In the field of 'climate change', no terrain goes uncontested. The terminological tug of war between activists and corporations, scientists and governments, has seen radical notions of 'sustainability' emptied of urgency and subordinated to the interests of capital. 'Just Transition' is the latest such battleground, and the conceptual keystone of the post-COP21 climate policy world. But what does it really mean? Just Transition emerged as a framework developed within the trade union movement to encompass a range of social interventions needed to secure workers' and frontline communities' jobs and livelihoods as economies shift to sustainable production. Just Transitions draws on a range of perspectives from the global North and South to interrogate the overlaps, synergies and tensions between various understandings of the Just Transition approach. As the concept is entering the mainstream, has it lost its radical edge, and if so, can it be recovered? Written by academics and activists from around the globe, this unique edited collection is the first book entirely devoted to Just Transition.

Rumours of the death of the global labour movement have been greatly exaggerated. Rising from the ashes of the old trade union movement, workers' struggle is being reborn from below. By engaging in what Karl Marx called a workers' inquiry, workers and militant co-researchers are studying their working conditions, the technical composition of capital, and how to recompose their own power in order to devise new tactics, strategies, organisational forms and objectives. These workers' inquiries, from call centre workers to teachers, and adjunct professors, are re-energising unions, bypassing unions altogether or innovating new forms of workers' organisations. In one of the first major studies to critically assess this new cycle of global working class struggle, Robert Ovetz collects together case studies from over a dozen contributors, looking at workers' movements in China, Mexico, the US, South Africa, Turkey, Argentina, Italy, India and the UK. The book reveals how these new forms of struggle are no longer limited to single sectors of the economy or contained by state borders, but are circulating internationally and disrupting the global capitalist system as they do.

For those who want to build a fighting labor movement, there are many questions to answer. How to relate to the union establishment which often does not want to fight? Whether to work in the rank and file of unions or staff jobs? How much to prioritize broader class demands versus shop floor struggle? How to relate to foundation-funded worker centers and alternative union efforts? And most critically, how can we revive militancy and union power in the face of corporate power and a legal system set up against us? Class struggle unionism is the belief that our union struggle exists within a larger struggle between an exploiting billionaire class and the working class which actually produces the goods and services in society. Class struggle unionism looks at the employment transaction as inherently exploitative. While workers create all wealth in society, the outcome of the wage employment transaction is to separate workers from that wealth and create the billionaire class. From that simple proposition flows a powerful and radical form of unionism. Historically, class struggle unionists placed their workplace fights squarely within this larger fight between workers and the owning class. Viewing unionism in this way produces a particular type of unionism which both fights for broader class issues but is also rooted in workplace-based militancy. Drawing on years of labor activism and study of labor tradition Joe Burns outlines the key set of ideas common to class struggle unionism and shows how these ideas can create a more militant, democtractic and fighting labor movement.

This book explores new forms of popular organisation that emerged from strikes in India and Brazil between 2011 and 2014. Based on four case studies, the author traces the alliances and relations that strikers developed during their mobilisations with other popular actors such as students, indigenous peoples, and people displaced by dam projects. The study locates the mass strikes in Brazil's construction industry and India's automobile industry in a global conjuncture of protest movements, and develops a new theory of strikes that can take account of the manifold ways in which labour unrest is embedded in local communities and regional networks. "Joerg Nowak has written an ambitious, wide-ranging and very important book. Based on extensive empirical research in Brazil and India and a thorough analysis of the secondary literature, Nowak reveals that numerous labour conflicts develop in the absence of trade unions, but with the support of kinship networks, local communities, social movements and other types of associations. This impressive work may well become a major building block for a new interpretation of global workers' struggles." -Marcel van der Linden, International Institute of Social History, The Netherlands "Nowak's book meticulously details the trajectory of strikes and its resultant new forms of organisations in India and Brazil. The central focus of this analytically rich and thought provoking book is to search for a new political alternative model of organising workers. A very good deed indeed!" -Nandita Mondal, Tata Institute of Social Sciences, India "Joerg Nowak analyses with critical sense forms of popular organization that often remain invisible. It is an indispensable book for all those who are looking for more effective analytical resources to better understand the present situation and the future promises of the workers' movements." -Roberto Veras de Oliveira, Federal University of Paraiba, Brazil "In this timely and important study, Nowak convincingly challenges the dominant Eurocentric approach to labour conflict and calls for a new theory of strikes. He stresses the need to engage in a wider perspective that includes social reproduction, neighbourhood mobilisations, and the specific traditions of struggles in the Global South." -Edward Webster, University of Witwatersrand, South Africa

