Monograph of essays comprising a comparison of new trends in labour relations in seven European countries, the USA and Canada, with particular reference to trade union militancy in the 1965 to 1975 period - includes strike action, internal union controversies, domestic and international trade union developments, revisions in collective bargaining institutions, changes in union behaviour and strength, etc., and suggests that the movement may provide a solution to depressionary trends in present declining economic conditions. References and statistical tables.

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.

This title was first published in 2003.This book explores many of the major issues of concern to researchers studying trade unionism. It offers: a definition, elaboration and contextualisation of militancy (industrial, union and worker); an examination of the relationship between workplace unionism and the wider body of the union; a study of factionalism and industrial and political consciousness: and an analysis of the construction and mobilisation of conflict and cooperation (social partnership). These themes are considered through examining the relatively militant response of British postal workers to increased commercialisation of their industry. By comparing this response to that of postal workers in nine other major industrial countries, the study provides an explanation of why UK postal workers have been relatively successful in resisting new management techniques and privatisation through militancy and oppositionalism. One aspect given particular attention is the uneasy relationship within the postal workers' union between shop floor militancy and the social partnership approach followed by the union's leadership.

A story that involves as its main players "workers" and "Walmart" does not usually have a happy ending for labor, so the counternarrative offered by Building Power from Below is must reading for activists and union personnel as well as scholars. In 2008 Walmart acquired a controlling share in a large supermarket chain in Santiago, Chile. As part of the deal Walmart had to accept the unions that were already in place. Since then, Chilean retail and warehouse workers have done something that has seemed impossible for labor in the United States: they have organized even more successful unions and negotiated unprecedented contracts with Walmart. In Building Power from Below, Carolina Bank Muñoz attributes Chilean workers’ success in challenging the world’s largest corporation to their organizations’ commitment to union democracy and building strategic capacity. Chilean workers have spent years building grassroots organizations committed to principles of union democracy. Retail workers’ unions have less structural power, but have significant associational and symbolic power. Their most notable successes have been in fighting for respect and dignity on the job. Warehouse workers by contrast have substantial structural power and have achieved significant economic gains. While the model in Chile cannot necessarily be reproduced in different countries, we can gain insights from the Chilean workers’ approaches, tactics, and strategies.

The story of Joe Luter and Smithfield -- Cheap labor built on a legacy of slavery -- Lots of pigs, lots of poop, lots of politics, lots of pollution -- The plant opens, the work is beastly, the union fight heats up -- The first union vote -- The plant changes southeastern North Carolina -- The company woman -- The second union vote, 1997 -- The trial : Buffkin and Luter testify -- The judge rules -- Organizing on the road -- Gene Bruskin rides into town -- The union campaign, Harris Teeter -- Ludlum is back : Immigration enforcement tightens -- Workers walk off the job -- The stockholders, secret talks, stalemate -- Rico, the settlement, the third union vote, the end

We are currently witnessing some of the greatest challenges to democratic regimes since the 1930s, with democratic institutions losing ground in numerous countries throughout the world. At the same time organized labor has been under assault worldwide, with steep declines in union density rates. In this timely handbook, scholars in law, political science, history, and sociology explore the role of organized labor and the working class in the historical construction of democracy. They analyze recent patterns of democratic erosion, examining its relationship to the political weakening of organized labor and, in several cases, the political alliances forged by workers in contexts of nationalist or populist political mobilization. The volume breaks new ground in providing cross-regional perspectives on labor and democracy in the United States, Europe, Latin America, Africa, and Asia. Beyond academia, this volume is essential reading for policymakers and practitioners concerned with the relationship between labor and democracy.

Often considered irredeemably conservative, the US working class actually has a rich history of revolt. Rebel Rank and File uncovers the hidden story of insurgency from below against employers and union bureaucrats in the late 1960s and 1970s. From the mid-1960s to 1981, rank-and-file workers in the United States engaged in a level of sustained militancy not seen since the Great Depression and World War II. Millions participated in one of the largest strike waves in US history. There were 5,716 stoppages in 1970 alone, involving more than 3 million workers. Contract rejections, collective insubordination, sabotage, organized slowdowns, and wildcat strikes were the order of the day. Workers targeted much of their activity at union leaders, forming caucuses to fight for more democratic and combative unions that would forcefully resist the mounting offensive from employers that appeared at the end of the postwar economic boom. It was a remarkable era in the history of US class struggle, one rich in lessons for today's labor movement.