GENDERDEMOCRACY INTRADE UNIONS
By Anne McBride. Ashgate, Aldershot, 2001, ix + 192 pp., £39.95 (hardback)
A
lthough research into gender in trade unions was a relatively neglected topic in the past, there has been a recent upsurge of work in this area. Anne McBride’s in-depth and captivating study of gender democracy in UNISON, the largest UK public sector union, is a significant addition to this literature. Indeed, the book also raises issues of concern with regard to union representation for black and lesbian and gay union members whilst also inter-relating these with working class members of all groups, including white men.The book begins by reminding us of the changing face of British trade unions; that women now make up around 44 per cent of the workforce and about 40 per cent of trade union members, and that a key strategy of the Trades Union Congress (TUC) is to recruit more women. It describes how the merger of three public sector unions––the National and Local Government Officers’ Association (NALGO), the National Union of Public Employees (NUPE) and the Confederation of Health Service Employees (COHSE)––made the new union UNISON the largest union in Britain, with almost one million female members (72 per cent) and with approximately 10 per cent of its members black workers. Within a union where it was anticipated that, following the merger, it ‘would represent one in 18 of all workers in the country, one in six trade unionists and one-third of all women union members’, the quest for equality of representation and participation is clearly of major consequence, particularly to women mem-bers of UNISON and potentially to women memmem-bers of other unions. By imple-menting proportionality in a union with such a high percentage of women members, UNISON is arguably changing the dominant (male) values of trade unionism; the power and authority in decision making previously held by men perceivably shifts towards the women members. This enlightened approach by UNISON to union organisation is given thoughtful and balanced consideration by the author, providing us with insight into tensions that exist between and within the various representative groups in the quest for the appropriate structures to support union aims.
Central to the book is the complex notion of democracy. The author draws upon, and develops, Bachrach and Baratz’s analytical framework of power and decision making in order to help us through this intricate concept. As McBride takes us through the literature on democracy and power, she builds up, step by step, a powerful analysis of gender democracy in trade unions. This analysis explores the extent to which the ‘rules of the game’ within trade unions tend to favour white male interests. The book critically appraises different prescriptions
for gender democracy and situates UNISON’s approach within the more radical of these. The principle aim of UNISON is to equalise the power between the various oppressed social groups (women, black, lesbian and gay, and disabled members) and privileged groups.
As might be expected by the merger of three previously rival unions, there was apprehension and caution in the creation of the UNISON rule book as each partner union attempted to retain some of its former identity. The book explores how, due to the desire of the partner unions to protect their former organisational strategies, a gender-neutral approach to the merger debate developed.
In order to achieve proportionality and fair representation, UNISON employs a number of different strategies; these strategies are explored by the author in a critical and thought provoking manner. In particular, the author considers the nature of self-organisation and group organisation and the tensions that these create between various oppressed groups. What is of great significance is the identification of a multiplicity of oppressed groups which have to be considered in relation to one another. Although proportionality and fair representation can indeed generate new sources of authority for both women and black members, the case study identifies how, due to the methods employed to achieve propor-tionality, working-class members and black members were less privileged than middle-class and white members.
A further complexity in the search for democracy is how, despite the inten-tion of the union to recognise self-organised groups as oppressed social groups, the rules did not go far enough in giving these groups the power they needed in order to redress the power imbalance already in existence. As McBride suggests, although the power of the self-organised groups may develop over time, ‘it would have looked different if it had started from the desire to give power, influence and authority to women as an oppressed social group’. This leads her to con-clude that those who already had the power remained those who were most able ‘to shape the rules of the game’. Interestingly, as the author identifies, propor-tionality is also, arguably, promoted as a means of redressing, or attempting to balance, the power relations between paid officers and the lay membership. It emerged from the research that whilst some paid officers (both men and women) used strategies which attempted to limit the participation of women in the union, lay activists promoted an increase in women’s representation. This increased representation as a whole, thus giving more authority to activists at the local level.
interpreted by different members and different branches that provide insight into how democratic processes operate within unions in general and UNISON in particular.
