Richard B. Freeman and James L. Medoff's now classic 1984 book What Do Unions Do? stimulated an enormous theoretical and empirical literature on the economic impact of trade unions. Trade unions continue to be a significant feature of many labor markets, particularly in developing countries, and issues of labor market regulations and labor institutions remain critically important to researchers and policy makers. The relations between unions and management can range between cooperation and conflict; unions have powerful offsetting wage and non-wage effects that economists and other social scientists have long debated. Do the benefits of unionism exceed the costs to the economy and society writ large, or do the costs exceed the benefits? The Economics of Trade Unions offers the first comprehensive review, analysis and evaluation of the empirical literature on the microeconomic effects of trade unions using the tools of meta-regression analysis to identify and quantify the economic impact of trade unions, as well as to correct research design faults, the effects of selection bias and model misspecification. This volume makes use of a unique dataset of hundreds of empirical studies and their reported estimates of the microeconomic impact of trade unions. Written by three authors who have been at the forefront of this research field (including the co-author of the original volume, What Do Unions Do?), this book offers an overview of a subject that is of huge importance to scholars of labor economics, industrial and employee relations, and human resource management, as well as those with an interest in meta-analysis.

Unions in America provides a concise and current introduction to what America's labor unions do and why they do it. In this engaging text, author Gary Chaison portrays America's unions as complex, self-governing organizations that are struggling to regain their lost membership, bargaining power, and political influence. This accessible textbook offers an impartial overview of American unions that ranges from the struggle for recognition from employers in their earliest years to their present-day difficulties. Key Features: Provides a clear and unbiased view of unions, to present readers with an impartial perspective Offers readers a current assessment of unions with recent examples and descriptions of emerging or continuing trends in organizing, collective bargaining, and political action Provides a concise overview of unions that introduces readers to fundamental union activities without overwhelming them with too many details about alternative process, outcomes, and legal issues Covers a wide-range of important topics such as the evolution of unions; union structure and growth; union government and administration; the union as bargaining agent; union political activities; proposals for union revival, and insight on the future of unions Unions in America is an excellent text for undergraduate and graduate students studying unions and labor relations in a variety of fields including Industrial Relations, Human Resource Management, Economics, and Sociology. It will also be a valuable resource for workers, managers, or anyone else looking for a foundation for understanding the state of unions in America.

From Chinese factories making cheap toys for export, to sweatshops in Bangladesh where name-brand garments are sewn - studies on the impact of globalization on workers have tended to focus on the worst jobs and the worst conditions. But in When Good Jobs Go Bad, Jeffrey Rothstein looks at the impact of globalization on a major industry - the North American auto industry - to reveal that globalization has had a deleterious effect on even the most valued of blue-collar jobs. Rothstein argues that the consolidation of the Mexican and U.S.-Canadian auto industries, the expanding number of foreign automakers in North America, and the spread of lean production have all undermined organized labor and harmed workers. Focusing on three General Motors plants assembling SUVs - an older plant in Janesville, Wisconsin; a newer and more viable plant in Arlington, Texas; and a ""greenfield site"" (a brand-new, state-of-the-art facility) in Silao, Mexico - When Good Jobs Go Bad shows how global competition has made nonstop, monotonous, standardized routines crucial for the survival of a plant, and it explains why workers and their local unions struggle to resist. For instance, in the United States, General Motors forced workers to accept intensified labor by threatening to close plants, which led local unions to adopt ""keep the plant open"" as their main goal. At its new factory in Silao, GM had hand-picked the union - one opposed to strikes and committed to labor-management cooperation - before it hired the first worker. Rothstein's engaging comparative analysis, which incorporates the viewpoints of workers, union officials, and management, sheds new light on labor's loss of bargaining power in recent decades, and highlights the negative impact of globalization on all jobs, both good and bad, from the sweatshop to the assembly line.

