From factory workers in Welland to retail workers in St. Catharines, from hospitality workers in Niagara Falls to migrant farm workers in Niagara-on-the-Lake, Union Power showcases the role of working people in the Niagara region. Early industrial development and the appalling working conditions of the often vulnerable common labourer prompted a movement toward worker protection. Charting the development of the region's labour movement from the early nineteenth century to the present, Patrias and Savage illustrate how workers from this highly diversified economy struggled to improve their lives both inside and outside the workplace.

The author is convinced that there is a ruling class in America today. He examines the American power structure as it has developed in the 1980s. He presents systematic, empirical evidence that a fixed group of privileged people dominates the American economy and government. The book demonstrates that an upper class comprising only one-half of one percent of the population occupies key positions within the corporate community. It shows how leaders within this "power elite" reach government and dominate it through processes of special-interest lobbying, policy planning and candidate selection. It is written not to promote any political ideology, but to analyze our society with accuracy.

Nigeria, once a resourceful regional power, has been caught in a spiral of economic and political decay. This once-promising nation is now seen as an international pariah, partly as a result of the gross human rights violations of its government, but largely because of the failure to generate a political leadership capable of containing and reversing rather than aggravating the process of decline. Union Power in the Nigerian Textile Industry covers developments in Nigeria during two trying decades of deepening economic and political crisis. It is not, however, an additional tale of decay. It highlights the remarkable progress which has been achieved, in spite of this decline, in industrial adjustment, institution building, and conflict regulation. Gunilla Andrae and Bjorn Beckman follow Nigeria's leading manufacturing sector, the textile industry, from the heyday of the oil boom through successive phases of adjustment and liberalization, suggesting that industrialization is still very much on the African agenda. The focus is on the trade unions, their role in industrial restructuring and their ability to defend workers' interests and rights. Union Power in the Nigerian Textile Industry examines the successful institutionalization of a union-based labor regime, defying global trends to the contrary. The authors explore the origins of union power in the national and local political economy, pointing to the mediation between the militant self-organization of the workers and the strategies of state and capital. They draw on extensive field work, interviews with managers, unionists and workers, and massive documentation from internal union sources.

This book analyses trade unions’ capacities of resistance following the period of austerity and “bailout crisis” in Portugal (2011-2015). Considering the destructive impacts of those policies on the working class and their unions, it explores three case studies in three productive sectors: the metal sector (Autoeuropa/VW); the telecommunications sector (PT-Telecom/Altice); and the transport sector (TAP – Air Portugal). In order to gather empirical information, the study uses qualitative methods, such as in-depth interviews and focus groups. The book shows that social dumping, brutal unemployment growth, increasing poverty levels, spreading precariousness, wage cuts and labour rights suppression were some of the consequences of this period on the working class and trade unions. Drawing on the “power resources” theoretical approach, it shows how trade unions were able to react and “reinvent” themselves in terms of certain forms of power, while others “imploded” or were relegated to a marginal role.

At its peak in the 1950s and 1960s, automobile manufacturing was the largest, most profitable industry in the United States and residents of industry hubs like Detroit and Flint, Michigan had some of the highest incomes in the country. Over the last half-century, the industry has declined, and American automakers now struggle to stay profitable. How did the most prosperous industry in the richest country in the world crash and burn? In Wrecked, sociologists Joshua Murray and Michael Schwartz offer an unprecedented historical-sociological analysis of the downfall of the auto industry. Through an in-depth examination of labor relations and the production processes of automakers in the U.S. and Japan both before and after World War II, they demonstrate that the decline of the American manufacturers was the unintended consequence of their attempts to weaken the bargaining power of their unions. Today Japanese and many European automakers produce higher quality cars at lower cost than their American counterparts thanks to a flexible form of production characterized by long-term sole suppliers, assembly and supply plants located near each other, and just-in-time delivery of raw materials. While this style of production was, in fact, pioneered in the U.S. prior to World War II, in the years after the war, American automakers deliberately dismantled this system. As Murray and Schwartz show, flexible production accelerated innovation but also facilitated workers’ efforts to unionize plants and carry out work stoppages. To reduce the efficacy of strikes and combat the labor militancy that flourished between the Depression and the postwar period, the industry dispersed production across the nation, began maintaining large stockpiles of inventory, and eliminated single sourcing. While this restructuring of production did ultimately reduce workers’ leverage, it also decreased production efficiency and innovation. The U.S. auto industry has struggled ever since to compete with foreign automakers, and formerly thriving motor cities have suffered the consequences of mass deindustrialization. Murray and Schwartz argue that new business models that reinstate flexible production and prioritize innovation rather than cheap labor could stem the outsourcing of jobs and help revive the auto industry. By clarifying the historical relationships between production processes, organized labor, and industrial innovation, Wrecked provides new insights into the inner workings and decline of the U.S. auto industry.

Since the beginning of the 1980s, British trade unions have experienced a dramatic retreat, marked by rapidly falling membership and declining industrial power. The authors examine the regional dimensions of this retreat of organised labour, paying particular attention to: The resilience of the unions' historical heartland areas. The impact of economic restructuring on local union traditions. The shrinking landscape of industrial militancy. The geographical decentralization of the new industrial relations. The link between these factors and the more general debate on regional development and regional labour markets. An important synthesis of economic geography and industrial relations work, this book marks a major contribution towards the newly emerging field of labour geography