Marketization in the healthcare sector affects the quality and delivery of care, as well as healthcare workers' working conditions. Based on a comparison of England and Germany, along with an in-depth case study looking at New York, USA, this volume examines how trade unions respond to marketization processes and the determinants of successful strategies. The author draws on a rich empirical study to develop a theoretical framework that accounts for sector-specific opportunity structures stemming from marketization processes and on the relevant unions' local-level leeway that opens if they build up and mobilise the available resources and capacities. The book identifies determinants of successful trade union strategies, explains the puzzling observation of similar strategic choices across different systems, and draws conclusions for prospects of trade unionism in the marketized healthcare sector. This book emphasizes the transformative effect of marketization on healthcare and the opportunities this change creates for unions, while giving special attention to the local-level conditions of trade unionism in the analysis of conflicts evolving around marketization in the hospital sector. It is of interest to academics and practitioners working in healthcare management, human resource management, and employment relations.

The book examines the integration of European trade union movement and explores the prospects for European or transnational solidarity among workers.

Contrary to much existing research and despite national differences, Gajewska examines how trade unions cooperate and the forms in which this cooperation take place. Drawing on four case studies illustrating experiences of Polish, German, British, Latvian and Swedish trade unions in various sectors and workers representatives at a multinational company, this book investigates the conditions under which trade unions and workers formulate their interests in non-national / regional terms, and analyzes the character, limits and potentials of solidarity in a transnational context.

Seeking to generate a new theory of European integration of labour and to contribute to sociological approaches on the European integration and Europeanization of society, this book will be of interest to students and scholars of European politics, European integration, labour/industrial relations, trade unionism and sociology.

For most of the twentieth century, the Conservative Party engaged in an ongoing struggle to curb the power of the trade unions, culminating in the radical legislation of the Thatcher governments. Yet, as this book shows, for a brief period between the end of the Second World War and the election of Harold Wilson's Labour government in 1964, the Conservative Party adopted a remarkably constructive and conciliatory approach to the trade unions, dubbed 'voluntarism'. During this time the party leadership made strenuous efforts to avoid, as far as was politically possible, confrontation with, or legislation against, the trade unions, even when this incurred the wrath of some Conservative backbenchers and the Party's mass membership. In explaining why the Conservative leadership sought to avoid conflict with the trade unions, this study considers the economic circumstances of the period in question, the political environment, electoral considerations, the perspective adopted by the Conservative leadership in comprehending industrial relations and explaining conflict in the workplace, and the personalities of both the Conservative leadership and the key figures in the trade unions. Making extensive use of primary and archival sources it explains why the 1945-64 period was unique in the Conservative Party's approach to Britain's trade unions. By 1964, though, even hitherto Conservative defenders of voluntarism were acknowledging that some form of official inquiry into the conduct and operation of trade British unionism, as a prelude to legislation, was necessary, thereby signifying that the heyday of 'voluntarism' and cordial relations between senior Conservatives and the trade unions was coming to an end.

Outlining the ways in which global union federations relate to multinational companies through agreements and structured collaboration, this study features an in-depth case study of one such dealing with a major company. Exploring the previously unknown internal lives of the global union federations, this reference, which proposes ideas about how the organizations can strengthen their position internationally as well as their resource base, will be of interest to all those interested in the future of trade unionism, multinational companies, and corporate social responsibility.

In this work, Chico Mendes, founder of the Brazilian rubber tappers' union, talks about his life's work in the last interview before his murder in December 1988. As a trade union leader, he won international acclaim for his role in the non-violent campaign to protect the Amazon rain forest, on which the rubber tappers depend for their livelihood.

