The collapse of Britain's powerful labor movement in the last quarter century has been one of the most significant and astonishing stories in recent political history. How were the governments of Margaret Thatcher and her successors able to tame the unions? In analyzing how an entirely new industrial relations system was constructed after 1979, Howell offers a revisionist history of British trade unionism in the twentieth century. Most scholars regard Britain's industrial relations institutions as the product of a largely laissez faire system of labor relations, punctuated by occasional government interference. Howell, on the other hand, argues that the British state was the prime architect of three distinct systems of industrial relations established in the course of the twentieth century. The book contends that governments used a combination of administrative and judicial action, legislation, and a narrative of crisis to construct new forms of labor relations. Understanding the demise of the unions requires a reinterpretation of how these earlier systems were constructed, and the role of the British government in that process. Meticulously researched, Trade Unions and the State not only sheds new light on one of Thatcher's most significant achievements but also tells us a great deal about the role of the state in industrial relations.

Many commentators expected the Russian trade unions to collapse along with the system of which they were an integral part, but the trade unions survived the storms of the Yeltsin era by adopting a strategy of 'social partnership'. This book, based on case-study and survey research in eight Russian regions, provides a detailed account of the development of trade unionism in Russia since the collapse of the soviet system. Against the background of the role of the trade unions in the soviet system, the book reviews the political role, structure and functions of the trade unions, development of social partnership at federal and regional levels, and provides a detailed account of the activity of the trade unions at the level of enterprise. The book concludes with a critical assessment of the Russian unions' strategy of 'social partnership' and locates it in comparative perspective.

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.

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.

The second edition of Industrial Relations, Trade Unions, and Labour Legislation is an up-to-date interactive text, primarily related to issues in India. The book does, however, incorporate developments and practices in other countries, particularly UK and USA. Primarily designed for the students of management, economics, labour and social welfare, social work, commerce and similar disciplines this book will also be of interest to professionals in the field of labour relations and management.

Trade unions worldwide face a powerful paradox at this critical juncture: collective organisations for workers are urgently needed and yet there are serious pressures undercutting the legitimate role of trade unions. The aim of this book is to examine how trade unions can effectively navigate this deeply contradictory challenge. It is underpinned by the conviction that trade unions are – and should be – vital institutions for democracy and social justice. Written by leading scholars in industrial relations and labour law as well as those in political philosophy and political science, the collection tackles a range of pressing topics for trade unions including: the climate crisis; the COVID-19 pandemic; economic democracy; democracy within trade unions; precarious work; and election campaigns.

This timely book analyses the relationship between trade unions, immigration and migrant workers across eleven European countries in the period between the 1990s and 2015. It constitutes an extensive update of a previous comparative analysis – published by Rinus Penninx and Judith Roosblad in 2000 – that has become an important reference in the field. The book offers an overview of how trade unions manage issues of inclusion and solidarity in the current economic and political context, characterized by increasing challenges for labour organizations and rising hostility towards migrants.

Presenting a wide-ranging and radical critique of the prevailing orthodoxies within industrial relations and human-resource management, this book contains a detailed examination of the evolution of industrial relations, arguing that the area is often under-theorized and influenced by the policy agenda of the state or employers. The topics covered include central problems in industrial relations, the mobilization theory of collective action, the growth of non-union workplaces and the prospects and desirability of a new labour-management social partnership, and the history of worker collectivism. There is also discussion of postmodernism, and accounts of the end of the labour movement.

`Everyone concerned over the construction of a truly social Europe will learn much from this thoughtful and probing study." - Professor Colin Crouch, Istituto Universitario Europeo In this comprehensive overview of trade unionism in Europe and beyond, Richard Hyman offers a fresh perspective on trade union identity, ideology and strategy. He shows how the varied forms and impact of different national movements reflect historical choices on whether to emphasize a role as market bargainers, mobilizers of class opposition or partners in social integration. The book demonstrates how these inherited traditions can serve as both resources and constraints in responding to the challenges which confront trade unions in

The Role of the State and Industrial Relations', using a comparative approach (the European Union, France, Spain, Germany, Italy, Japan, China, the United States, Brazil, South Africa and India), reconstructs the general framework of global industrial relations considering challenges and future prospects and proposing a new agenda for the state. The new era of industrial relations that has been stealthily changing the world of work in recent decades seems to have reached a stage where it can be systematically monitored and analyzed, in great part because the "creeping renationalization" that has been noted since the financial crisis of 2008 has reinvigorated state intervention in essential economic structures. In the globalized word, with the internationalization of the economy and increasing competitive pressures, industrial relations are developing in new directions. The contributions in this book provide important new perspectives on the many challenges inherent in the present and future of the relationship between industrial relations and the state.