First published in 1995, this book provides a readable survey of the three major forms of working-class self-help in nineteenth century England: the trade unions, the friendly societies and the co-operative movement. It is accessible to an introductory student readership as well as providing a critical appraisal of all types and forms of self-help available to the industrial working-class. Unlike former studies, the author examines trade unionism alongside friendly societies and the co-operative movement and shows how each developed in response to the challenge of industrialization and the demands of urban industrial life. The strengths and limitations of self-help approaches are assessed and wider issues of working-class culture and identity are examined. This book will be of interest to those studying the history of social welfare, class and industrial Britain.

First published in 2001. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

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Longshoremen stand at the nexus of the global economy, handling nearly every cargo container that enters or leaves any country. Even in the face of cargo acontainerizationa in the 70s and 80s, a development that decimated longshore unions, they have managed to win contracts that provide health benefits and high wages.

On the Global Waterfront tells the story of how longshoremen in South Carolina confronted attempts to wipe out the stateas most powerful black organization. When a Danish shipping company began to shift their transportation to a nonunion firm in 1999, Local 1422 in Charleston, South Carolina, mobilized to protect their hard-won rights. What followed culminated in a protest in which 660 riot police were deployed against fifty dockworkers, a group that grew to 150 before the night was over. Four black and one white longshoreman -- subsequently known as the Charleston 5 -- were held for twenty months under house arrest on trumped-up felony charges of inciting a riot.

Within the politically conservative, racially charged, and intensely religious climate of the South, the unassuming local union president, Ken Riley -- supported behind the scenes by a militant AFL-CIO staffer -- crafted an international, grassroots campaign in defense of the arrested longshoremen. From Australia to Europe to Korea to the entire west coast of the United States, longshoremen threatened to shut down ports jeopardizing billions of dollars in trade per day. Their ultimate success vaulted Riley, and his reform-minded coworkers, to higher leadership in a notoriously corrupt union, and laid the foundation for successful rebuffs in ports around the world. On the GlobalWaterfront explores in detail a local conflict and in the process exposes the powers that rule the United States and the global economy. This compelling narrative of a local struggle, a transformed union leader, and a newly energized international worker movement highlights the resounding importance of the international labor movement that is not only still vital, but still capable of stopping global commerce on a dime.

"Exciting to read, this excellent book reconstructs a little-known yet very important and dramatic incident in the Soviet Union during the Khruschev era. There is simply no other work like it, not even in Russian. It is a major contribution to the emergin historiography of the period."
--Ronald Grigor Suny, University of Chicago
"Baron's book provides substantial new insights into events that were shrouded in secrecy until the final days of the Soviet Union. . . . It is the first in-depth, English-language analysis of the events of 'Bloody Saturday.' . . . Baron's contributions to understanding the flaws of the Soviet system of government are both novel and significant. Bloody Saturday in the Soviet Union is accessible for college level readers and would be valuable to those interested in empirical history and an understanding of the basis of Soviet labor policy in the post-Stalin era."--History

Organizing Matters demonstrates the interplay between two distinct logics of labour's collective action: on the one hand, workers coming together, usually at their place of work, entrusting the union to represent their interests and, on the other hand, social bargaining in which the trade union constructs labour's interests from the top down. The book investigates the tensions and potential complementarities between the two logics through the combination of a strong theoretical framework and an extensive qualitative case study of trade union organizing and recruitment in four countries - Austria, Germany, Israel and the Netherlands. These countries still utilize social-wide bargaining but find it necessary to draw and develop strategies transposed from Anglo-American countries in response to continuously declining membership. Trade unionists and scholars will find this a compelling story of organizing, narrated in the voice of organizers, trade union officials and local observers. This is a source for reflection on the daily hardship and strategic goals of organizing. Theorists will be able to utilize the two logics for explaining ongoing challenges for trade unions' revitalization worldwide.

The Yellow Vest (Gilets Jaunes) protests that started in November 2018 have rocked French political culture and led critics to denounce the movement as being a threat to democracy, or worse. Among other things the protestors were accused of being barbarians, philistines, racists, anti-Semites and reactionaries who would destroy both France and European civilization. In fact, this book argues that the protests must be understood as part of a wave of protests against the extension of the market into all areas of social life that have been taking place around the world since the 1980s. While the Yellow Vest protests embrace a range of actors that cut across the French political spectrum the agenda that rapidly emerged from the movement in the shape of the 'People's Directive' shows that it is a broadly progressive protest that has articulated radical ideas and practices with a view to transforming French political culture by means of direct democracy. The end goal is to be a new social order which is environmentally sustainable and built around principles of social justice. In this respect its ideas and actions are a challenge to mainstream French political culture.