As workers in the private sector struggle with stagnant wages, disappearing benefits, and retirement ages that are moving further and further out onto the horizon, unionized gym teachers and lifeguards employed by the public sector retire in their fifties with over $100,000 a year in pension and healthcare benefits. Some even supplement this generous income by taking other jobs in their "retirement." Attempts to rein in the unions, as in Wisconsin and New Jersey, have met with massive resistance. Yet as Daniel DiSalvo argues in Government against Itself, public sector unions threaten the integrity of our very democracy.
DiSalvo, a third generation union member, recognizes the difference that collective bargaining made in the lives of his immigrant grandfather, a steelworker in Pittsburgh, and his father, a carpenter. He is not opposed to unions on ideological grounds. Rather, he opposes the form they have taken in the public sector, where they often face no real opposition in negotiations. Moreover, the public sector can't go out of business no matter how much union members manage to squeeze out of it. Union members have no incentive to ever settle for less, and this has a profound impact on the health of our society, as the costs get passed along to the taxpayer. States and municipalities break under the weight of their pension obligations, and the chasm between well-compensated public sector employees and their beleaguered private sector counterparts widens. Where private sector unions can provide a necessary counterweight to the power of capital, public employee unions are basically bargaining against themselves; it's no wonder they almost always win. The left is largely in thrall to the unions, both ideologically and financially; the right would simply take a hatchet to the state itself, eliminating important and valuable government services. Neither side offers a realistic vision of well-run, efficient government that serves the public.
Moving beyond stale and unproductive partisan divisions, DiSalvo argues that we can build a better, more responsive government that is accountable to taxpayers. But we cannot do it until we challenge the dominance of public sector unions in government. This carefully reasoned analysis of the power of public sector unions is sure to be controversial, and will be an important contribution to the debates about public vs. private unions, increasing inequality, and the role of government in American life.

How can unions move from a defensive strategy to one of class transformation? Mulder demonstrates how the current union strategies of class blindness lead to weak and often unintended results. Unions, she argues, do not use their collective power for class transformation and union commentators/critics do not theorize about unions as possible agents for such class transformations. Using the case study of the Broadway musicians' union, Mulder shows how unions can facilitate a class transformation that increases workers' control over their working conditions and enables them to make the changes needed to improve their lives. This innovative and needed study will be of interest to labor economists, scholars of class and labor, and those interested in the plight of unions and the potential they still hold for social and economic transformations.

Much has been written about communicating within organizations but relatively little on the critical skill of communicating upward. Green and Knippen, experts in employee motivation and performance, show how essential it is to the success of an organization, public or private, for employees to get their ideas up the ladder and into the hands of the top decision-makers. Their book outlines more than 40 specific upward communication needs and offers a structure that will ensure that the movement of ideas upward actually takes place. Unique in that it provides concrete advice for executives, managers, and employees alike, the book is especially important for human resource specialists, people engaged in training and developing the managers of tomorrow and contributing to the organization's success today.

Green and Knippen are quick to identify the barriers to communication of any kind, and particularly the special barriers that inhibit the flow of ideas upward. They provide readers with concrete advice, not only on what to communicate upward but the essential skills of how to do it. They maintain that knowing both what to communicate and how to communicate are the most crucial talents that one can have, and yes, they can be taught. But not only do they help people in their careers, they also help people take control of their lives off the job as well. Those who want to improve these essential skills and in doing so get along better with people in higher level positions will find much wisdom here, in a readable, engaging presentation, and a thoughtful look at what they must do first, and do now.

East Asia has undergone an intense period of economic development and accompanying social change in recent years and among the unforeseen social phenomena that have emerged are new forms of trade unions. This book analyzes the importance of such a new union movement in Korea by focusing on the promotion of social reforms by, and the intensification of interunion solidarity between the white-collar movement factions.

Three sectors of the white-collar movement are examineda "financial, hospital, and research unions. In comparing their success in raising social reforms and fortifying interunion solidarity, Doowon Suh considers diverse macro and micro social relations, such as the structure of political opportunities, organization leadership, and the effects of internal labor markets.

This book is an important read for those interested in industrial relations, labor history and social movements in Korea.

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
* Examines the role of the state in comparative perspective

This book presents and examines evidence and theories about changing patterns of industrial relations and their links to convergence on the one hand, and economic competitiveness on the other. It includes a comprehensive set of comparable date on industrial relations in twenty OECD countries including Australia, the United States, Canada, Japan, and most leading European countries.

This is a book about how global unionism was born in the maritime shipping sector. It argues that the industrial structure of shipping, and specifically the interconnected nature of shipping production chains, facilitated the globalization of union bargaining strategy, and the transnationalization of union structures for mobilizing industrial action. This, in turn, led to global collective bargaining institutions and effective union participation in global regulatory politics. This study uses a variety of source and analytical techniques, relying heavily on interviews with union official and other maritime industry people in many countries.

Offering a comprehensive account of the role of trade unions in Asia today, this book, put together by two editors who have published extensively in the areas of business and economics in Asia, covers all the important Asian economies: both developed and developing.