This book analyzes how a sizable group of Gennan workers came to support Communism and how they in turn influenced the emergence and development of the German Communist Party (KPD) in its fonnative period as a mass party. It reconstructs the interaction between a party and the constituency to which it appealed within the constraints and opportunities set by social structures, econo mic conditions, and political competitors. This interaction revolved around the elaboration and implementation of a specific concept of revolutionary politics, and this study investigates both the rise of the KPD as a mass party and its failure to set off a socialist revolution in the early 1920s in light of the contradictory ways German workers responded to its revolutionary strategy. When I began to study the KPD in the mid 1970s, scholarly works in the West portrayed a party so out of touch with the realities of German life from 1918 to 1933 that its history was a litany of political mistakes that led from crisis to catastrophe. The KPD was dominated by the foreign policy interests of the Soviet Union, by factional disputes and personal rivalries among the leadership, by an authoritarian, centralized party structure that stifled rank-and-file initiative and imposed a party line determined in Moscow and Berlin, and by a rigid ideology largely irrelevant to trends in German economy, society, and politics with at best compensatory value for a minority of the most impoverished workers."

After two decades of hands-on experience with performance management systems in some of the world's most well recognized organizations, Markle has come to propound what he calls a universal law of modern business. People hate performance reviews. Drawing upon his studies of and experience with systems theory and illustrating his points with real-life examples, Markle explains why employees and managers both have come to regard the ubiquitous performance evaluation as industry's poorest performing, most ineffective, and least efficient personnel practice. By digging down to its roots, he helps us understand why attempts to correct the flawed system fail. He provides an innovative way to measure their ineffectiveness and inefficiency and then introduces his catalytic coaching to replace them.

Markle shows how his system is superior to others in five key business outcomes: 1) positive behavioral change; 2) motivation to work hard; 3) retention of key contributors; 4) internal promotions and succession; and 5) prevention of and protection from lawsuits. Not only is catalytic coaching more effective, it is also more efficient: it requires far less time and paperwork to implement and maintain. Markle gives his readers all of the forms, instruments and detailed instructions they need to operationalize his system. Business executives, senior HR professionals, and organization development specialists will benefit particularly from his presentation, as will other managers, executives, and supervisors, all of whom must learn to take ownership of their responsibilities to their organizations and themselves.

Gall has compiled what is almost certainly the definitive study of right-to-work campaigns at the national and state levels since the early 1940's. . . . The author's emphasis on carefully documenting these campaigns means that this book will primarily interest specialists in political science and labor history. Further, this book will be a handy reference source for other readers who want to separate rhetoric from reality on this contentious issue. Choice The Politics of Right to Work presents both a comprehensive history of organized labor's response to the challenges posed by the right to work movement and an in-depth examination of the partisan political dimensions of that challenge. The first full-length treatment of the subject to cover the period from the early 1940s through the late 1970s, the study uses qualitative and quantative analytical techniques to examine the political implications of states' attempts to restrict union security since the first right-to-work laws were passed in Novermber 1944.

