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Investigates what is happening in North America with regard to labour relations law. Examines, first, collective labour relations and labour law and, second, focuses on the legal regulation of the individual relationship, also known as employment law. Goes on to cover these two separate, but intertwined, entities in depth and as they are interpreted in both Canada and the USA. Concludes that labour law is changing and moving toward contractualization and proceduralization. Wonders whether labour law will be able to continue to play the role of protecting wage earners for which it was originally developed.

Looks at the unique way Germany’s trade unions work, by the use of workers’ participation with elected representatives, which uses works councils in conjunction with management. Briefly sketches the structure and function of these very different and apposite ends of the spectrum.

Discussions about conflict at work generally tend to revolve around examples of overt industrial action, taken against an employer by a group of well‐organised employees. As the service sector becomes increasingly prominent within the UK, this model is no longer adequate – if it ever was – since much action is covert and individualistic in nature. Moreover, managers themselves may also engage in activities designed to defy or subvert central policy initiatives. This monograph is concerned with an analysis of such activities in a night‐club environment, and is based on six years research during which one of the authors worked as an employee for a large service sector organisation. It illustrates graphically the way in which employees resisted management instructions, or sought to “get even” with individuals who had alienated them. The implications which this research suggests for improving systems of management in an environment such as this are assessed.

Research supporting the empathy–altruism hypothesis suggests that the value assumption of the theory of rational choice is wrong. Apparently, humans can value more than their own welfare. Empathic concern felt for someone in need can produce altruistic motivation with the ultimate goal of increasing that person's welfare. But this altruistic motivation is not always good. Research also reveals that empathy-induced altruism can pose a threat to the collective good in social dilemmas. Indeed, in certain non-trivial circumstances, it can pose a more powerful threat than does self-interested egoism.

The purpose of this paper is to use a case study of an online parenting forum to theorise how mothers’ everyday environmental and caring labour is a form of environmental and social activism in the home, that while not organised as such, is still collectivised in a “hybrid activist collective”.

Using ethnographic data and content analysis from an online parenting forum for the nappy-free infant hygiene practice known as “elimination communication”, the author compares the matters of key concern arising for this group of mothers with economic activist concerns as identified by Gibson-Graham et al. (2013) in their community economies work.

The paper finds a high degree of resonance between the key concerns of the elimination communication forum members with the key concerns of community economies. Furthermore, the author identifies the components of what might comprise a “hybrid activist collective” of mothers and others undertaking direct action for environmental and social change.

Mothers and others acting for social and environmental change through domestic practices should be recognised for their important environmental and caring labour.

The paper proposes the “hybrid activist collective” as a way of understanding the human and non-human elements that gather together to act for environmental and social change in a collectivised, but not formally organised manner.

Because, for George Herbert Mead, the “social act” is the basic unit of analysis for understanding human social existence, and thereby, his entire body of thought, it demands much more critical attention than it thus far has received from sociologists. Here, his notion of the social act will be critically examined – in terms of his definition of social action, the underlying organizing principle he uses to explain it, the different fundamental forms of social action he identifies, and the basic operating elements that he contends comprise these forms – for the purpose of developing a better conception of social action than he provided. Mead sees social action as organized on the basis of “sociality,” expressing itself in two fundamental forms – “cooperative” and “conflictive.” He also views the cooperative form as comprised of five basic elements – attitudes, roles, significant symbols, attitudinal assumption, and common social objects – while the conflictive form is comprised of only the first four elements. After a critical examination of Mead’s social act is completed, an alternative and improved conception of social action, with domination as its organizing principle, is proffered. More importantly, it is argued that this new notion of social action, termed the “collective act,” provides the grounds for the development of a novel interactionist perspective, dubbed here “radical interactionism,” which is based on the principle of domination rather sociality. Thus, this new interactionist perspective, is dramatically different from the traditional interactionist perspective Mead and Blumer developed.

Purpose – This chapter examines individual and collective quests for authenticity, as experienced through consumption activities within an urban neighborhood. It investigates the interplay between consumption experiences as authenticating acts and authoritative performances (Arnould & Price, 2000), and considers the implications with regard to Zukin's (2010) theories on urban authenticity, and how it may be experienced as new beginnings and origins.

Methodology – The chapter is based on autoethnographic research that explores how interaction and identity definition within servicescapes can work to construct place-based community.

