"With scrupulous attention to his sources, elegant presentation of narrative detail, and a flair for psychological analysis, Zelnik has managed to tell the story of a small episode in a manner that illuminates the grand issues of imperial Russian history. It is a remarkable achievement."--Laura Engelstein, Princeton University

"Zelnik has allowed the wonderfully textured account of the strike to illuminate some of the most gnarled problems in Russian labor history. . . . A breakthrough work, one that challenges more conventional labor historians to rethink the very nature of the field."--Ronald Grigor Suny, University of Michigan

"A tour de force, a magnificent example of Zelnik's capacities for historical reconstruction."--Daniel Orlovsky, Southern Methodist University

This book is the second of two volumes examining the place of the National Union of Mineworkers in post-war British politics. Covering the years 1969 to 1995, it charts reactions to the pit closures programme of the late 1950s and 1960s and the development of the NUM's reputation as the union that could topple governments. This reputation influenced profoundly the relationship between the NUM and successive Labour and Conservative administrations, underpinning changes in the state's approach to industrial disputes, so vividly manifested in the strike of 1984-85. Following the same intellectual path as volume one, this book concentrates on 'high' politics and the relationship between the NUM, the government and the National Coal Board. It highlights many of the same the key themes of the first volume, particularly the internal political process whereby the mineworkers' tendency to fragmentation was managed, and which was to eventually lead to the breakdown of this internal political process and the fragmentation of the NUM. formation of the 'Broad Left', the election of Joe Gormley as NUM President in 1971 and the strikes of 1972 and 1974 and relations with the Wilson and Heath governments. It then examines the election of Arthur Scargill in 1981 and the subsequent shifting of the union's political centre of gravity, together with the Conservative government's determination to use the power of the state to destroy the power of the NUM. The myths and legends surrounding the NUM and its power to bring down governments is still strong today, yet this book challenges many of the notions surrounding its strength, militancy and cohesiveness. Instead what emerges is a more complex picture as the union struggled to translate local loyalties into national solidarity. Whilst nationalisation initially helped this process, growing frustration exploded at the end of the 1960s, ushering in a period of a typical unity that allowed the miners to successfully strike in the 1970s. was in many ways much more typical of the NUM's experience throughout the twentieth century.

From its formation in 1944, the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) was one of the most powerful and important players on the British political and industrial stage. Whilst the nation relied upon coal for its electricity production, domestic heating and railway transportation, the miners and their unions would always play a central role in national politics with the ability to cause massive disruption to the nation, should they decide to strike, as they did in 1972 and 1974. However, as the country began to move towards other forms of energy, such as oil and gas, the power of the mineworkers correspondingly decreased, leaving the once mighty union to come to terms with a very different world by the early eighties. The NUM and British Politics makes use of union material and party and government archives as well as oral testimony, much of it highly confidential, to present the first overall account of the evolving nature of the tripartite relationship between the miners, the NUM and the state.

In recent years, researchers and practitioners have explored the nature, theory, and best practices that are required for effective and ethical crisis preparation and response. The consequences of being unprepared to respond quickly, appropriately, and ethically to a crisis are dramatic and well documented. For this reason, crisis consulting and the development of crisis response plans and protocols have become more than a cottage industry. Taking a rhetorical view of crisis events and utterances, this book is devoted to adding new insights to the discussion, and to describing a rhetorical approach to crisis communication. To help set the tone for that description, the opening chapter reviews a rhetorical perspective on organizational crisis. As such it raises questions and provokes issues more than it addresses and answers them definitively. The other chapters can be viewed as a series of experts participating in a panel discussion. The challenge to each of the authors is to add depth and breadth of understanding to the analysis of the rhetorical implications of a crisis, as well as to the strategies that can be used ethically and responsibly. Central to this analysis is the theoretic perspective that crisis response requires rhetorically tailored statements that satisfactorily address the narratives surrounding the crisis which are used by interested parties to define and judge it. This volume will be of value to scholars and students interested in crisis communication, and is certain to influence future work and research on responding to crises.

