Despite the general decline of trade unions throughout the Western world, unions in Denmark, Norway, and Sweden have prospered. Why? Galenson cites their ability to organize white collar workers, the special attention they give to recruitment of women, and their ability to undergo structural change under employer pressure. He analyzes these factors in the belief that if unions in other parts of the world understand why and how unionism is succeeding in Scandinavia, its deterioration may be slowed and even reversed. In doing so, Galenson offers specific advice on how industrial relations professionals should manage to avoid breakdown of existing systems elsewhere. Labor unions, officials, and organization executives, as well as executives throughout the public sectors, will find Galenson's views informative and enlightening.

Although there has been a good deal written about the Scandinavian labor movements in Dano-Norwegian and Swedish, there has been nothing comprehensive in English that deals with the labor movements in the three countries. Nor has there been a systematic analysis of their policies and practices. Galenson provides readers, now, with an account of how unions in the Scandinavian countries have managed to secure the world's highest rates of organization: up to 90% of all who are employed in Sweden, and somewhat less in Denmark and Norway, are trade union members, compared with 15% in the United States. The countries in which they operate are welfare states and are among the wealthiest countries in the world, yet remarkably little is known about the systems of industrial relations that have contributed to these results. Galenson's book will fill that gap and in doing so, make a unique contribution to the determination of policy in other countries.

A terse, well-written, up-to-date, and refreshing account of recent developments in employment practices across a sample of seven industrialized nations, including the Soviet Union, by an established scholar of comparative systems. The trends discussed are industrial democracy at enterprise and establishment level, quality of working life, job tenure and security of employment, personnel policy, and working time arrangements. . . . The book provides a useful and accessible introduction to a number of important themes in the management and maintenance of human resources. . . . Highly recommended. . . . Choice In recent years, fundamental economic forces have profoundly affected the labor markets of the industrialized nations. Among these forces are: the mass entrance of women into the labor market and major changes in work patterns designed to accomodate them; industrial restructuring due to the decline in manufacturing and the concomitant rise in service industries and advanced technologies; the shift in workers' objectives toward job security, improved quality of working life, and more adequate provision for post-retirement years; and, finally, employee demand for industrial democracy or increased participation in making business decisions, which has led to the implementation of economically viable participatory schemes. The policy innovations and experiments effected during the past two decades in response to these labor market developments are the subject of New Trends in Employment Practices. In addition to the United States, the author considers four major industrial nations of the democratic world, France, Germany, Great Britain, and Japan. Walter Galenson also looks at Sweden, a country long noted for its imaginative labor programs, and the Soviet Union, a nation where recent events have graphically illustrated the strength of the demand for greater democracy at the enterprise and political levels. The book begins with a discussion of the promotion of industrial democracy at the enterprise level, citing a State of Washington program in which the unemployed receive seed money to start small businesses instead of being sent unemployment benefits. Galenson also details British experience with this same scheme. In Industrial Democracy at the Shop Floor Level, employee representation on corporate boards and employee ownership of companies, increasingly common phenomena in the United States, are investigated along with the relevant experience under German codetermination. Chapter Three is devoted to the movement for an improved Quality of Working Life (QWL), which is based largely on Japanese and Swedish models and has many adherents in the United States and Canada. Chapter four illustrates programs that take into account increased desire for job security, and specifically the Japanese system of lifetime employment guarantees. Preserving jobs and finding new ones when layoffs do occur, and Sweden's two-decade, near-zero unemployment due to its active labor market policy, are reviewed next. Chapter Six's focus is on the altered patterns of work time and Chapter Seven describes how various aspects of Soviet employment were handled in the past and explains the impact of Gorbachev's reforms. A final chapter offers a summary and conclusions. This cogent treatment of labor market practices will be of vital interest to corporate labor administrators who are or will be engaged in collective bargaining over the subjects treated in these pages. The book is ideal for courses in labor economics, comparative labor institutions, and internationally oriented courses in business schools.

After a century of growth, trade union membership and influence have begun to decline in most of the economically advanced countries. This comprehensive analysis of membership trends covers developing as well as industrialized countries. The author's thesis is that the unions have failed to pay sufficient attention to the concerns of a labor force that is more educated, with a higher participation of women, and with a greater concern for job security than was true in the past.

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

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

Contributing Authors Include Willis Weatherford, Everett Hawkins, Robert Alexander, Irvin Sobel And Sumner Rosen.

This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1962.

This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1962.

This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1961.

This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1961.