What is of significance to the representation debate is that once women are elected to decision-making bodies within UNISON, they do not necessarily take part in the decision-making process; this is clearly hindering the promotion of any gender debate. Due to the particular process by which they were elected, they may not be required to speak or vote specifically for women, or it might be because they lack the experience and expertise required to do so. In line with other research findings in this area, the book identifies how newly elected women representatives were marginalised at meetings where they were either fearful of speaking up, or where their workplace issues of concern were seen to be inap-propriate to the wider agenda of the meeting. This is an interesting insight into the democratic process of the union as such marginalisation of the less experi-enced women members may well result in the experiexperi-enced members shaping the future agenda of the union. As the author reminds us ‘the skills of a representa-tive need to be learned’.
The book provides a valuable and absorbing insight into the search for gender democracy in UNISON, a union that, from this evidence, has gone some way to changing the traditional model of male dominated trade union democracy. It does, however, raise concern over how ‘true’ gender democracy can be achieved within unions. The quality of the data and the rigour of the analysis provide invaluable resources and lessons from which other unions embarking on this road should certainly draw.
For me, there were two minor omissions from the book. Firstly, I would like to have learned more about the researcher’s role in the data gathering process, how she was perceived by those she was researching and what problems, if any, she encountered in gaining access to her ‘subjects’ and the settings in which she observed them. Secondly, an index would be a valuable addition to the finished work. These issues do not detract from an otherwise stimulating book.
UNIVERSITY OFHERTFORDSHIRE MOIRACALVELEY
DOWNSIZING: IS ITWORKING FORAUSTRALIA?
Edited by Peter Dawkins and Craig R. Littler. Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, 2001, xvi + 84 pp., $33 (paperback)
character still need to be far better understood. This monograph was com-missioned by the Myer Foundation and the Committee for the Economic Development of Australia (CEDA) with the project conducted by the Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research. Edited by Peter Dawkins and Craig Littler, it is the final instalment in a two-part series evaluating the impact of downsizing on Australian businesses and workers. The earlier research was published in 1999 as The Contours of Restructuring and Downsizing in Australia. In the Foreword, it is noted that the principals were especially motivated by Wayne Cascio and other emerging voices of dissent who have challenged the long-run financial performance of downsizing organisations and the apparent deterministic effect of the downsizing mantra on managers. Perhaps ‘corpora-tions have gone overboard in implementing downsizing’ (page iii)?
The ambitious terms of reference of the project asked the following (in sum-mary): What was the extent of restructuring and downsizing in Australian indus-try? Did it achieve its intended objectives and improvements in enterprise performance, especially productivity and profitability? How did the well-being of the downsizing ‘survivors’ fare? What were the labour market outcomes of those exiting the organisation and the effect on the general community?
Understandably, the discussion in this latest report builds on the findings from the earlier 1999 monograph, which the authors detail in chapter 1. The research methodology relied on a threefold approach; namely, an investigation into the effect of downsizing on skill profiles in organisations, a case study of restructur-ing in the Australian bankrestructur-ing industry, and a survey of Australian households, used to examine the impact of downsizing on employment and re-employment. Each is analysed in a separate chapter. Data sources included some 4000 large firms sourced from the Affirmative Action Agency (analysed longitudinally over the period 1990 to 1998), Finance Sector Union survey data, mail surveys, inter-views and focus groups from ‘Onebank’ (the case study) and, less clearly, data collected in conjunction with the International Social Science Survey.
Given the continuing evidence of unabated organisational job ‘shedding’ in Australia, when the monograph was ‘launched’ it received widespread, especially print media, coverage. It was said to build on the earlier ‘ground-breaking’ research that mapped the extent and form (the contours) of downsizing in Australia. The findings were typically characterised by journalists as ‘landmark’ research giving ‘the lie’ to corporate executives’ longstanding and ‘comforting’ notion that downsizing was the equivalent of a ‘purging laxative: unpleasant, but good for you’ (Long 2001). It was more bad news for the proponents of downsizing.
firms are upsizing or downsizing. As an illustration of this conundrum, when firms decide to contract out their in-house information technology services, the reduced skill base may be offset by a deepening of skills in the contract supplier/upsizer (see, for example, Lewer & Gallimore 2001). Overall, however, the authors’ evidence profoundly points to downsizing having a negative impact on the skill base of organisations. Such firms, which predominate in manufacturing, are provocatively labelled as ‘dumb downsizers’ (page 19).