This book explores the politics of localism, drawing on the work of groups in three communities in post-industrial Nottinghamshire. "Third Way" politics gave a high priority to local participation, seen as a way of rebuilding social networks, and shifting welfare provision from the state onto civil society. However, under increasingly difficult conditions of austerity, significant contradictions emerge between the aims of entrenching new markets for service provision, and reviving communities and democratic participation. Exploring in depth community organisers' understandings of political economy and its local effects, and the governance practices which set the frameworks for fiercely independent community groups, the book outlines the forms of politics which emerge. This includes a challenge to the dominant thinking of the 'neoliberal consensus', but also frustration and a sense of political communal loss which has left these communities alienated from both national politics and the often-unattainable benefits of global mobility - an alienation which makes the Brexit vote of 2016 explicable as the disruptive outcome of a slow-burning political crisis of long duration.

Self-representation has a long, venerable history dating to biblical times and continuing through the common law, the colonial era, to the present. This book collects and analyzes the law, ethics opinions, and empirical studies about the wide range of issues surrounding Self-represented litigants (SRLs) in our justice system, including how much, if any, assistance should a judge provide, what duties do lawyers interacting with SRLs, and many others. Using recent empirical studies from both Civil litigation and criminal defense, Jona Goldschmidt argues that SRLs' cases cannot be fairly heard without a mandatory judicial duty of reasonable assistance. In order to maintain public trust and confidence in our justice system, self-represented parties must be guided and assisted. Courts and the legal profession should continue to adapt and meet the challenge of managing and interacting with those who choose or are compelled to self-represent. Only when self-represented litigants are embraced by the courts, they will finally receive "equal justice under law." This book would be of interest to those studying criminal justice and legal studies, specifically legal history and legal ethics, as well as judges, lawyers and other professionals in the field.

Professor Rojot's work links the theory of negotiation to its more practical aspects and bridges the gap between theoretical work and 'how to' manuals. The theoretical analysis is rooted in the field of sociology in general and in the strategic analysis of organisations in particular. This sets it apart from most treatises on negotiation which tend to be based on social-psychology, political science or economics.

'Early in my research, a friend with excellent knowledge of the United Auto Workers internal operations told me, "Don't give up. They are hiding something"...' It's 1990, and US labour is being outsourced to Mexico. Rumours of a violent confrontation at the Mexican Ford Assembly plant on January 8 reach the United Auto Workers (UAW) union in the US: nine employees had been shot by a group of drunken thugs and gangsters, in an act of political repression which changed the course of Mexican and US workers' rights forever. Rob McKenzie was working at the Ford Twin Cities Assembly plant in Minnesota when he heard of the attack. He didn't believe the official story, and began a years-long investigation to uncover the truth. His findings took him further than he expected - all the way to the doors of the CIA. Virtually unknown outside of Mexico, the full story of 'El Golpe', or 'The Coup', is a dark tale of political intrigue that still resonates today.

This book provides the first 'history from below' of the inter-war Belfast labour movement. It is a social history of the politics of Belfast labour and applies methodology from history, sociology and political science. Christopher J. V. Loughlin questions previous narratives that asserted the centrality of religion and sectarian conflict in the establishment of Northern Ireland. Labour and the Politics of Disloyalty in Belfast, 1921-39 suggests that political division and violence were key to the foundation and maintenance of the democratic ancien regime in Northern Ireland. It examines the relationship between Belfast Labour, sectarianism, electoral politics, security and industrial relations policy, and women's politics in the city.

The American Dream of reaching success through sheer sweat and determination rings false for countless members of today's working class. This volume shows that many of the difficulties facing modern laborers have deep roots in the history of worker exploitation in the South. Contributors make the case that the problems that have long beset southern labor, including the legacy of slavery, low wages, lack of collective bargaining rights, and repression of organized unions, have become the problems of workers across the United States. Spanning nearly all of U.S. history, from the eighteenth century to the present, the essays in this collection range from West Virginia to Florida to Texas. They examine such topics as vagrancy laws in the Early Republic, inmate labor at state penitentiaries, mine workers and union membership, pesticide exposure among farmworkers, labor activism during the civil rights movement, and foreign-owned auto factories in the rural South. They distinguish between different struggles experienced by women and men, as well as by African American, Latino, and white workers. The broad chronological sweep and comprehensive nature of Reconsidering Southern Labor History set this volume apart from any other collection on the topic in the past forty years. Presenting the latest trends in the study of the working-class South by a new generation of scholars, this volume is a surprising revelation of the historical forces behind the labor inequalities inherent today.