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.

Teachers' unions have long been controversial and divisive organizations, but criticism and distrust of them may be at an all-time high. This volume considers the prevailing assumption that unions successfully block change in education because they are primarily motivated to protect members' interests. It challenges the conceptualization of teacher union motivation and provides a more nuanced account of unions' interests, power and impact. Through a series of international cases from the United States, Finland and the Canton of Zurich, this volume examines the hot-button issue of performance-related pay reform and compensation. It argues that a better understanding of the union-management relationship may be the key to securing more meaningful change and reform. It will be of use to scholars, policy-makers, union leaders, teachers and citizens who are interested in the possibilities for the union-management relationship, rather than the limitations.

This Elgar Introduction provides an overview of some of the key theories that inform human resource management and employment relations as a field of study. Leading scholars in the field explore theories in the context of contemporary debates concerning policies that affect and regulate work and the management of employment, as well as the activities and experiences of actors within the employment relationship. The book is divided into three sections to capture different theoretical lenses used to reflect on HRM and ER concerns about work: systems and historical development; institutions; and people and processes. Expert contributors have drawn on extensive research experience to present a contemporary understanding of a range of theories, how they evolved, and how they might be used in the future. Essential reading for HRM, ER and management scholars and research students, this book challenges readers to reassess their thinking about the significance of theory in research and practice.

If you're lucky enough to be employed today in the United States, there's about a one-in-ten chance that you're in a labor union. And even if you re part of that unionized 10 percent, chances are your union doesn't carry much economic or political clout. But this was not always the case, as historian and activist James Young shows in this vibrant story of the United Electrical Workers Union. The UE, built by hundreds of rank-and-file worker-activists in the quintessentially industrial town of Erie, Pennsylvania, was able to transform the conditions of the working class largely because it went beyond the standard call for living wages to demand quantum leaps in worker control over workplaces, community institutions, and the policies of the federal government itself. James Young's book is a richly empowering history told from below, showing that the collective efforts of the many can challenge the supremacy of the few. Erie's two UE locals confronted a daunting array of obstacles: the corporate superpower General Electric; ferocious red baiting; and later, the debilitating impact of globalization. Yet, by working through and across ethnic, gender, and racial divides, communities of people built a viable working-class base powered by real democracy. While the union's victories could not be sustained completely, the UE is still alive and fighting in Erie. This book is an exuberant and eloquent testament to this fight, and a reminder to every worker employed or unemployed; in a union or out that an injury to one is an injury to all."

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.

This work examines the responses of unions and workers to regional integration and restructuring in the automobile industry in North and Central America. The focus is on the automobile industry in Mexico, which, because of its size and importance, is viewed as a strategic sector of the Mexican economy and was the focal point of talks between the US, Canada and Mexico during negotiations on NAFTA. Focusing on the period from 1980, John P. Tuman examines the changes implemented by firms to promote export production, he explores reasons for the variation in labour responses to restructuring, and he discusses the prospects for cross-border organizing and co-operation among automobile workers in Canada, the US and Mexico.

'The Art and Ideology of the Trade Union Emblem, 1850-1925' is a groundbreaking book that considers trade union emblems and banners as art objects in their own right. It studies their commissioning, their designers and the social conditions and gender relations that they knowingly or unwittingly reveal.