The finance sector case study (chapter 3) highlights rich detail of change in the banking industry. At Onebank, restructuring reduced the number of branches from 1740 to 1390, there was a ‘spill and fill’ of all positions, and full-time employment fell by 16 per cent, matched by a similar increase in part-full-time workers. Redundancy and other costs associated with one major change inter-vention––the Restructuring Improvement Program––with the delightful acronym of RIP, totalled $188 million. Male managers at Onebank had on average over seventeen years’ tenure and had witnessed three separate restructures. RIP reduced staff expenses as a proportion of total operating income from 38.4 per cent in 1992/3 to 32.3 per cent in 1995/6. Operating income per full time employee also rose by 31.6 per cent. But, as the report argues, the change was pursued to the significant detriment of Onebank’s ‘human resources’. The find-ings conclude that the bank (paralleled by the others in the industry) experienced crumbling employee relations, had shunned HRM-styled high performance work systems, adopting instead ‘closely monitored performance, targeted incentives . . . and the use of technology to improve basic business processes’ (page 44). Using data that emphasise how restructuring has broken the ‘old’ psychological contract (steady financial rewards, hard work and tenure) and engendered the survivor syndrome, the authors ask: can organisations be effective without loyalty?
The analysis of the experience of Australian workers (chapter 4), important though many of the findings are, is far more uncertain. The authors wanted to know the impact on earnings, quality of life and other variables, of downsizing on ‘down-sized out’ workers. They seek to differentiate the net experiences by factoring in the workers pre-existing human capital characteristics. This aspect of the methodology needed to be more clearly articulated, as did the use of the 1999 International Social Science Survey/Australia. An assumption that the entire readership would have a working knowledge of the number of respondents and data-collection processes used in the survey is unreasonable. Other valuable data sources, such as Australian Bureau of Statistics labour force and redundancy data, were ignored. This highlights a fundamental issue with the methodology. The other chapters are informed by the literature, often testing their findings against alternative work. Chapter 4 though adopts a more stand-alone approach. To answer the questions posed by the terms of reference, is a single data source, even acknowledging its power, the most suitable method?
re-employment and the specific impact of job loss on vulnerable, mainly older, work-ers. The explanation for the difference may rest on the understanding that not all workers who experience downsizing are retrenched, given firms may use natural attrition, and incentive-based non-compulsory exit strategies. Never-theless, a more critical frame would have significantly added to the authority of chapter 4. Given an emerging misanthropic political culture where ‘picking off the stragglers’ is promoted as being in Australia’s national interest, the editors needed to carefully analyse their results against the wider literature and evidence. To do otherwise is to court misappropriation by the neo-liberalist agenda.
Finally, the report conveys a sense of ambiguity in endeavouring to balance its social science techniques and popularising its message. For example, interspersed between complex tables which detail chi values and ordinary least squares regres-sion estimates, there is a propensity to adopt colloquialisms (‘the grim reaper’, ‘run on empty’) and catchy but value-laden epithets: ‘good’, ‘bad’ and ‘dumb’ downsizers and ‘knowledge intensive’ or ‘casual growers’. Thankfully they resist the distasteful ‘anorexic corporation’. Organisational strategists, like those at Onebank, are wedded to cost cutting and single bottom line performance indi-cators. Persuading such a constituency to challenge their apparently unswerving commitment to the highly questionable long-term value of job shedding is this monograph’s critical contribution. Perhaps somewhat mischievously, it is not too difficult to imagine the report being presented at seminars in PowerPointformat with supporting two-by-two tables and earnestly contrite management-types nodding whilst nibbling on sweets from small bowls!
REFERENCES
Grant D, Oswick C (eds) (1996) Metaphors and Organisations. London: Sage.
Lewer J, Gallimore P (2001) Are outsourcing and skill formation mutually exclusive? The experi-ence of a heavy manufacturing firm. International Journal of Employment Studies9(1), 141–162. Long S (2001) The myth behind the mantra of downsizing. Australian Financial Review1 August.
