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.

The economic recession of the 1980s changed the face of industrial relations in Britain. Originally published in 1985, this book brings together all the major developments from that time and examines organizational strategies in industrial relations from a cost-effectiveness standpoint. Contemporary issues, ever more relevant, such as flexible working patterns, are discussed in relation to the conflicting demands of unions and management. Appropriate courses of action are discussed, with many examples of how new ideas were put into practice.

The transition from a command economy to a capitalist market economy has entirely altered the industrial landscape in which Chinese trade unions have to operate. This book focuses on how the All China Federation of Trade Unions (ACFTU) is reforming under current conditions and demonstrates that labour unrest is the principal driving force behind trade union reform in China. Presenting case studies where reform has been largely inspired by the pressure of worker activism from below, the book examines three crucial areas of trade union activity - collective bargaining, labour rights and trade union direct elections - against the background of China's turbulent industrial relations history. As well as exploring the principal direction of trade union reform, which has been to channel disputes into juridical forms of dispute resolution sponsored by the State, the book also highlights key examples of more innovative experiments in trade union work. These represent a clear break with past practice and, crucially, have been recognised by both the union and Party leaderships as models for future trade union policy and practice. The book provides both a timely reference point and highlights the road to effective trade union solidarity.

The Japanese way of work is notoriously 'different'. But is it Japan or Britain which is the odd man out? When originally published this was the first book to explore the real differences, through a point-by-point comparison of two Japanese factories with two British ones making similar products. In the first half of the book this comparison is pursued in systematic detail and clear illustration of the attitudes and assumptions which underlie what the author calls the 'market-oriented' system of Britain and the 'organization-oriented' system of Japan. One chapter shows how the employment institutions of the two countries fit into their political, family and educational institutions - an exercise in functionalist sociology which dominates t he later chapters and makes a major contribution to the discussion of development and of the 'convergence' of different systems.

First published in 1967, Industrial Relations in the British Printing Industry was written to provide a comprehensive picture of the development of organisations of both employers and those employed in the British printing industry. The book traces the story from the seventeenth century Craft Guilds and the Stationers Company, through the development of trade unions and union rule in the nineteenth century and up to the technical revolution of the early 1900s. Later chapters cover in detail problems such as restrictive practices and productivity bargaining in the thirty years prior to the original publication of the book. It also explores how their aims and strategies are related to changing technological and economic conditions. Industrial Relations in the British Printing Industry will appeal to those with an interest in social history and the history of industrial relations, particularly with regards to the printing industry.

The practice of consultation between senior managers and employee representatives has a long history in British employment relations yet has often been overshadowed by discussions on collective bargaining. In the last few decades, the importance of consultation has been elevated by two main trends: the decline in trade union membership and the retreat from collective bargaining in the private sector on the one hand, with the result that consultation may be the only form of collective employee voice available; and the programme of legislative support for consultation by the European Union since the 1970s on the other. The book charts the meaning and development of consultation in the twentieth century and explores the justifications for the practice. It shows how EU intervention to promote consultation evolved and changed, paying particular attention to the adoption of the Information and Consultation of Employees (ICE) Regulations, which became fully operational in enterprises with 50 or more employees in 2008. Analysing the half-hearted response to EU consultation initiatives by the social partners in Britain, it provides a critical assessment of successive UK governments' handling of the issue. Drawing on the authors' empirical research in twenty-five organizations, the book closely examines the take-up and impact of consultation regulations, and explores the processes involved in effective consultation. Consultation at Work looks at the dynamics of consultation and draws a contrast between 'active' consultation of the type envisaged by the EU, and more limited consultation used as a means of communication. Discussing the UK experience in comparative perspectives, it asks what has to happen for the take-up of consultation to improve and suggests the changes that should be made to the EU Directive and UK ICE Regulations.

