
This book will provide the reader with the most up-to-date standards for and information on each stage of the safety life cycle from the initial evaluation of hazards through to the detailed engineering and maintenance of safety instrumented systems. It will help them develop the ability to plan hazard and risk assessment studies, then design and implement and operate the safety systems and maintain and evaluate them to ensure high reliability. Finally it will give the reader the knowledge to help prevent the massive devastation and destruction that can be caused by today's highly technical computer controlled industrial environments.
* Helps readers develop the ability to plan hazard and risk assessment studies, then design, implement and operate the safety systems and maintain and evaluate them to ensure high reliability
* Gives the reader the knowledge to help prevent the massive devastation that can be caused by today's highly technical computer controlled industrial environments
* Rather than another book on the discipline of safety engineering, this is a thoroughly practical guide to the procedures and technology of safety in control and plant engineering

The Polish crisis in the early 1980s provoked a great deal of reaction in the West. Not only governments, but social movements were also touched by the establishment of the Independent Trade Union Solidarnosc in the summer of 1980, the proclamation of martial law in December 1981, and Solidarnosc's underground activity in the subsequent years. In many countries, campaigns were set up in order to spread information, raise funds, and provide the Polish opposition with humanitarian relief and technical assistance. Labor movements especially stepped into the limelight. A number of Western European unions were concerned about the new international tension following the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and the new hard-line policy of the US and saw Solidarnosc as a political instrument of clerical and neo-conservative cold warriors. This book analyzes reaction to Solidarnosc in nine Western European countries and within the international trade union confederations. It argues that Western solidarity with Solidarnosc was highly determined by its instrumental value within the national context. Trade unions openly sided with Solidarnosc when they had an interest in doing so, namely when Solidarnosc could strengthen their own program or position. But this book also reveals that reaction in allegedly reluctant countries was massive, albeit discreet, pragmatic, and humanitarian, rather than vocal, emotional, and political.

For operators of nuclear research facilities, it is of particular importance to investigate minor incidents: indeed, as safety demonstrations are generally based on the presence of several independent "lines of defence," only through attentive investigation of every occurrence, usually minor and of no consequence, can the level of trust placed in each of these defensive lines be confirmed, or the potential risks arising out of a possible weakness in the system be anticipated.

The efficiency of the system is based on a rigorous procedure: stringent attention to all incidents, consideration of the potential consequences of the incidents in their most pessimistic scenarios, and promotion of a broad conception of transpositions of the events, in time and space, for experience feedback.

This efficiency presumes motivation on the part of all those involved, hence the importance of dissociating from the concept of an "incident" any notion of "error" or "blame" both in internal analysis and in public communications.

The nuclear industry has developed some very progressive tools for experience feedback, which could interest also management of other technological risks.

This book presents the proceedings of a NATO Advanced Workshop dedicated to this important matter of concern.

This volume deals with the history of organized labor in all of the countries of the English-speaking West Indies. It is the fourth in a series of histories of the organized labor movement in Latin America and the Caribbean. Alexander traces the countries' origins, early struggles, experiences with collective bargaining, and the key roles in the politics of their respective countries, particularly their participation in the struggle for self-government and independence. He also examines the international organizations of trade unions in the West Indian area, and their association with the hemisphere and worldwide labor groups.

This work is based on the author's personal contacts with these labor movements and their leaders, as well as on printed material, including collective contracts, histories of some of the labor groups and other similar sources. Scholars and students of labor relations, economic and social development, and those interested in the history of the West Indies and Latin America will enjoy this book.

Unlike other labor law and management books, Blackard's comprehensive new work not only examines legal, strategic human resources management, change management, and related labor/management relations issues, but also offers easily grasped and applied methods for addressing all of these issues. Labor relations should be a fully integrated part of a systemic approach to human resource management, argues Blackard. He challenges the feasibility of ad hoc programs and labor/management partnerships, but encourages collaboration within the context of both parties' interests and roles. His book provides a philosophy and set of practices to manage change and improve the labor/management relationship in the unionized workplace.