UNIVERSITY OFNEWCASTLE JOHNLEWER
INDUSTRIALRELATIONS IN THEPRIVATISEDCOALINDUSTRY:
CONTINUITY, CHANGE ANDCONTRADICTIONS
By Emma Wallis. Ashgate, Aldershot, 2000, xi + 281 pp., £42.50 (hardback)
subsequent defeat of the National Union of Minerworkers (NUM). Such work was necessarily backward looking. With the passage of more than 15 years since the miners’ defeat, however, a far more important question now confronts us: what changes to industrial relations patterns did the strike and the subsequent privatisation of the industry bring about? This key question is comprehensively addressed in Industrial Relations in the Privatised Coal Industry.
The great strength of Wallis’ excellent and insightful study is its capacity to ask and then answer the big research questions regarding what has happened to industrial relations in the British coal industry. As such, this capacity reflects the origins of the book in an earlier doctoral study. A particularly pleasing aspect of the book is its ability to link the lessons learned from a series of case studies of individual mines into wider generalised conclusions. In this regard, Wallis asks two broad questions. First, she considers whether or not the post-strike privat-isation of the industry did, in fact, represent a decisive departure from previous patterns of industrial relations. Second, she questions whether privatisation has been negative for collective bargaining and trade union organisation. In this regard, she notes that it could perhaps be doubted whether any employer could be more hostile to collective bargaining and unions than the publicly-owned British Coal during its last decade. Finally, Wallis presents a model for testing, in which she suggests that industrial relations outcomes in a privatised environ-ment are shaped by two major variables––‘the labour relations strategies adopted by management’ and ‘the responses of the various mining unions to those strate-gies’ (pages 59 and 236). Unfortunately, for those of us who feel that collective bargaining and trade unions are positive additions to our society, Wallis ends up by rejecting this model. Instead, she concludes that, in the post-1985 world, trade union responses ‘did not emerge as a significant variable’ and that, instead, man-agement has assumed a sole, ‘determining’ role in deciding industrial relations systems and outcomes at a local level (pages 236–7).
had returned to work during the 1984/5 dispute, this development helped to incapacitate union resistance.
To trace the impact of industrial relations change at the mine-site level, Wallis undertook case studies at seven mines, with the research at each mine involving a mixture of quantitative research (surveys) and qualitative research (interviews). Coal United Kingdom (CUK) owned four of these mines, management buy-out teams owned two, and one, in South Wales, was a cooperative run by former NUM members. With the exception of the last case, all of these privatised mines were characterised by industrial relations regimes that represented both a con-tinuation and an intensification of the unitarist management style that charac-terised British Coal during its final decade. While, at most mines, unions were granted ‘representation rights’, these did not normally extend to ‘bargaining rights’, certainly not in any meaningful sense. Interestingly, the UDM, despite its more moderate, pro-management credentials, fared no better than the NUM at those mines where it was able to obtain ‘representation’ rights. Clearly, under the new regime, unions of whatever ilk were regarded as an irrelevance to be, at the most, consulted about changes that management had already decided were going to occur. For the workforce, this new regime (again with the exception of the colliery owned by former NUM members) involved an intensification of work and the acceptance of new ‘flexibilities’.
Stylistically, Wallis’ work is highly readable and accessible to a wide audience. Conceptually, its only significant flaw occurs when the study attempts to leave British shores to situate the industry within a global context. While this is an important endeavour, her attempt to link the woes of the British industry with expanded coal production in the Third World is misguided. Here Wallis con-fuses leading producing nations, such as China, with leading export nations. For, while in 1997 China produced more than 1.3 billion tonnes of coal, only 30.7 million tonnes of this was actually exported, reflecting the primitive nature of the Chinese industry. In consequence, Wallis’ statements that job losses in Western Europe are associated ‘with the low operating costs and cheap labour advantages of Third World mining’ operations are simply not accurate (page 40). Throughout the 1990s, the sea-borne trade in coal continued to be dominated by first world, not third world, producers. During the course of this decade, it was Australia that gained a position of pre-eminence, as its exports grew by over 70 per cent from under 100 million tonnes per annum to over 170 million tonnes. To complicate matters, however, the international coal trade is largely fragmented by distance into two distinct markets––the North-west Atlantic and North-east Pacific. Fortunately, this failing does not impact on the overall veracity of Wallis’ work, which remains primarily focused on British outcomes rather than inter-national influences.
