Search results

The purpose of this chapter is to develop a model of union reform that may help to revitalize the labor movement. Our model presents a path using democracy and militancy to overcome union oligarchy to build stronger unions and a stronger broader movement. We develop a new model of union revitalization by expanding the Voss and Sherman (2000) model from our own experiences and a review of past union revitalization efforts. Democratic and militant strategies are a key to successful reform efforts. Entrenched union leaders tend to oppose such efforts. Reformers must adequately overcome entrenched leader responses to succeed in reforming their unions. We have developed a new conceptual model of union revitalization. Our model should be tested further through in-depth case studies and analysis of reform efforts which have failed or succeeded. Our model presents strategies and tactics for labor activists to revitalize their unions and the labor movement. We present a new model of union revitalization that looks at both internal and external union revitalization. This chapter accumulates evidence across reform efforts throughout the modern history of unions. This comparative and contrasting analysis of the evidence from these efforts is a unique contribution to the field. Further, the resulting model from this review presents a unique focus on the strategies and tactics of reform efforts as well as the interaction between union reform efforts and entrenched leaders. This model provides a path for both future research and practical revitalization efforts.

This book is a policy proposal aimed at the democratic left. It is concerned with gradual but radical reform of the socio‐economic system. An integrated policy of industrial and economic democracy, which centres around the establishment of a new sector of employee‐controlled enterprises, is presented. The proposal would retain the mix‐ed economy, but transform it into a much better “mixture”, with increased employee‐power in all sectors. While there is much of enduring value in our liberal western way of life, gross inequalities of wealth and power persist in our society.

Among trade unions, women, black, disabled and lesbian and gay members are increasingly recognised as significant in the drive for increases in membership. In turn, unions have come under mounting pressure from these constituencies to ensure that their interests and concerns are represented within the union and at the bargaining table. The challenge is how to reformulate notions and practices of trade union democracy to recognise that membership is increasingly diverse and diversely politicised. Here we examine how traditional approaches to trade union democracy have been revised following demands for gender democracy and the need to reflect membership diversity, and consider whether such strategies are sufficient. We do so by drawing on research with two unions; the print union, the GPMU, a private sector industrial union where women make up only 17 per cent of the membership, and the public service union UNISON, where women are three‐quarters of the members.

Since 1979, the Conservative government in the UK has introduced wide‐ranging and detailed regulations for the conduct of union internal affairs; a number of other Western industrialized countries have not done so (or have not done so to the same extent) but have continued their tradition of relying on unions themselves to establish democratic procedures. Alternative views of the role of the state in industrial relations underlie these differences. A second, linked article, appearing in Employee Relations (Vol. 15 No. 4), examines state approaches to union autonomy in the context of attitudes towards other controls on union activities and attempts to explain the successive shifts in British policy in the UK since the 1960s.

The author traces over a century of Catholic social teaching from Leo XIII to John Paul II, emphasizing in particular workplace democracy and labor unions. Until John Paul II, Gruenberg argues, the Church’s teaching on labor organizations was deliberately ambiguous. Leo XIII had the greatest problem because of the extreme diversity among union movements throughout the industrialized world and the drive of Marxism to take the lead in solving workers’ problems. Pius XI saw the Great Depression as a sign that Marx might be right, and did his best to offer an alternative in the form of worker cooperatives and union‐management co‐determination. However, John Paul II stated unequivocally that labor unions are “indispensable” for workplace justice, and collective bargaining is just another name for workplace democracy. Unions are seen by John Paul II as the democratic institutions that form a bulwark against the abuse of workers at the hands of either the employer or the state. A detailed reading list is attached.

‘There is widespread concern in the country about the way in which trade unions are run” said Mr. Norman Tebbitt when introducing the Government's Green Paper on democracy in trade unions. He went on to say that “… public opinion have clearly shown the strong feeling that trade unions ought to be democratic institutions responsive to the views and wishes of their members.” He explained these statements by showing that in many cases the union executive fails to ballot its members on such major decisions as the choice of the leadership and the calling of industrial action. He talked of “… dubious decisions” being taken on a show of hands at mass meetings of workers “sometimes packed with outsiders;” of “… secret meetings at which unrepresentative minorities plot the trade union elections…” so that positions of power are held by persons who are unrepresentative of the majority.

With the publication in January 1977 of the Bullock Report on Industrial Democracy has come a recognition that the rights of employees are almost equal to the rights of shareholders and management. Industrial democracy is seen to represent an extension of modern political democracy to industrial companies. In society, political enfranchisement no longer takes account of the ownership of capital or land; nor requires an education or qualifying period. Democracy has come to mean ‘one adult, one vote’. While the Bullock Report is not recommending that degree of industrial democracy in companies, it is theoretically allowing employees an important influence on decision‐making at the policy level, with a subsequent loss of influence to the shareholders and relevant property owners. The majority of the Bullock Committee believe that the native capacities of the working population can be drawn out by putting the relationship between capital and labour on a new basis which will involve not just management but the whole work force in sharing responsibility for the success and profitability of the enterprise. This they believe can only be done if the representatives of the employees are given a real, not a sham or token share, in making strategic decisions which in the past have been reserved to management and the representatives of the shareholders. The debate about industrial democracy is much less about the desirability of moving in the direction of greater participation than about the pace of change and the need to extend such participation to the Board.

Unions and worker cooperatives have long represented distinct approaches to building worker voice. This paper draws from observations of the work of the “Co-op Exploratory Committee” of 1199SEIU, the nation’s largest union local, which is seeking to expand the development of unionized worker cooperatives. Described by Martin Luther King, Jr, as his “favorite” union, 1199SEIU has a storied history of organizing frontline healthcare workers and includes large numbers of women of color and immigrant workers among its membership. Since 2003, it has also represented workers at Cooperative Home Care Associates, the nation’s largest worker cooperative. Drawing from discussions among union officials, co-op leaders, and rank-and-file union members about the potential role of unionized worker cooperatives within the labor movement, the paper examines the creative tension between stakeholder and democratic logics in efforts to expand this model. It argues that continued union decline, heightened interest in economic alternatives, and systemic frailties exposed by Covid-19 may create new opportunities for building unionized worker co-ops at scale.

This paper has the aim of revisiting the works of Beatrice and Sidney Webb in the field of industrial relations and assessing their intellectual contributions to the study of the labour market, unions and collective bargaining in Britain.

The paper discusses the Webbs' studies of trade union history and union organisation, policy and methods that were first published at the end of the nineteenth century.

In refuting critiques of unions in the market economy by English classical and neo‐classical economists, and drawing on the ideas of the German school of historical economics, the Webbs incorporated organised labour into mainstream economic and political thought. Their major theoretical propositions were to set out an “agency model” of trade unions and an advanced system of democracy, in politics and at work, which unions would play a major part in promoting. In justifying the collectivisation of the employment relationship, the Webbs provided the intellectual foundations of the pluralist‐institutional model of industrial relations, which was built upon by other scholars following the end of the World War II. Their prediction that collective bargaining would decline in importance, as democracy matured, and be replaced by legal regulation, has taken place for reasons unforeseen by themselves.

The value of this paper is its reassessment of the Webbs' contribution to theory in the field and to the British collectivist tradition of industrial relations.

Communication in trade union government is important as both a value and principle of organisation. Studies of trade union democracy tend to show a marked neglect of the importance of communication in the democratic process of some unions. Research that has been conducted in this area is reviewed and an agenda for further research in trade union communication is identified through case study analysis.