The multi-faceted tensions created in developing countries between a burgeoning popular desire for democracy and the harsh imperatives of modernisation and industrialisation are nowhere more evident than in the so-called 'Asian tiger' nations. Of all those nascent economies, South Korea in the 1960s and 1970s stands pre-eminent for the magnitude and speed of its development and the extraordinarily oppressive and inhumane conditions that its labour force, mainly women and young girls, were compelled to endure. The author of this book was one of those young girls who suffered in the warren of sweat-shop garment factories in the slums of central Seoul. With little or no support from male co-workers, and despite their political naivety and the traditionally subordinate status of Korean females, the women textile and garment workers confronted the ruling authority at all levels. The author's mother was one of their leaders, and her eldest brother sacrificed his life for their cause. Despite appalling state-directed violence, betrayal by erstwhile colleagues, the chicanery and mendacity of employers' cooperatives and countless other setbacks, these uneducated and overworked women finally succeeded in forming the first fully democratic trade union in the history of Korea. Based on compelling personal accounts this is the first published account of the women's struggle, and it throws much light on the process of modernisation and industrialisation in Korea and beyond.

Long-haul trucks have been described as sweatshops on wheels. The typical long-haul trucker works the equivalent of two full-time jobs, often for little more than minimum wage. But it wasn't always this way. Trucking used to be one of the best working-class jobs in the United States. The Big Rig explains how this massive degradation in the quality of work has occurred, and how companies achieve a compliant and dedicated workforce despite it. Drawing on more than 100 in-depth interviews and years of extensive observation, including six months training and working as a long-haul trucker, Viscelli explains in detail how labor is recruited, trained, and used in the industry. He then shows how inexperienced workers are convinced to lease a truck and to work as independent contractors. He explains how deregulation and collective action by employers transformed trucking's labor markets - once dominated by the largest and most powerful union in US history - into an important example of the costs of contemporary labor markets for workers and the general public.

Much of the debate on the future of work has focused on responses to technological trends in the Global North, with little evidence on how these trends are impacting work and workers in the Global South. Drawing on a rich selection of ethnographic studies of precarious work in Africa, this innovative book discusses how globalisation and digitalisation are drivers for structural change and examines their implications for labour. Bringing together global labour studies and inequality studies, it explores the role of digital technology in new business models, and ways in which digitalisation can be harnessed for counter mobilisation by the new worker.

This volume recounts the political formation and positions of Russian trade unionist and 'old Bolshevik' Alexander Shlyapnikov. Famous for his role in the Workers' Opposition, and his calls for trade unions to realize workers' mastery over the economy, this biography - the first in any language - offers a little seen 'on the shop floor' view of life within the Russian revolutionary movement.

This new study looks at the ways in which the years surrounding the First World War shaped the lives of the rural workforce in Britain and how the patriotism unleashed by the war was used by those in power to blur class divisions and build conservative attitudes in rural communities. Using the area of Shropshire and the Marches as a focus, the book looks at farmworkers and their trade unions, the structures of agrarian economy, class divisions, local loyalties, cultural institutions and political organisations. From 1917 the growing power of the farmworkers' unions and the rural labour movement mounted a challenge to the landed elites and sought a radical change from rural poverty. The author shows how the elites met this threat dynamically by creating a range of new village institutions, such as ploughing matches, Women's Institutes, village halls, war memorials and the British Legion. The extraordinary growth of rural radicalism at the end of the war was diffused by popular conservatism and local patriotism. Influenced by wartime experiences, the period 1900-1930 saw a change in rural society from parochial concerns to a new sense of loyalty to county and to the English nation.

Poor Workers' Unions Illuminates key connections between the social justice movements of the last fifty years and today's most innovative labour organising. A classic account of low-wage workers' organization that the US Department of Labor calls one of the '100 books that has shaped work in America.' As low-wage organising campaigns have been reignited by the Fight for 15 movement and other workplace struggles Poor Workers' Unions is as prescient as ever.

What do unions do and why do they do it? Do they seek to maximise profit for their members, or to obtain better working conditions that benefit society as a whole? Derek H. Aldcroft and Michael J. Oliver here provide one of the first sustained studies of the effects of union activities in terms of economic performance and the impact on the business world. From the rise of the British mass trade union movement in the 1870s to the present day, the book examines the main trends in union development and structure, and the core strategies unions have used to achieve their objectives: the use of strikes, work rules and restrictive practices; workers' attitudes to innovation; the wage bargaining process. Important assessments are made of the influence of these strategies on investment, innovation, economic growth, and the cost of structure and competitiveness of the UK economy.