Wallis’ thorough survey suggests otherwise. As she bluntly concludes, ‘privat-isation has had negative implications for organised labour within the coal indus-try’ (page 236).
GRIFFITHUNIVERSITY BRADLEYBOWDEN
GLOBALIZATION AND HUMANRESOURCEMANAGEMENT IN THE
AIRLINEINDUSTRY
By Jack Eaton. Second edition, Ashgate, Aldershot, 2001, ix + 158 pp., £39.95 (hardback)
This is an impressively researched, well written book based on an excellent indus-try analysis. It fills an important void in the relatively sparse literature on Human Resource Management (HRM) in the airline industry. Eaton’s book is all the more impressive because not only does it focus on HRM, it also offers a comprehen-sive review of the concept of globalisation. The focus on the airline industry gives this book depth and offers the reader the opportunity to balance a sound theo-retical understanding of the key theories of HRM with an in-depth practical knowledge of an industry which has witnessed huge upheaval in the last decade. The book is aimed at managers in all areas of the airline industry and students of air transport or human resource management/personnel management.
The book is divided into four parts, with part one focusing on the organisation of airlines as businesses. The major theme emerging from part one is that a key driving force of HRM is the need to be market driven rather than operations driven. A particular strength of this section is the understanding that Eaton dis-plays with regard to the role of managers in the airline industry. The focus of chapter 1 on the customer is an area all too often overlooked in HRM texts. The overview of Total Quality Management is rigorous but keeps the reader’s full attention by remaining relatively descriptive and not being overly analytical. The role of the state in the airline industry appears to be one which is constantly debated. Eaton’s review of the industry’s relationship with the state and the impact of HRM offer a sound historical overview of key developments and gives the reader an insight into current and future state and corporate strategies. Chapters 3 and 4 consider the key relationships in the airline industry, with the under-pinning of the chapters being the impact of these various relationships on the management of human resources. A popular misconception among HR acade-mics and practitioners is that boards of directors drive corporate strategy and that the level of HR specialist involvement at board level will determine HR strat-egy. Eaton’s alternative approach is validated by bringing together a range of stake-holders and interested parties including investors, suppliers, competitors and the general public and not just placing sole emphasis on the board of directors. A major strength of Eaton’s approach is that HRM policy and practices are con-sidered in relation to each of the aforementioned.
airline organisation and the elements of airline organisation make valuable con-tributions towards developing the reader’s specialised knowledge of the airline industry. The theoretical nature of the chapters may result in some finding it slightly difficult to interpret, but practitioners will find these chapters particu-larly invaluable.
Part three focuses specifically on industrial relations in the airline industry, with the single chapter in this section offering a good overview of the changes which have occurred in managerial approaches to industrial relations throughout the 1990s. The comparative analysis of the approaches taken by Air France and British Airways is particularly informative and Eaton summarises their complex approaches extremely well. Practitioners will be particularly interested in the job specific analysis presented in this chapter.
Part four focuses on an area which is too often neglected in many of the stan-dard textbooks on Human Resource Management: namely, the importance of integrating the HR function with other managerial functions within the organ-isation. This reader feels that this section contains the most important chapters in the book from an air transport or HRM perspective. Students will gain specialised insights from these chapters, and Eaton’s arguments for greater inte-gration of HRM with other management functions such as production manage-ment, finance and, surprisingly, personnel managemanage-ment, are extremely well made. Eaton’s assessment of personnel management in chapter 10 again raises the argu-ment of whether HRM is any different from personnel manageargu-ment. This chap-ter will provide much food for thought for both students and academics in the fields of HRM/Personnel Management and is the most theoretically rigorous chapter in the book. In this particular case, part four would have been completed, if not strengthened, with the inclusion of a chapter that links human resource management with marketing management.