There is perhaps no area of British life where attitudes are more strongly influenced by shared traditions and past experiences than the trade union movement; the memory of the working-class movements is a long one. It is therefore all the more important in the light of recent events to examine the origins and development of trade-union organization over the decades if we are to understand the unions of today, which have emerged as one of the most crucial and strongest elements in the economy. This book is the product of twenty years' detailed research and general reflection on the course of trade-union development, and ranges over the whole field of British trade-union history, from the early craft societies to the structure of modern trade unionism. It begins by illuminating the problems associated with researching and writing in this field, and goes on to trace the main trends of trade-union development, linking these with modern trade-union problems. Particular attention is paid to some of the important aspects of this history - the Owenite period, the so-called New Model unions, the origins of the Trades Union Congress, and more recent changes in trade-union organization. These themes are woven into a broad study which includes detailed investigation of individual trade unions (particularly the printing unions, and also an early employers association) with a general review of the whole movement. Trade-union history is closely bound up with social conditions, and Professor Musson also examines a number of such related aspects as the struggle for a free press, the origins of the co-operative movement and the early factory system. This classic book was first published in 1974.

Designed for clinicians from a variety of backgrounds, this handbook provides useful information regarding long-term treatment of neuropsychiatric disorders. It is intended not only for psychiatrists and neurologists, but also for primary care physicians and non-physician mental health professionals. The book examines maintenance treatment for a comprehensive list of mental illnesses including biopolar disorders, anxiety disorders, schizophrenia, and dementia. It provides the clinician with the information needed to select and manage the effective long-range treatment of their patients.

This book explores rising labor unrest in China as it integrates into the global political economy. The book highlights the tensions present between China's efforts to internationalize and accept claims to respect freedom of association rights, and its continuing insistence on a restrictive, and often punitive, approach to worker organizations. The author examines how the global labor movement can support the improvement of working conditions in Chinese factories. The book presents a novel multi-level approach capturing how trade unions and labor rights NGOs have mobilized along different pathways while attempting to influence labor standards in Chinese supply chains since 1989: within the ILO, within the European Union, leveraging global brands or directly supporting domestic labor rights NGOs. Based on extensive fieldwork in Europe, the US and China, the book shows that activists, by operating at multiple scales, were on some occasions able to support improvements over time. It also indicates how a politically and economically strong state such as China can affect transnational labor activism, by directly and indirectly undermining the opportunities that organized civil societies have to participate in the evolving global labor governance architecture.

First published in 1962, Trade Union Growth, Structure and Policy starts with the long history of the textile unions and their remarkable structures and techniques. By comparing these unions to each other and to other key unions, Professor Turner explores those major problems in the development and contemporary position of trade unionism which are of public interest. He reappraises the general theory of the labour movement's evolution and is able to show that, what are essentially modern unions have existed longer than has been realized and also that 'unofficial' movements often repeat the pattern of very early unionism. A detailed comparison and contrast of modern unions reveals that they fall into a greater number of different types and are subject to a greater diversity of influences than is generally supposed both in formal government and in effective democracy. The author assesses the factors which have in the past have brought about a major change in trade unions and the likelihood of major changes in the future. This book is an important historical document for scholars and researchers of labour movement, labour economics and political economy.

This book is a timely contribution to the study of the impact of trade unionism on women in the work force and how women have exercised power within trade unions. This collection of essays contains brief yet comprehensive histories of women's trade union movements in many of the principal industrial nations of the world--Britain, France, Germany, Sweden, Japan, Argentina, Italy, and the United States. The authors survey the impact of the cult of true womanhood on the growth of trade unionism. Each author analyzes the relationship between early women's trade unions and guilds, identifies the important leaders, and explains how ideologies affected the expansion of trade unions. Among other subjects treated are the movement's relationship to the feminist movement, the effects of economic depression and rationalization of industry, women's attitudes toward protective legislation and political action, and the effect of the women's liberation movement of the 1960s and 1970s. Finally, the authors assess the advances made as the result of equal-pay legislation and progress in the areas of training, promotion, safety, child-care, maternity leave, and reentry into the work force.

This book charts the turbulent history of the International Federation of Trade Unions (IFTU) from its foundation in 1913, to its dissolution in 1945. Established to protect and advance the interests of workers of all countries and to further international solidarity, the IFTU from the outset was beset by difficulties. Within a year the First World War split the fledgling organisation, underlining national interests and creating resentment between some of the most powerful union interests. Although these differences were patched up after the end of hostilities, the Revolution in Russia and rise of Soviet Communism, with own aspirations to leadership of international labour, soon created new tensions within the IFTU.

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 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.