Over the last decade, author and activist Astra Taylor has helped shift the national conversation on topics including technology, inequality, indebtedness, and democracy. The essays collected here reveal the range and depth of her thinking, with Taylor tackling the rising popularity of socialism, the problem of automation, the politics of listening, the possibility of rights for the natural and non-human world, the future of the university, the temporal challenge of climate catastrophe, and more. Addressing some of the most pressing social problems of our day, Taylor invites us to imagine how things could be different while never losing sight of the strategic question of how change actually happens. Curious and searching, these historically informed and hopeful essays are as engaging as they are challenging and as urgent as they are timeless. Taylor 's unique philosophical style has a political edge that speaks directly to the growing conviction that a radical transformation of our economy and society is required.

In British political discourse the idea that in the 1970s trade unions 'ran the country' has become a truism, a folk mythology invoked against the twin perils of socialism and strikes. But who exactly wielded power in Britain's workplaces and on what terms? Assembling cultures takes a fine-grained look at factory activism in the motor industry between 1945 and 1982, using car manufacturing as a key case for unpicking important narratives around affluence, declinism and class. It traces the development of the militant car worker stereotype and looks at the real social relations that lay behind car manufacturing's reputation for conflict. In doing so, this book reveals a changing, complex world of social practices, cultural norms and shared values and expectations. From relatively meagre interwar trade union traditions, during the post-war period car workers developed shop-floor organisations of considerable authority, enabling some to make new demands of their working lives, but constraining others in their more radical political aims. Assembling cultures documents in detail a historic process where, from the 1950s, groups and individuals set about creating and reproducing collective power and asks what that meant for their lives. This is a story of workers and their place in the power relations of post-war Britain. This book will be invaluable to lecturers and students studying the history, sociology and politics of post-war Britain, particularly those with an interest in power, rationality, class, labour, gender and race. The detailed analysis of just how solidarity, organisation and collective action were generated will also prove useful to trade union activists. -- .

First published in 1993, The History of the Yorkshire Miners 1881-1918 is concerned with the workers in the Yorkshire coal industry, their union, and the broader mining communities in which they lived from the formation of the Yorkshire Miners' Association in 1881 through to the end of the First World War. The period covered is of considerable importance for the consolidation of the Yorkshire Miners Union, and indeed for the building of a national miners' federation and an international miners' organisation, in both of which the role of Yorkshire's leadership was central. The decades straddling the turn of the century were characterised by volatility in the mining industry, which was reflected in a number of strikes. Carolyn Baylies traces these general processes and focuses, in detail, upon a number of episodes during which union struggles and community involvement coalesced. She explores the dynamic between district and local levels of the union, and the tensions that accompanied a progressive rationalization of bargaining machinery. This book will be of interest to students of history and sociology.

This book presents a series of research essays on the state of unions in many different parts of the world. Written by leading researchers in the field it provides insights into the causes of union decline. But it goes beyond historical analyses to investigate the prospects for the future. Can unions organize in segments of the workforce such as the youth, women, low wage workers and those in the informal sector? Can unions network with other organizations such as NGOs nationally and internationally to gain power and influence?

The Commonwealth of Australia was federated in 1901. Only three short years later the Federal Government established a court system to arbitrate over industrial disputes in a young country that already had a history of half a century of organised labour. This 2004 book is a thematic history of an important Australian institution, the federal conciliation and arbitration system, on the occasion of its centenary. The various chapters written by leading scholars deal with the system's political history, the work of the tribunal, the legal framework, economic and social effects, the effects on indigenous and women workers, the role of employers associations and unions, and the management of industrial conflict. It is a story rich in drama involving strikes, lockouts, imprisonment of union officials, noisy protests in courtrooms and in the streets, momentous High Court judgements, and the rise and fall of governments.