Each chapter of this book offers a broad mix of empirical, reflective and con-ceptual writing dealing with the theme of globalisation and the impact it has had on recent sectoral and organisational developments. An important and rare strength of this book is the observation and discussion with regard to the effect globalisation has had on HRM practices.
Eaton is to be commended for producing a text which takes a multiple stake-holder approach to the analysis of globalisation and HRM. His assessment of the internal and external operating environments in the airline industry is clear and concise. The book is very readable and while it is academically rigorous, the excel-lent practical insights offered maintain the reader’s interest throughout. I have no hesitation in recommending this book to managers and students and also to an audience not specifically targeted by the author––academics and consultants in the fields of corporate strategy and HRM.
BRITISHCAPITAL, ANTIPODEANLABOUR: WORKING THENEW
ZEALANDWATERFRONT, 1915–1951
By Anna Green. University of Otago Press, Dunedin, 2001, 202 pp., $39.95 (paperback)
In a recent review of New Zealand waterfront union leader Jock Barnes’s auto-biography, I lamented that a manuscript documenting port labour relations during his tenure had not itself been published. This offering from the University of Otago Press rectifies the situation. British Capital, Antipodean Labour is devel-oped from Anna Green’s doctoral thesis. Additional documentary research con-ducted at archives in New Zealand and the United Kingdom has been used in writing the book. Green casts her net widely, to good effect. My familiarity with the thesis meant that I found reading the book to be an interesting study in the way that a capable researcher’s thinking on a topic develops over time. Despite that development, British Capital, Antipodean Labour is not without flaws.
Following a brief introduction, Green begins by identifying the waterfront employers––shipping companies in the main. For me, chapter 1 is the best chapter in the book. There is a very good discussion of the origins of the New Zealand Conference, the cartel-like arrangement between four British shipping companies contracted by the Producer Boards responsible for the export of New Zealand’s agricultural products. In fact, it is the only sensible thing that has been written about this arrangement to date.
Chapter 2 provides a vivid description of the abysmal working conditions experienced by watersiders or wharfies; the account is animated both by exten-sive quotes from interviews with retired wharfies and by passages of poetry and other vernacular writing. However, Green’s focus on three main ports (Auckland, Wellington and Lyttelton) weakens the discussion of waterfront unionism in chap-ter 3. These ports may have had the preponderance of wachap-tersiders, but there was parochialism amongst union members at the smaller ports that led to tension between the local and the national levels, even after the formation of a national union in 1936. That tension is alluded to by Green herself (pages 71 and 88), so a fuller account of the role of the smaller unions/branches in the politics of peak level union organising would have strengthened this chapter. Moreover, fewer than eight pages are devoted to the internal politics of the Waterside Workers’ Federation and its successor, the Waterside Workers’ Union. The remainder of the chapter deals with a ragbag assortment of topics––union welfare initiatives, social activities, stopwork meetings, and wharfie nicknames.
The way that the waterfront labour market was partially decasualised is explained in chapter 4. An element of the labour-process determinism present in Green’s earlier work has crept in here, as she describes decasualisation as a reform to the labour process (page 79), when clearly what she is writing about is the establishment of exclusionary closure within a labour market. But this is more a matter of using terms incorrectly than a flaw that cuts to the heart of the analysis.
(unauthorised absence from the worksite), is usefully shown to be part of what might be called an ‘indulgency pattern’ (the term is Alvin Gouldner’s, not Anna Green’s). In other words, employers condoned the practice in order to minimise disruptions to work that inevitably occurred in response to the poor conditions and long hours of work on the waterfront (page 100).
Chapter 6 provides a fascinating account of an early attempt at industrial democracy in New Zealand, through proposals pushed by controversial water-front union leader Jim Roberts to introduce a system of ‘cooperative stevedoring’. Significantly, this chapter shows that the attempt by employers to use pay almost exclusively to motivate wharfies, in the post-1951 period, had its precursor in Roberts’ proposals for new payment systems that often conflicted with the wishes of the rank and file (page 122).
