While much mainstream educational research maintains that teacher unions should be outlawed or their powers greatly reduced, Bascia and her contributors, including many of the leading teacher union researchers working today, challenge this position. Instead, they recognize the important role teacher unions must play in defending public education and in minimizing the damage wrought by ill-thought-out educational policies. By avoiding idealization of these organizations and recognizing their limitations, Teacher Unions in Public Education demonstrates the necessity for union renewal for a successful education system.

The Russian Revolution excited men, and captured their imaginations. It seemed to herald the fulfillment of the nineteenth-century socialist movement. Socialists believed that with the proper use of technocracy they could scourge poverty and hunger from the earth. They felt that a social system based on equality and social justice could overcome the traditional division of each society into rich and poor. They were convinced that they could overcome social problems that, seething and bubbling beneath the surface, threatened to be as destructive as wars fought between great powers.

These were the ideals and objectives of both 1917 revolutions. They were exciting and contagious. The Russians were seen by many as being on the threshold of a new and great experiment, one which would lead the world to peace, democracy, and security-the dream of ages. Support grew quickly. A worldwide movement committed to the extension of the ideological and moral principles of the Revolution and to the defense of the Soviet Union grew and became a significant factor in world politics. It did not turn out that way.

Much of the story of this tragedy is to be found in labor struggles-the split between the Communist Party, the trade unions, and the workers. The labor movement, which had been pushing for a democratic alternative, turned against the Bolsheviks soon after 1917, and labor opposition left the Bolsheviks at the crossroads of history. The Bolsheviks had to choose between dictatorship or democracy. Under Lenin's guidance they opted for minority dictator ship, the outcome of which was tyranny over the very people in whose name they fought. This classic volume, originally published in 1969, has not been surpassed as a description of how and why this occurred.

One of the oldest, strongest, and largest labor organizations in the U.S., the American Federation of Labor (AFL) had 4 million members in over 20,000 union locals during World War II. The AFL played a key role in wartime production and was a major actor in the contentious relationship between the state, organized labor, and the working class in the 1940s. The war years are pivotal in the history of American labor, but books on the AFL's experiences are scant, with far more on the radical Congress of Industrial Unions (CIO).

Andrew E. Kersten closes this gap with Labor's Home Front, challenging us to reconsider the AFL and its influence on twentieth-century history. Kersten details the union's contributions to wartime labor relations, its opposition to the open shop movement, divided support for fair employment and equity for women and African American workers, its constant battles with the CIO, and its significant efforts to reshape American society, economics, and politics after the war. Throughout, Kersten frames his narrative with an original, central theme: that despite its conservative nature, the AFL was dramatically transformed during World War II, becoming a more powerful progressive force that pushed for liberal change.

During the 1970s and 1980s, a hazardous waste management industry emerged in the U.S., driven by government and polluting industry responses to a hazardous waste crisis. In 1979, labor unions began to seek federal health and safety protections for workers in that industry and for firefighters responding to hazardous materials fires. Those efforts led to a worker health and safety section in the Superfund Amendments and Reauthorization Act of 1986. The legislation mandated regulation of hazardous waste operations and emergency response worker protection, and establishment of a national health and safety training grant program - which became the Worker Education and Training Program (WETP).Craig Slatin provides a history of labor's success on the coattails of the environmental movement and in the middle of a rightward shift in American politics. He explores how the WETP established a national worker training effort across industrial sectors, with case studies on the health and safety training programs of two unions in the WETP - the Oil, Chemical, and Atomic Workers and the Laborers' Union. Lessons can be learned from one of the last major worker health and safety/environmental protection victories of the 1960s-1980s reform era, coming at the end of the golden age of regulation and just before the new era of deregulation and market dominance. Slatin's analysis calls for a critical survey of the social and political tasks facing those concerned about worker and community health and environmental protection in order to make a transition toward just and sustainable production.

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.

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.

Solidarity Road tells the story of Jan Theron’s involvement in the Food and Canning Workers Union (FCWU) during apartheid South Africa. Part memoir, part history this fascinating tale will reveal what working conditions were like in the 1970’s. It outlines the very beginnings of the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU).

Theron states, ‘Solidarity in a trade union does not simply mean standing by your members, or by organised workers. It means solidarity with your class. At the time, in 1976, the working class was fragmented. Working for a trade union was part of a project to unite a fragmented class, and to give it a voice. This was the historical project to which a number of people from a certain intellectual background were drawn. This would be our contribution to the struggle: what we did to end apartheid. It was a struggle for democracy, but democracy did not just mean everyone getting to vote every so often in national elections. People also had to eat.

The most obvious way in which the working class was then fragmented was in terms of race. The Union put its commitment to solidarity into practice by uniting workers of different races in factories manufacturing food. To do so it had to overcome divisions among workers created by the ways in which government had structured employment, in terms of the law, which the bosses were able to exploit. Nowadays ‘bosses’ seems like a dated term, yet this is the term workers used to refer to the people for whom they actually worked. It is also no less important today than it was then to differentiate between those who control the factories and mines and those who operate at their behest.