This book explores how power operates in workplace settings at local, national and transnational levels. It argues that how people are valued in and out of work is a political dynamic, which reflects and shapes how societies treat their citizens. Offering vital resources for activists and students on labour rights, employment issues and trade unions, this book argues that the influence workers can exert is changing dramatically and future challenges for change can be positive and progressive. This book is relevant to United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 8, Decent work and economic growth -- .

Throughout the last decade, the 'gig economy' has emerged as one of the most significant developments in the world of work. As a novel, hyper-flexible form of labour, gig work features a uniquely fragmented working arrangement wherein independent workers partner with digital platform organisations to provide a range of on-demand services to customers. Work in the Gig Economy: A Research Overview provides a concise overview to the key themes and debate that encompass the gig economy literature. It covers five core themes: an introduction to gig work; classification issues; the role of technology; the experiences of gig workers; and the future of gig work. As an emerging and diverse research field, contributions stem from an array of perspectives including psychology, sociology, human resource management, legal studies, and technology management. The chapters synthesise the most prominent insights into this emerging field, key thinking on the complex relationships and conditions found in gig work, and the most significant issues to be addressed as the gig economy continues to develop. A critical introduction for students, scholars and reflective professionals and policymakers, this book provides much needed direction through the rapidly growing and expansive body of research on work in the gig economy.

This volume provides an in-depth, qualitative exploration of familial entrepreneurship as an innovative employment model, being established by families in response to difficulties faced by individuals with developmental disabilities in entering the labor market. Drawing on rich qualitative data collected via research with families, this volume explores how and why familial entrepreneurs in the United States have chosen to develop businesses to employ their loved ones. Chapters offer close analysis of the challenges and opportunities associated with familial entrepreneurship and highlight the ways in which this practice supports people with developmental disabilities by providing opportunities for skill development, social interaction, and participation in meaningful activity. Recognizing familial entrepreneurship as a new and distinct hybrid employment model, the text goes on to consider how curricula, policy, and state services might better support families and underpin this form of inclusive work. The volume provides important conclusions that contribute to the fields of Disability Studies, Entrepreneurship, Inclusive Education, Adult Education, Exceptional Student Education, Transition, and Vocational Rehabilitation. It is a key reading for scholars in these fields and across Education more widely.

Originally published in 1977, this book explains the complexity of collective bargaining and discusses the nature of trade unionism and trade unions, emphasising the collectivity aspect. It discusses a union's work at local and national levels, when dealing with an employers' federation, and with various types of employers. Among the topics covered are the legal processes involved in collective bargaining, the topics about which collective bargaining takes place (recognition, the salary package, pensions, for example, and the back-up services necessary to conduct effective bargaining and industrial action.

Originally published in 1987, this book traces the historical and sociological dimensions of the Trade Union movement and analyses the nature of the trade unions' involvement in the UK Labour Party during the 1970s and 80s. It discusses the review campaigns, and their implications, both for trade unions specifically and for politics in general. From the viewpoint of the trade unions, this book tells of an experience which was, for the Thatcher era, uniquely successful and innervating, opening up new approaches to campaigning.

Originally published in 1976, Democracy and Government in European Trade Unions is a detailed and practical examination of the organisational structure and internal control of trade unions in 8 Western European countries. It provides an introduction to the characteristics and styles of trade unionism in Europe. Written at a time when the international dimension of trade unionism had taken on a new significance, this comprehensive study explains and compares fundamental issues of union organisation and administration. The relationship between individual unions and the national confederations is described and the internal operation of unions in the engineering, textile and railway unions of the various countries examined. This guide to the ways and means of European trade unionism during the 1970s will be of interest to students of industrial relations and trade unionists.