Chapter 7 examines the lead-up to the momentous 1951 dispute that resulted in the Waterside Workers’ Union being both deregistered and dismantled. In her favour, Green strives for a novel historical interpretation of the events that precipitated the waterfront crisis. Although her argument is not altogether clear, Green seems to attribute the crisis to two causes. The first one is an increase in the number of disputes that originated on the job between 1945 and 1950, lead-ing to considerable disruptions to cargo movements. However, the two pie charts that depict this dispute are difficult to read and lump together all of the disputes in this five-year period. A more fine-grained analysis would be worthwhile. The second causal factor Green identifies is the employers’ ‘inability to get the work done faster’ (page 143). Port congestion and the availability of cargo-handling equipment notwithstanding, that statement implies low labour productivity. However, nowhere in the book are time series on labour productivity to be found, despite figuring in Green’s conclusion (page 152). That neglect makes it difficult to evaluate the claims and counterclaims by employers and unionists about the rate of work that Green amply reports. But it also brings to the fore an unacknowledged paradox in Green’s own argument. She is at pains to point out that the Conference Lines ‘were making “substantial” profits’ (page 21), given their virtual monopoly position in New Zealand’s export trade which enabled them to set freight rates almost unilaterally––with little bargaining power possessed either by the Government or the Producer Boards.
At this point, there seems to be a jumbling of mediate causes and proximate causes.
The book’s conclusion is short and ends on a rather weak note. Green simply points to recent events at New Zealand ports reported in a newspaper as evidence of some continuity in the problems facing waterfront unions. Curiously, she ignores the published scholarly research about waterfront labour relations in the period after 1951. For that matter, she does not even engage with a recent reinterpretation of 1951 provided by Deborah Mabbett who, in Trade, Employment and Welfare(Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1995), draws attention to the importance of the interests of farmers as third parties to the fray. I couldn’t help but feel that by claiming that waterfront disputes have ‘traditionally been defined in terms of conflict between militant unionists and the authority of the state’ (page 151), with-out saying whodefined them in this way, Green is simply setting up a straw man to knock down.
I am pleased that British Capital, Antipodean Labourhas been published. But I am disappointed by the analysis it provides of the pressures that resulted in the 1951 showdown. Given the periodisation and what the publicity material promises, that analysis seems to be the whole point of the book so it needs to be thorough.
UNIVERSITY OFWOLLONGONG JAMESREVELEY
WORKINGCAPITAL: THEPOWER OFLABOR’SPENSIONS
Edited by Archon Fung, Tessa Hebb and Joel Rogers. Cornell University Press, Ithaca and London, 2001, x + 273 pp., £22.95 (hardback)
How can labour organise to confront the structural power of capital? What are the alternative strategies available for workers seeking to influence the behav-iour of employers? Labour can attempt to influence capital through control of the supply of labour and organisation at the point of production. It can also seek to influence the decisions made by businesses through the agency of the state in the form of regulation. These mechanisms have been the traditional mainstay of labour movement strategy in developed countries and have formed the analyti-cal core of industrial relations research.
Recent developments have given rise to a number of alternative strategies that attempt to overcome the relative decline in the ability of labour to influence capital at the point of production or through the agency of the state. For exam-ple, developed country labour movements have used the mechanism of consumer boycotts in an attempt to influence the labour practices of companies in devel-oping countries with varying degrees of success. The focus on influencing cap-ital at the point of consumption, rather than production, can in many ways be seen as a response to the need for international action and an acknowledgement of the limitations of traditional strategies beyond the level of the nation state.
confront its structural power––as a participant in the capital market. As Hebb notes in the introduction, at just the same time that labour’s ability to influence employers at the point of production is in decline in the US, the growing impor-tance of workers’ pension savings in the capital market opens another potential source of influence. Hebb alleges that ‘US capital markets are presently financed by $7 trillion of workers’ pension fund savings. This pool of assets represents the largest single source of capital in the world’ (page 2).