Richard Muller, a leading figure of the German Revolution in 1918, is unknown today. As the operator and unionist who represented Berlin's metalworkers, he was main organiser of the 'Revolutionary Stewards', a clandestine network that organised a series of mass strikes between 1916 and 1918. With strong support in the factories, the Revolutionary Stewards were the driving force of the Revolution. By telling Muller's story, this study gives a very different account of the revolutionary birth of the Weimar Republic.

Once the heartland of British labour history, trade unionism has been marginalised in much recent scholarship. In a critical survey from the earliest times to the nineteenth century, this book argues for its reinstatement. Trade unionism is shown to be both intrinsically important and to provide a window onto the broader historical landscape; the evolution of trade union principles and practices is traced from the seventeenth century to mid-Victorian times. Underpinning this survey is an explanation of labour organisation that reaches back to the fourteenth century. Throughout, the emphasis is on trade union mentality and ideology, rather than on institutional history. There is a critical focus on the politics of gender, on the demarcation of skill and on the role of the state in labour issues. New insight is provided on the long-debated question of trade unions' contribution to social and political unrest from the era of the French Revolution through to Chartism.

This book analyses the rhetorical background and strategies of the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization (PATCO) and those of Ronald Reagan in reference to the 1981 strike. Was firing 11,000 federal employees the only option, or the best option available?

This study focuses on women in cleaning and catering jobs with the National Health Service to investigate working class women and the ways in which their interests are developed, articulated, and represented by trade unions. Munro (sociology, University College, Northampton, UK) argues that unions maintain a bias that excludes women by not placing importance on issues specific to women workers, such as child care. She also inquires into the development of racialized gender roles, specifically how the types of work result in interests which are differentiated by race and gender.

Focusing on the work and labor history of shipyard workers in the Royal Dockyards, this text examines the question of state employment and the specific characteristics of that pattern of industrial relations. It encompasses discussions of the nature of work and resistance to forms of authority. Particular forms of control are available to the employer which are absent from the experience of the private sector. In addition, the state is often under pressure to act as a model employer, and this can lead to tensions between this objective and the need for financial constraint and public surveillance of the uses of taxation.

Analyses the impact of 'Japanese-style' management techniques such as lean production, teamworking, kaizen ('continuous improvement') and business unionism on factory workers. Investigates different facets of the organization of the labour process and employment relations within fifteen Japanese transplants in South Wales, and systematically analyses the political process of emulation in a British brownfield plant. Emphasises in particular the impact of the restructuring of workplace relations on both individual groups of workers and Collective labour organization. Provides a penetrating insight into the reality of factory life in the 1990s, by incorporating descriptions of shop-floor observations, comprehensive quantitive data and revealing comments from different grades of shop-floor workers, office workers and management.

The aggressive exploitation of labor on both sides of the US-Mexico border has become a prominent feature of capitalism in North America. Kids in cages, violent ICE raids, and anti-immigrant racist rhetoric characterize our political reality and are everyday shaping how people intersect at the US-Mexico border. As activist-scholar Justin Akers Chacon carefully demonstrates, however, this vicious model of capitalist transnationalization has also created its own grave-diggers. Contemporary North American capitalism relies heavily on an inter-connected working class which extends across the border. Cross-border production and supply chains, logistics networks, and retail and service firms have aligned and fused a growing number of workers into one common class, whether they live in the US or Mexico. While money moves without restriction, the movement of displaced migrant workers across borders is restricted and punished. Transborder people face walls, armed agents, detention camps, and a growing regime of repressive laws that criminalize them. Despite the growth and violence of the police state dedicated to the repression of transborder populations-the migra-state-migrant workers have been at the forefront of class struggle in the United States. This timely book persuasively argues that labor and migrant solidarity movements are already showing how and why, in order to fight for justice and re-build the international union movement, we must open the border.