Making a vital contribution to the very small amount of literature that has been published on this topic, this book focuses, in particular on how trade unions have organized to represent workers and the strategies they have adopted. It discusses the issues surrounding wages and working conditions, health and safety, women's employment opportunities and human resource development, in the context of the major regional economies, including Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, China, India, Vietnam, Thailand and Indonesia.

This is an essential read for both professional and postgraduate students, studying or working in the areas of Asian business.

Over the past 30 years Robert Dingwall has published an influential series of articles on the professions, especially law and medicine. This represents a substantial and coherent body of work in an important sub-discipline of sociology. This volume assembles the best of these writings in one single accessible place. The ten essays are republished in their original form, each bearing the traces of the time and place it was written. In sum, they provide a fascinating account of an academic journey. They are introduced with a foreword from the author, who places the work in context and offers some thoughts about how the work might be used by scholars in developing the field, to evaluate, for example, the effects of the New Labour period on professional autonomy. The essays will be indispensable to sociologists with a general interest in the professions and to scholars of law, medicine and business.

This work explores developments in the labor markets of five countries--South Korea, Malaysia, Taiwan, Thailand, and the Philippines--which have undergone successful economic development during the past quarter of a century. This includes employment, earnings, industrial relations, and social security measures. While the Philippines' progress has lagged, the other four countries constitute the most successful group of the world's developing countries--offering a interesting contrast in approaches to growth. The author's methodology is comparative by specific subject, so that a correlation of developmental stages and the emergence of particular features of the labor market emerges.

This study is unique in that inter-country comparisons are made in terms of specific aspects of the labor market. The work will be of interest to economists, political scientists, and sociologists concerned with problems of development. And it will be useful in pointing the way to successful development practices.

Turbulence--rapid and sometimes tumultuous changes--has characterized the labor markets of the 1970's and 1980's. Turbulent competitive conditions have cut sharply into profits and have forced downsizings and radical readjustments in America's workplaces. Workplace turbulence has resulted in lost jobs, declining incomes, and falling productivity for American labor. From the perspectives of business and labor, turbulence and its consequences is the key human resources issue for the last part of the twentieth century. In Turbulence in the American Workplace, a distinguished group of experts forcefully and convincingly argue that the human resources capacity of the private sector is the first line of defense against turbulence and is of equal importance to public sector education and training programs. The authors--including Kathleen Christensen, Patricia M. Flynn, Douglas T. Hall, Harry C. Katz, Jeffrey H. Keefe, Christopher J. Ruhm, Andrew M. Sum, and Michael Useem--effectively demonstrate how global competition, deregulation, and technological change are creating hard choices for employers that will alter both the living standards of workers and the performance of American industry in the coming decades. This illuminating work will be of significant value to business school faculty, corporate strategic planners, and general managers, as well as students and professionals interested in the areas of public policy, industrial relations, education, and labor studies.

Today, 95 percent of all labor contracts in the United States provide for arbitration. Indispensable to sound contract management, arbitration orchestrates the resolution of disputes by a neutral third party. Since parties who reach the process of arbitration are no longer interested in compromise or mutual accommodation, arbitrators, unlike mediators, do not have to work out arguments or propose possible solutions. They simply hear evidence and make a decision based on the facts as presented - without being bound by rules of evidence or precedents. For both sides, the key to a successful outcome lies in their advocates' ability to present and document their case. Providing guidance for labor and management advocates, this resource guide contains a practical analysis of arbitration from the participant side with a view to avoiding the problems and pitfalls of the process. Written for those who do not deal with the intricacies of arbitration on a day-to-day basis yet have a responsibility to their company should such situations arise, it begins with the very basics of the arbitration concept, including discipline and discharge procedures. It then provides detailed guidelines for presenting an organization's position effectively, and it discusses important principles and practices every advocate should know. Additional topics include grievance procedure time limits; methods for researching and selecting the arbitrator; and recommendations regarding witness conduct. Practices of the actual arbitration such as objections, admissible evidence and credibility of evidence are also discussed. Extensive references to pertinent statutes and case law round out this informative guide.

The pressures of globalization and diversity are increasingly requiring organizations to rethink their priorities and methods. In this collection, leading researchers examine the debates and developments on gender, diversity and democracy in trade unions in eleven countries. Offering an authoritative basis for comparative analysis, this book is essential reading for researchers, teachers, trade unionists and students of industrial relations and equal opportunities, along with all those concerned with ensuring that modern organizations reflect and represent the needs and concerns of a diverse workforce.