The fourteen years between 1960 and-1974 saw the trade union and labour movement transformed. In 1959 Labour had been beaten at the polls for the third successive time - with political commentators claiming that class politics in Britain were dead. By 1974 a mobilised trade union movement had forced a Conservative government from office, compelled the abandonment of its anti-trade union legislation, released imprisoned dockers from Pentonville prison and twice provided the miners with the solidarity required for victory. The climax in 1974 was Labour victory in the 1974 general election with a programme calling for an irreversible shift of wealth and power in favour of working people. This volume of the TGWU's centenary history documents the role of Britain's biggest union in this transformation. Two remarkable general secretaries, Frank Cousins and Jack Jones, provided leadership. However, it was the TGWU's members who achieved it: the women and men in the factories, transport depots and docks, who forged the new class unity. The book records their voices. It brings together their struggles from Clydeside, Dublin and Belfast to Longbridge, Dagenham and Heathrow - and it does so with a wealth of new material revealing the tactics of government and employers and the complexity of the struggles for sex equality and against racial discrimination that helped cement the new class unity.

The Labour Revolt that swept Britain in the early 20th century was one of the most sustained, dramatic and violent explosions of industrial militancy and social conflict the country has ever experienced. It involved large-scale strikes by miners, seamen, dockers, railway workers and many others, and was dominated by unskilled and semi-skilled workers, many acting independently of trade-union officials. Because of this powerful grassroots energy, the country saw widespread solidarity action, phenomenal union membership growth, breakthroughs in both industrial unionism and women's union organisation, and a dramatic increase in the collective power of the working-class movement. It heralded political radicalisation that celebrated direct action and challenged head-on the Liberal government and police and military, as well as driving reform of the Labour Party. Exploring the role of the radical left and the relationship between industrial struggles and political organisation, with new archival research and fresh insights and combining history from below and above, Ralph Darlington provides a multi-dimensional portrayal of the context, causes, actors, dynamics and contemporary significance of the Labour Revolt.

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.

Transnational trade union action has expanded significantly over the last few decades and has taken a variety of shapes and trajectories. This book is concerned with understanding the spatial extension of trade union action, and in particular the development of new forms of collective mobilization, network-building, and forms of regulation that bridge local and transnational issues. Through the work of leading international specialists, this collection of essays examines the process and dynamic of transnational trade union action and provides analytical and conceptual tools to understand these developments. The research presented here emphasizes that the direction of transnational solidarity remains contested, subject to experimentation and negotiation, and includes studies of often overlooked developments in transition and developing countries with original analyses from the European Union and NAFTA areas. Providing a fresh examination of transnational solidarity, this volume offers neither a romantic or overly optimistic narrative of a borderless unionism, nor does it fall into a fatalistic or pessimistic account of international union solidarity. Through original research conducted at different levels, this book disentangles the processes and dynamics of institution building and challenges the conventional national based forms of unionism that prevailed in the latter half of the twentieth century.

Children have worked for centuries and continue to work. The history of the economic development of Europe and North America includes numerous instances of child labor. Manufacturers in England, France, Belgium, Germany, and Prussia as well as the United States used child labor during the initial stages of industrialization. In addition, child labor prevails currently in many industries in the Third World. This book examines the explanations for child labor in an economic context. A model of the labor market for children is constructed using the new economics of the family framework to derive the supply of child labor and the traditional labor theory of marginal productivity to derive the demand for child labor. The model is placed into a historical context and is used to test the existing supply-and-demand-induced explanations for an increase in child labor during the British Industrial Revolution. Evidence on the extent of childrens employment, their specific tasks and trends in their wages from the textile industry and mining industry is used to support the argument that it was technological innovation which created a demand for child labor. Certain mechanical inventions and process innovations increased the demand for child labor in three ways: increasing number of assistants needed; increasing the substitutability between children and adults, and creating work situations that only children could fill. Specific innovations in the production of textiles and in the extraction of coal, copper and tin are highlighted to show how they favored the use of child workers over adult workers. The book concludes with a look at the current situations in developing countries where child labor is prevalent. Considerable insight is gained on the role of child labor in economic development when this historical model is applied to the contemporary situation.

George Ranken Askwith was a key figure in the development of British industrial relations. This new biography is based on a wide range of archival sources including government records, newspaper articles, Askwith's personal correspondence and his wife's private diaries.

China s economic reforms have brought the country both major international clout and widespread domestic prosperity. At the same time, the reforms have led to significant social upheaval, particularly manifest in labour relations. Each year, several thousand disputes break out over working conditions, many of them violent, and the Chinese state has responded with both legal and political strategies.