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.

Higher education is the site of an ongoing conflict. At the heart of this struggle are the precariously employed faculty 'contingents' who work without basic job security, living wages or benefits. Yet they have the incentive and, if organized, the power to shape the future of higher education. Power Despite Precarity is part history, part handbook and a wholly indispensable resource in this fight. Joe Berry and Helena Worthen outline the four historical periods that led to major transitions in the worklives of faculty of this sector. They then take a deep dive into the 30-year-long struggle by California State University lecturers to negotiate what is recognized as the best contract for contingents in the US. The authors ask: what is the role of universities in society? Whose interests should they serve? What are the necessary conditions for the exercise of academic freedom? Providing strategic insight for activists at every organizing level, they also tackle 'troublesome questions' around legality, union politics, academic freedom and how to recognize friends (and foes) in the struggle.

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.

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.

Growing interest in corporate social responsibility (CSR) has focused attention on the relationship between businesses and key stakeholders, such as NGOs and local communities. Curiously, however, commentators on CSR rarely discuss the role of trade unions, while commentators on employment relations seldom engage with CSR. This situation is all the more remarkable since unions are a critically important social actor and have traditionally played a prominent role in defending the interests of one key stakeholder in the company, the employee. Written by dedicated experts in their field, this book addresses a key gap in the literature on both CSR and employment relations, namely trade union policies towards CSR, as well as union engagement with particular CSR initiatives and the challenges they face in doing so. The research covers eleven European countries which, when taken together, constitute a representative sample of industrial relations structures across the continent. This book will be essential reading for scholars, students and practitioners of international business, employment relations, public policy and CSR. Its foreword is written by Philippe Pochet and Maria Jepsen, Directors of the European Trade Union Institute in Brussels.

In 1934, the Pacific Coast was shaken by a massive strike of waterfront workers- on the docks and the ships. In this mighty struggle, the Sailor's Union of the Pacific, quiescent since it's defeat in the period after the first World War was reborn. Fighting on San Francisco's Embarcadero led to the stationing of National Guard troops on the 'front'. This book looks at the Union from 1885 to 1985.

In what will be essential reading for all industrial relations scholars, Gill Kirton considers the social construction of women's trade union participation in the context of male dominated trade unions. Exploring the making and progress of women's trade union careers, this book locates the issues within the context of their experiences of three interlocking social institutions - the union, work and family. The book examines how and why women embark on trade union careers, the social processes which shape women's gender and union identities and the combined influences of union/work/family contexts on the trajectory of women's union careers. Additionally, the book offers a historical overview of the development of women's trade union education and separate organizing, with original analysis and historical data.

Trade Unions and Democracy explores the role of trade unions as products of, and agents for, democracy. As civil society agents, unions may promote democracy within the wider society, especially in the case of authoritarian regimes or other rigid political systems, by acting as watchdogs and protecting hard-won democratic gains.

Established democratic institutions in many advanced societies are facing new challenges. The problem with using trade unions for this purpose is that they remain locked in a cycle of political marginalization and decline. Beyond this, there are, ironically, serious questions about whether unions themselves internally function as democracies. Certainly there are tensions between rank and file membership and an authoritarian leadership, with this infighting having possible effects on strategic deals or alliances and member accountability and actions. On the other hand, trade unions continue to represent a significant component of society within most industrialized countries, and in many case, they have a demonstrated capacity for working with other elements of civil society. Looking forward, trade unions may be able to play a vital role in channeling and focusing spontaneous popular upsurges. In the process, they may revitalize themselves through use of greater internal democracy and become geared toward more diverse constituencies. The question is, will they fulfill this promise or continue to suffer from internal breakups and external breakdowns? Can trade unions save themselves and democracy, or will both deteriorate in time?

Trade Unions and Democracy brings together a distinguished panel of leading and emerging scholars in the field and provides a critical assessment of the current role of trade unions in society. It explores their capacity to affect political policies to ensure greater accountability and fairness. It also explores the nature of and extent to which internal representative democracy actually operates within trade unions themselves.

Mark Harcourt is a professor in the Department of Strategic Management and Leadership at Waikato University in New Zealand.

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 in1974.

The world is undergoing enormous change involving politics, the economy and society, however the position and place of the state and the significance of state policy in this process is heavily contested. "Globalisation, State and Labour "presents a timely opportunity to review and re-assess the modern state in regard to labor.
Using major studies from four countries (UK, Denmark, Australia and New Zealand) the contributors to this volume challenge many preconceptions regarding globalization and labor organization including the notions that the state is being marginalized by the processes of globalization and trade unions are becoming irrelevant. The essays, written by leading researchers in the area, develop a new theoretical framework which puts work, workers and their organizations at the heart of analyzing state restructuring.
This book is an important corrective to much recent work on work, employment and restructuring and the role of organized labor. Combining a new theoretical approach with comparative analysis this book will be of vital interest to anyone concerned with globalization debate, the future of the state and organized labor.

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.