Findings – It describes how a servicescape of new beginnings offered opportunities for individual authentication that also enabled personal identification with a specific cultural group. This authentication drew on the cultural capital embedded in such locations, including their association with gentrification. This is contrast with the collective identification offered by a servicescape operating as a place of exposure. This site of origins displayed the social practices of a different demographic, which worked to highlight a relational link between the authentication practices of the broader neighborhood. These sites also worked cumulatively, to highlight the inauthenticities within my identification practices and offer opportunities for redress. Through this interplay it was possible to establish an authentic sense of neighborhood that drew on its new beginnings and its origins, and was both individual and collective.

Originality – Through the combination of urban and consumption-based perspectives of authenticity, and an autoethnographic methodology, this chapter offers a different insight into the ways identification with, and attachment to, a neighborhood can develop through consumption experiences.

Mrs Barbara Castle in her White Paper In Place of Strife, laid emphasis on how ‘the growing independence of modern society means the use of the strike weapon in certain circumstances can inflict disproportionate harm on the rest of society’. The recent strike of the miners, the earlier activities of the electricians, and the activities of the Transport Unions emphasize this point. Some, if not all unions, have power to wreak havoc on the state. Indeed, they indicate their power to threaten the sovereignty of the state. The problem of labour peace is no longer purely an economic one: it is political. In the 19th Century the task of government was to keep clear of intervention in the economic sphere. And this liberal view is apparently still held by some of those in the large trade unions. Nevertheless, one of the indisputable functions of government is to maintain order, and where it fails it is moribund. The problem of the 20th Century is to reconcile the apparently conflicting interests of labour, capital and all the citizens which comprise the state. This is not simply a problem of labour economics but a problem of government, too.

During the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic lockdowns, stay at home or work from home, many have argued that the westernised non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPI) do not provide remedial in low-income countries like Nigeria, where informal job seekers, street traders, informal labourers and artisans depend mainly on the informal economy. By applying social solidarity (SS) and community-based approach (CBA), the authors evaluate individual acts (trust, altruism and reciprocity) during the lockdown and how these practices evolve from individual approaches to collective actions.

This study reflects on pragmatism research paradigm that enables researchers to maintain both subjectivity in their reflections and objectivity in data collection and analysis. The authors adopt a qualitative method through purposeful and convenience sampling procedure. Data were analysed thematically to identify elements of SS, individual acts, collective or community actions and perceptions.

The findings reveal that COVID-19 had a disproportionate impact (lack of food and a fall in daily income) on workers, informal job seekers, informal businesses operators and the poor households. As such, the study developed a reflective model of solidarity exhibited by individual acts and collective acts (practices of resource pooling, information sharing, women empowerment, distribution of palliatives and donations) within trusted circles that helped people cope with the lockdown experiences.

Solidarity represents beliefs, practices of values and norms. The SS exhibited by people through NPI would have implications on planning and monitoring the effectiveness of public health programmes during a pandemic in the future.

The findings of citizens and community actions have implications related to the process of building communities – coming together – and solidarity that enhances social development with implications on community health policy agenda during disasters, emergencies and health pandemic.

This is one of the first studies to analyse the relationship between trust, altruism, reciprocity, SS and CBA during the COVID-19 pandemic. Also, it seems reasonable to clarify the concept of SS given the lack of clarity about the definitions from previous studies.

Contextualizing its argument specifically into the role and impact of the traditional political culture on the process of modernization, this paper aims to examine the “culture matters” approach through the two‐century experience of the top‐down modernization of the Ottoman‐Turkish civilization in the realm of state‐labor relations.

The paper makes a comparative analysis of the interplay between the state and craft associations in the Ottoman Empire, and then the state and labor organizations in contemporary Turkey in terms of the influence of the rules, norms and institutions transferred by the bureaucratic élites from Western Europe.

The paper concludes that a substantive democratic setting for the interplay of the state and labor organizations could not be built up without a self‐supportive political culture in view of the fact that the process of top‐down modernization/Europeanization in the Ottoman‐Turkish context has given rise to a never‐ending center‐periphery dichotomy between both inter‐class and intra‐class relationships.

The paper sheds light on the labor relations part of the Ottoman‐Turkish political culture and reveals its impact on the never‐ending top‐down modernization initiative.