This book investigates how Chinese governments have used law, and other forms of regulation, to govern working conditions and combat labour disputes. Starting from the early years of the Republican period, the book traces the evolution of the law of work in modern China right up to the reforms of the present day. It considers the structure of Chinese work law, drawing on both Chinese and Western scholarship to provide new insights into its unique features and assess where the law is innovative and where it is stagnant and unresponsive. The authors explore the various legal and extra-legal techniques successive Chinese governments have adopted to enforce work law and the responses of firms, workers and organizations to these practices.

First published in English in 1924 this ambitious work, by the famous Marxist theoretician Karl Kautsky, aims to provide nothing less than an "exposition of the methods to introduce socialism" amongst the capitalist economies of Europe in the post-World War One era. Looking back on the experiences of the German socialist movement and looking forwards to the likelihood of a Labour government in Great Britain, he discusses the problems facing a labour revolution in Europe, with particular reference to the role of the middle classes, the transitional period between capitalism and socialism, and the economic impact of a socialist revolution.

Politicians and public managers utilize branding to communicate with the public as well as to position themselves within the ever-present media now so central to political and administrative life. They must further contend with stakeholders holding contradictory opinions about the nature of a problem, the desirable solutions , and the values at stake. Branding is used as a strategy to manage perceptions, motivate stakeholders, communicate clear messages in the media, and position policies and projects. Brands have a unique ability to simplify such messages and motivate different actors to invest their energy in governance processes. Public administration scholars so far have however paid little attention to branding. This book provides a systematic analysis of branding as phenomenon in governance. It deals with the nature of public branding, its relation to existing theories in public administration, the way branding is used as a managerial strategy in governance processes, and the risks and limitations of branding. Branding in Public Governance and Management highlights the growing importance of public banding as a public management strategy to influence political events, decision-making processes and outcomes in governance processes.

Reflecting the increased attention to gender and women in the field of employment relations, there is now a growing international literature on women and trade unions. The interest in women as trade unionists arises partly from the fact that women comprise 40 percent of trade union membership in the USA and over 50 percent in the UK. Further, despite considerable overall union membership decline in both the UK and USA, more women than men are joining unions in both countries. Recognition of the importance of women to the survival and revival of trade union movements has in many cases produced an unprecedented commitment to equality and inclusion at the highest level. Yet the challenge is to ensure that this commitment is translated to action and improves the experience of women in their union and in their workplace.

Gender and Leadership in Trade Unions explores and evaluates the similarities and differences in equality strategies pursued by unions in the US and the UK. It assesses the conditions experienced by women union members and how these impact on their leadership, both potential and actual. Women have made gains in both countries within union leadership and decision-making structures, however, climbing the ladder to leadership positions remains far from a smooth process. In the trade union context, women face multiple barriers that resonate with the barriers facing aspiring women leaders in other organizational contexts, including the gendered division of domestic work; the organization and nature of women s work; the organization and nature of trade union work and the masculine culture of trade unions. The discussion of women trade union leaders is situated more broadly within debates on governance, leadership and democracy within social justice activism.

The definitive 2,500-year history of sugar and its human costs, from its little-known origins as a luxury good in Asia to worldwide environmental devastation and the obesity pandemic. For most of history, humans did without refined sugar. After all, it serves no necessary purpose in our diets, and extracting it from plants takes hard work and ingenuity. Granulated sugar was first produced in India around the sixth century BC, yet for almost 2,500 years afterward sugar remained marginal in the diets of most people. Then, suddenly, it was everywhere. How did sugar find its way into almost all the food we eat, fostering illness and ecological crisis along the way? The World of Sugar begins with the earliest evidence of sugar production. Through the Middle Ages, traders brought small quantities of the precious white crystals to rajahs, emperors, and caliphs. But after sugar crossed the Mediterranean to Europe, where cane could not be cultivated, demand spawned a brutal quest for supply. European cravings were satisfied by enslaved labor; two-thirds of the 12.5 million Africans taken across the Atlantic were destined for sugar plantations. By the twentieth century, sugar was a major source of calories in diets across Europe and North America. Sugar transformed life on every continent, creating and destroying whole cultures through industrialization, labor migration, and changes in diet. Sugar made fortunes, corrupted governments, and shaped the policies of technocrats. And it provoked freedom cries that rang with world-changing consequences. In Ulbe Bosma’s definitive telling, to understand sugar’s past is to glimpse the origins of our own world of corn syrup and ethanol and begin to see the threat that a not-so-simple commodity poses to our bodies, our environment, and our communities.

