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.

Pilar Ortuño Anaya breaks new ground in the study of the international dimensions of the Spanish transition to democracy. She argues that specific individuals and organizations made a significant contribution to the democratization process. Dr Ortuño Anaya establishes for the first time the role played by European socialist and trade union organizations, in particular the German Social Democratic Party and its affiliated unions, the Labour movements in the United Kingdom, and the French Socialists.