The readings in this volume will enlighten and enliven the contents of any standard public administration text covering human resource management. Selected mainly from the pages of Public Administration Review and Review of Public Personnel Administration, these classic articles trace the historical and evolutionary development of the fields of public personnel administration and labor relations from the point at which the first civil service law was passed - the Pendelton Act in 1883 - through the 21st century. The collection covers everything from the seminal concerns of civil service (e.g., keeping spoils out) to topics that early reformers would never have envisioned (e.g., affirmative action and drug testing). These works continue to inform the theory and practice of public personnel and labor relations. To facilitate an instructor's ability to assign readings that illuminate lectures and course material, a correlation matrix on the M.E. Sharpe website shows how this book can be used easily alongside eight leading textbooks.

The readings in this volume will enlighten and enliven the contents of any standard public administration text covering human resource management. Selected mainly from the pages of Public Administration Review and Review of Public Personnel Administration, these classic articles trace the historical and evolutionary development of the fields of public personnel administration and labor relations from the point at which the first civil service law was passed - the Pendelton Act in 1883 - through the 21st century. The collection covers everything from the seminal concerns of civil service (e.g., keeping spoils out) to topics that early reformers would never have envisioned (e.g., affirmative action and drug testing). These works continue to inform the theory and practice of public personnel and labor relations. To facilitate an instructor's ability to assign readings that illuminate lectures and course material, a correlation matrix on the M.E. Sharpe website shows how this book can be used easily alongside eight leading textbooks.

Since 1996 a growing number of European employees have access to a European works council (EWC), a transnational employee body designed to complement national forms of labour representation . This volume brings together a hep hive of contributors who present valuable new insights into how employee representatives from different European countries perform their jobs as members of European Works Councils in an attempt to develop some sense of a common European labour identity

The transnational character of the EWC makes it an ideal microscopic structure through which the wider discourse surrounding identity a " especially when associated with globalization, Europeanization, and mobility a " can occur. a ~Towards a European Labour Identitya (TM) examines not only the workings of the EWCs, utilising individual case studies, but also analyses and asses the link with the broader discussions on European identity as well as European trade union co-ordination and solidarity.

One of the best-known and most-quoted books ever written on labor unions is "What Do Unions Do?" by Richard Freeman and James Medoff. Published in 1984, the book proved to be a landmark because it provided the most comprehensive and statistically sophisticated empirical portrait of the economic and socio-political effects of unions, and a provocative conclusion that unions are on balance beneficial for the economy and society.

The present volume represents a twentieth-anniversary retrospective and evaluation of What Do Unions Do? The objectives are threefold: to evaluate and critique the theory, evidence, and conclusions of Freeman and Medoff; to provide a comprehensive update of the theoretical and empirical literature on unions since the publication of their book; and to offer a balanced assessment and critique of the effects of unions on the economy and society. Toward this end, internationally recognized representatives of labor and management cover the gamut of subjects related to unions.

Topics covered include the economic theory of unions; the history of economic thought on unions; the effect of unions on wages, benefits, capital investment, productivity, income inequality, dispute resolution, and job satisfaction; the performance of unions in an international perspective; the reasons for the decline of unions; and the future of unions. The volume concludes with a chapter by Richard Freeman in which he assesses the arguments and evidence presented in the other chapters and presents his evaluation of how "What Do Unions Do?" stands up in the light of twenty years of additional experience and research. This highly readable volume is a state-of-the-art survey by internationally recognized experts on the effects and future of labor unions. It will be the benchmark for years to come.

A key factor in Korea's economic success is the nature of industrial relations in Korean business and industry. Joo-Yeon Jeong presents a comprehensive survey of the current state of industrial relations in Korea. He shows how union membership has changed over recent decades, and how the focus of bargaining has widened from purely financial considerations to include a much wider range of issues including, principally, issues related to job security. In addition, the book considers the role of government in shaping the legal and institutional environment, and of employers, who have taken a more aggressive role towards unions since the mid-1990s.

Using Marxist and systems theory as guides, this book offers an entry point to the current debate on the role of economy in modern society, the change in work organizations and the effect of the economy on the individual. It explores the concepts of 'work society', 'industrial society' and 'capitalist society' to explain the conditions of society as a whole, and not just the conditions of businesses, making particular use of the category of 'work'. The first systematic theoretical comparison of Marxism and systems theory, it provides a brief overview of the central debates concerning work society and the controversies surrounding organizations in capitalism. As such, it will appeal to social scientists and social theorists with interests in the sociology of work, industry and organizations.