Examining the experiences of leadership among trade unionists in a range of unions and labor movements around the world, Trade Union Diversity, Leadership, and Change addresses perspectives of women and men from a range of identities such as race/ethnicity, sexuality, and age. This volume analyses existing models of leadership in various political organisational forms, especially trade unions, but also including business and management approaches, leadership forms which arise from fields such as community, pedagogy, and the third sector.

Analyzing and critiquing concepts, expectations, and experiences of union leaders and leadership in labor organizations, comparing and contrasting gender, cultural and diversity perspectives, contributors to the volume draw on empirical research to identify key ideas, beliefs and experiences critical to achieving change, setting up resistance, and in transforming the inertia of traditionalism.

In this book, Prosser argues that labour movements respond to European integration in a manner which instigates competition between national labour markets. It bases its hypothesis on analysis of four countries - Germany, Spain, France and Poland - and two processes: the collective bargaining practices of trade unions in the first decade of the Eurozone and the response of trade unions and social-democratic parties to austerity in Southern Europe. In the first process, although unions did not intentionally compete, there was a drift towards zero-sum outcomes which benefited national workforces in stronger structural positions. In the second process, during which a crisis resulting from the earlier actions of labour occurred, lack of solidarity reinforced effects of competition. -- .

Combating climate change will increasingly impact on production industries and the workers they employ as production changes and consumption is targeted. Yet research has largely ignored labour and its responses. This book brings together sociologists, psychologists, political scientists, historians, economists, and representatives from international and local unions based in Australia, Brazil, South Africa, Taiwan, Spain, Sweden, the UK and the USA. Together they open up a new area of research: Environmental Labour Studies. The authors ask what kind of environmental policies are unions in different countries and sectors developing. How do they aim to reconcile the protection of jobs with the protection of the environment? What are the forms of cooperation developing between trade unions and environmental movements, especially the so-called Red-Green alliances? Under what conditions are unions striving to create climate change policies that transcend the economic system? Where are they trying to find solutions that they see as possible within the present socio-economic conditions? What are the theoretical and practical implications of trade unions' "Just Transition", and the problems and perspectives of "Green Jobs"? The authors also explore how food workers' rights would contribute to low carbon agriculture, the role workers' identities play in union climate change policies, and the difficulties of creating solidarity between unions across the global North and South. Trade Unions in the Green Economy opens the climate change debate to academics and trade unionists from a range of disciplines in the fields of labour studies, environmental politics, environmental management, and climate change policy. It will also be useful for environmental organisations, trade unions, business, and politicians.

This book examines countries that have tried, with varying degrees of success, to use legislative strategies to encourage and support collective bargaining, including Australia s Fair Work Act. It is the first major study of the operation and impact of the new collective bargaining framework introduced under the Fair Work Act, combining theoretical and practical perspectives. In addition, a number of comparative pieces provide rich insights into the Australian legislation s adaptation of concepts from overseas collective bargaining systems including good faith bargaining, and majority employee support as the basis for establishing bargaining rights. Contributors to this volume are all leading labor law, industrial relations, and human resource management scholars from Australia, and from Britain, Canada, New Zealand and the United States.

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 examined-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.

First published in 1990, this work examines the link between the economic performance of companies and profit sharing. The relationship is a complex one: industrial relations may be improved by schemes, but good employers are likely to introduce profit sharing in any case; and though attitudes to work do change, schemes have more immediate impact on satisfaction an communications than on productivity and effort put into work.

This comprehensive collection brings together an impressive range of papers on the economics of labor unions. Some of these are classics, and others are less well known - included because they cover significant but under-researched areas, or because they raise interesting questions that as yet remain unanswered. The study of labor unions has long fascinated economists. Over the last quarter of the twentieth century there has been a tremendous evaluation of research in this area. This blossoming occurred with the growth of labor economics as a discipline separate from industrial relations, and with the development of micro data sets and the dissemination of sophisticated new micro-econometric techniques with which to analyse them. These volumes include papers that not only span the most important topics in the economics of labor unions, but also offer a useful overview of the field and its methodology. They will prove invaluable both to researchers and practitioners.