Comprehensive study of the trade union movement in the USA - covers historical and environmental factors in the development of national level union policy in respect of labour relations, working conditions, wage policy, strike control, etc., and includes administrative aspects of trade unions, economic implications of their jurisdiction, theoretics of the labour movement, etc. References.

Table of Contents Figures 9 Tables 11 Abbreviations 15 Acknowledgements 17 1 Introduction 19 1.1 Governance Structures for the Employment Relationship 19 1.2 The Evolution of Collective Bargaining in Britain 21 1.3 Research Questions and Plan of this Book 27 2 Governance Structures for the Employment Relationship 29 2.1 The Employment Relationship 29 2.2 Governance Structures 46 2.3 Optimal Governance Structures 67 2.4 Conclusions 79 3 Evolution of Governance Structures 81 3.1 Previous Theoretical Literature 82 3.2 The Evolutionary Framework to Governance Structures 106 3.3 Conclusions 129 4 Determinants of Employer Demand for Governance Structures 131 4.1 Company-Level Factors 132 4.2 Markets 164 4.3 Institutions 169 4.4 External Organisations 172 4.5 Conclusions 188 5 Governance Structures 1780-2000: Description and Analysis 191 5.1 The Emergence and Evolution of Governance Structures 1780-2000 191 5.2 The Role of External Organisations 218 5.3 Conclusions 227 6 Determinants of Employer Demand 1980-1998: Bivariate Analyses 229 6.1 Research Design 229 6.2 Company-Level Factors 236 6.3 Markets 279 6.4 Institutions 284 6.5 External Organisations 286 6.6 Conclusions 292 7 Determinants of Employer Demand 1980-1998: Multivariate Analyses 295 7.1 The Current State of Research 295 7.2 Research Design 300 7.3 The Empirical Results 318 7.4 Conclusions 348 8 Conclusions 353 8.1 Determinants of Governance Structures: The Findings 353 8.2 Whodunit? The Decline of Collective Bargaining in Britain 357 8.3 The Implications of Decollectivisation for Human Resource Management and Industrial Relations 360 8.4 Optimal Governance Structures for the Employment Relationship: A Role for Public Policy? 362 Appendix 367 Bibliography 383 Index 409

The Societies of Europe is an 8-title series of historical data handbooks and accompanying CD-ROM sets, on the development of Europe from the nineteenth to the twentieth century. The series is a product of the Mannheim Centre for Social research, a body dedicated to comparative research on Europe and one of the leading social research institutes in the world. It is a collection of datasets giving a clear and systematic study of long term developments in European society. The data is presented statistically and is clearly comparative. The Societies of Europe is the most comprehensive data series available on Western European social issues. Each book is accompanied by a CD-ROM containing data sets not included in the text enabling users to manipulate the data as wanted. Information is available in different programmes (Excel, SPSS and SAS) and in data structures for analysis, viewing and building time series. This comparative data handbook offers an empirical base to a long-term and comparative understanding of changes and variations in European union movements. It provides information on the context and history of union development, the changes in the structure of post-war unionism until today, the long-term trends in union membership and union density, and the shifts in the cross-sectional composition of union membership. This book and CD-ROM are the result of many years of research by the authors in collaboration with an international research team, and provides an original source for comparative and national studies or individual enquiries. The country and comparative tables offer cross-checked and often newly-calculated statistics on national union organizations and their membership series. The CD-ROM includes selected tables from the handbook and provides additional databases with organizational data and membership series of major national and European union organizations.

This book presents an overview of the economic, political and social forces that shaped contemporary employment relations practices in the United States.

From the author of On New Terrain, a historical examination of why American workers never organized in early industrial America and what it means today. Why has there been no viable, independent labor party in the United States? Many people assert “American exceptionalist” arguments, which state a lack of class-consciousness and union tradition among American workers is to blame. While the racial, ethnic, and gender divisions within the American working class have created organizational challenges for the working class, Moody uses archival research to argue that despite their divisions, workers of all ethnic and racial groups in the Gilded Age often displayed high levels of class consciousness and political radicalism. In place of “American exceptionalism,” Moody contends that high levels of internal migration during the late 1800s created instability in the union and political organizations of workers. Because of the tumultuous conditions brought on by the uneven industrialization of early American capitalism, millions of workers became migrants, moving from state to state and city to city. The organizational weakness that resulted undermined efforts by American workers to build independent labor-based parties in the 1880s and 1890s. Using detailed research and primary sources, Moody traces how it was that “pure-and-simple” unionism would triumph by the end of the century despite the existence of a significant socialist minority in organized labor at that time. “Terrific . . . An entirely original take on . . . why American labor was virtually unique in failing to build its own political party. But there’s much more: in investigating labor migration and the ‘tramp’ phenomenon in the Gilded Age, he discovers fascinating parallels with today's struggles of immigrant workers.” —Mike Davis, author of Prisoners of the American Dream

Scholarship on American labor politics has been dominated by the view that the American Federation of Labor, the dominant labor organization, rejected political action in favor of economic strategies. Based upon extensive research into labor and political party records, this study demonstrates that, despite the common belief, the AFL devoted great attention to political activity. The organization's main strategy, however, which Julie Greene terms 'pure and simple politics', dictated that trade unionists alone should shape American labor politics. Exploring the period from 1881 to 1917, Pure and Simple Politics focuses on the quandaries this approach generated for American trade unionists. Politics for AFL members became a highly contested terrain, as leaders attempted to implement a strategy which many rank-and-file workers rejected. Furthermore, its drive to achieve political efficacy increasingly exposed the AFL to forces beyond its control, as party politicians and other individuals began seeking to influence labor's political strategy and tactics.