Companies with poor union relationships rarely have union problems; they have management problems. The crux is that managing change is a special challenge. To help executives address the challenge, Blackard first reviews the state of labor relations and discusses key differences between managing change in union and non-union settings. He presents a philosophy based on collaboration of countervailing interests and an integrated model for change management that is uniquely applicable in unionized workplaces. He then discusses the application of management practices based on such concepts as organizational learning, systems theory, trust, power, mutual gains negotiations, and supplemental teams that support the countervailing collaboration concept. By seeing labor relations as part of a broader human resource management system, one can identify and better understand many of the questions that inevitably rise when faced with the need for rapid and often drastic change.

This book is divided into six chapters: a review of theory and research; diagnosing situational characteristics; measuring performance; estabiling pay increases; pay system administration; and pay system evolution.

The Noble Order of the Knights of Labor was the most ambitious and significant labor organization of the Gilded Age. As the charismatic leader of this group, Terence Powderly was America's first nationally known labor leader, the first to achieve a high degree of recognition from working people, industrialists, and politicians across the continent. To most Americans, Powderly "was" the Knights of Labor. Based on an exhaustive examination of Powderly's voluminous correspondence, this book offers a critical analysis of Powderly's efforts to oversee the most spectacular experiment in class-wide solidarity ever undertaken.

Phelan paints a sympathetic and probing portrait of a complex figure caught up in the whirlwind of local and national events. He details the challenges and pressures of labor leadership at a time when industrialization was convulsing the nation, and when the labor movement was struggling to build a viable national institution capable of creating a more egalitarian society. The national focus of this study helps to synthesize the numerous community studies written on the Knights in recent years and offers fresh perspectives on the ultimate meaning of the organization. It is the first detailed examination of the Knights' leadership since the Powderly and Hayes Papers have become available.

This text examines the impact of public sector reforms and reorganisations on the experiences of the UK public sector's six million workers and those employed in the private sector but providing public services. Chapters bring long-standing topics up-to-date, such as worker representation and reward.

Drawing on Marxism and engaging with theorists such as Mikhail Bakhtin, Gilles Deleuze, and Slavoj i ek, John Michael Roberts argues that a new expressive ideology has coalesced within the contemporary workplace around the theme of 'competence'. The 'competence' agenda encourages management and workers to build networks of trust, cooperation and dialogue between one another. By examining the competent public sphere as it appears in the global economy, the author takes to task the competence agenda, relates this agenda to the hegemony of global finance and to the fetishism of the new economy, exposes the dilemmas and contradictions of the competence agenda, and through everyday examples from the UK and USA illustrates how competence is played out and resisted in the contemporary workplace. This bookprovides a fascinating critical account of how the way we work today is debated and discussed by management and workers.

Covering the role of trades unions and labour organizations in industrial relations, Industry's Democratic Revolution contains case studies from Austria, Canada, France, Germany, Israel, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, the UK and USA. Each chapter is authored by a president or secretary general of one of the largest industrial unions from that particular country, which gives an unparalleled insight into the workings of unions and their participation in the key issues of industrial relations such as: productivity factors; guaranteed wages; union participation in management decision-making; de-centralization of industrial power; and policy research.

This comparative study of industrial relations provides an analysis of a wide range of phenomena, with a view to uncovering the origins of national diversity. It takes into account the notion of strategic choice, set within a series of constraints of environment, organizational and institutional conditions and power relationships. The book: covers a wide range of examples from the UK, USA, France, Germany Italy, Sweden, Eastern Europe, Latin America, India and Japan; includes a comprehensive analysis of management and employers' associations, labour and trades unions; and examines the role of the state in comparative perspective.

This book examines the escalation of an organizational conflict to one of the most talked about industrial crises of the past decade: the demise of Eastern Airlines. Through an analysis of the messages exchanged by some of its key participants--the representatives of the pilots and management of Eastern--this study attempts to explain how and why some 4,000 men and women walked away from high-paying glamour jobs and toppled an institution. The book is not an evaluation of the economic climate or financial events that put Eastern into a critical bind; instead, it is an analysis of the human cost of an organizational tragedy that might possibly have been avoided.

The results of the study support communication theory that predicts that when an agitative group bearing the characteristics of the pilots of Eastern Airlines conflicts with an establishment such as Eastern's management under Frank Lorenzo, the establishment can always successfully avoid or suppress agitative movements. This work will be of interest to scholars and practitioners in industrial relations, labor-management studies, corporate communication, and American industrial history.