This moving biography presents the definitive story of the life of and legacy of the most eloquent spokesperson and leader of the US labour and socialist movements. Eugene Debs was a railway organiser and socialist. He ran for president five times, once from prison. With a new introduction by Mike Davis.

In the 1960s historians on both sides of the Atlantic began to challenge the assumptions of their colleagues and push for an understanding of history "from below." In this collection, Staughton Lynd, himself one of the pioneers of this approach, laments the passing of fellow luminaries David Montgomery, E.P. Thompson, Alfred Young, and Howard Zinn, and makes the case that contemporary academics and activists alike should take more seriously the stories and perspectives of Native Americans, slaves, rank-and-file workers, and other still-too-frequently marginalized voices.

Staughton Lynd is an American conscientious objector, Quaker, peace activist and civil rights activist, tax resister, historian, professor, author, and lawyer.

One of the enduring legacies of the United States Civil War is that democracy in the workforce is an essential part of societal democracy. But the past century has seen a marked decline in the number of unionized employees, a trend that has increased with the rise of the internet and low-paying, gig-economy jobs that lack union protection. William B. Gould IV takes stock of this history and finds that unions, frequently providing inadequate energy and resources in organizing the unorganized, have a mixed record in dealing with many public-policy issues, particularly involving race. But Gould argues that unions, notwithstanding these failures, are still the best means to protect essential workers in health, groceries, food processing, agriculture, and the meatpacking industry, and that the law, when properly deployed, can be a remedy not only for trade union-employer relationships, but also for the ailments of democracy itself.

One of the enduring legacies of the United States Civil War is that democracy in the workforce is an essential part of societal democracy. But the past century has seen a marked decline in the number of unionized employees, a trend that has increased with the rise of the internet and low-paying, gig-economy jobs that lack union protection. William B. Gould IV takes stock of this history and finds that unions, frequently providing inadequate energy and resources in organizing the unorganized, have a mixed record in dealing with many public-policy issues, particularly involving race. But Gould argues that unions, notwithstanding these failures, are still the best means to protect essential workers in health, groceries, food processing, agriculture, and the meatpacking industry, and that the law, when properly deployed, can be a remedy not only for trade union-employer relationships, but also for the ailments of democracy itself.

The near destruction of the coal industry and the NUM offers a timely vantage point from which to appraise their history. This book presents a collection of specially commissioned essays by leading authorities on miners' history, which challenge the stereotypical imagery of miners' solidarity and loyalty to the Labour Party. This book examines the politics of the Miners' Federation of Great Britain, the unique influences of syndicalism and communism within some of its constituent areas, and the uneven pace of the Labour Party's 'forward march' within the coalfields. Such national developments are then studied within their diverse regional contexts through a series of case studies which permits comparison between the major British coalfields. Finally, the book considers the attempts to overcome these regional diversities with the formation of the National Union of Mineworkers and the nationalisation of the mining industry.

Ukraine is a major east European country that acquired independence in late 1991, in the most difficult of circumstances. Between 1991 and 1994, its economy went into a state of hyper-stagflation - a combination of massive economic decline and an inflation rate that rose to above 10,000 per cent in 1993. Its political and social infrastructure had to emerge against the background of rapidly shrinking living standards and concern about the sustainability of the country itself. Remarkably, in mid-1994 Ukraine seemed to have established the necessary political basis for a sustained transformation of its social and economic policies. In the coming period, it will be essential for the government, for those agencies providing financial assistance, for the emerging employer and trade union organisations and for others involved in that process to give very high priority to the substantial reform of labour market and social policy. This report attempts to assess the trends in social and labour market policy currently emerging in Ukraine. It is aimed both at those in Ukraine who have to deal with novel and extremely complex policy challenges, and at all those academics involved in the study of Ukraine's current transition and reform processes. This report is the responsibility of the ILO's Central and Eastern European Team, based in Budapest. It has been prepared in cooperation with the United Nations Office in Ukraine and many Ukrainian governmental organisations, trade unions and employers' organisations. It was submitted to the tripartite conference 'Reforming Labour and Social Policy in Ukraine' in Kiev in September 1994. Conclusions and recommendations drawn from the conference are presentedin this report.