However, this potential power is not without its problems. In chapter 2, Barker and Fung note that there are strong connections between the behaviour of insti-tutional investors in the capital market and the erosion of workers’ wages and conditions that have occurred from the 1980s in the US. Furthermore they vide strong evidence to suggest that pension funds are just as responsible for pro-ducing management practices that focus on short run returns at the expense of long run growth as are other institutional investors. Overall, this chapter pro-vides a comprehensive, accessible and balanced overview of recent debates about the role capital markets play in shaping both corporate strategy and industrial relations outcomes. The book is worth reading for this chapter alone.
Having established that the current way in which workers’ pension funds are used produces ‘collateral damage’ in terms of jobs, wages and conditions, the remainder of the book examines potential ways in which workers’ pension funds can be used to create ‘collateral benefits’. Chapter 3 examines the development of socially responsible investment funds in the US. It shows that funds that include social screens have favourable comparative rates of return and have the poten-tial to influence corporate behaviour. Chapter 4 examines the extent to which unions have been able to use shareholder activism to influence corporate behaviour. The analysis in these two chapters suggest that while there are some benefits to be gained from these areas, there are some fundamental limitations in the extent to which they can be used to alter the balance of power between labour and capital, in part because of the separation between ownership and control.
legislative support is not the only impediment to the growth of such funds in the US. As Zanglein notes in chapter 8, the lack of critical skills and information for pension fund trustees also plays a major role in holding back the expansion of this form of investment.
Chapter 9 outlines an agenda for legal and regulatory reform aimed at maxi-mising ‘collateral benefits’ associated with the investment of workers’ pension savings. Overall, it presents a comprehensive set of recommendations which, if fully implemented, would allow labour to more fully exploit its power as owners of capital. This provides a fitting conclusion to what is generally an excel-lent book. That said, Working Capitalis not without its problems. Briefly, I believe that there is too little attention given to the issue of how direct the impact of capital markets is on management practices; most of the contributors assume that it is a determinate relationship. Secondly, as indicated in chapter 8 which, among other issues, stresses the important role collective bargaining plays, it is not clear that these strategies can be effective by themselves. Thirdly, I contend that there is too little attention given to the inherent conflicts created for labour in a situation where it attempts to represent the interests of both the owner and the workers.
Having said this, there are a number of issues raised by Working Capitalwhich are of direct relevance to the Australian case. I will concentrate primarily on one of these but briefly mention two others. Australian wage and salary earners account for a significant percentage of flows into the Australian capital market. A notable feature of the Australian capital market is the relative importance of the indus-try super funds, which were created following the introduction of compulsory superannuation under the federal Labor government during the 1980s. Many of these industry funds have union representation on their boards of trustees. There has been little or no academic attention devoted to whether industry super funds adopt investment strategies different from those of other institutional investors in the Australian market, or the extent to which industry super funds could be used to create the type of collateral benefits outlined in this book. Secondly, the Canadian experience with Labour Sponsored Investment Funds may offer impor-tant lessons for Australia. For example, they appear especially favourable to employment creation and retention in rural and regional areas. Thirdly, a num-ber of Australian unions have attempted to use shareholder activism to influence corporate human resource policy (most notably, the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union in its dealings with Rio Tinto). Do the differences between US and Australian patterns of corporate governance suggest that these campaigns are likely to be more successful in Australia than they have been in the US? For labour movement activists and academics interested in these and related questions, I highly recommend Working Capitalas a starting point.
WELFARESTATE ANDDEMOCRACY INCRISIS: REFORMING THE
EUROPEANMODEL
Edited by Theodore Pelagidis, Louka T. Katseli and John Milios. Ashgate, Aldershot, 2001, ix + 252 pp., £42.50 (hardback)
This text brings together 16 academics/researchers to explore the demise of ‘the nation state’ as a key decision maker in issues relating to capital movements, the production and exchange of goods and services, the movement and employment of labour and the welfare of citizens within the ‘borderless’ European Union.
Given the shrinking nation state, the hub of decision making has now shifted to the supranational level and to the market. The rhetoric in support of this shift claims that such a structure has the potential to deliver for the greater good of all. This, however, is questionable given that the supranational level as a decision-making centre is a relatively new concept making it unclear as to what it can and cannot achieve, and it remains distant from regional concerns. While the market is driven simply by economic gains, binding it neither to regional nor supranational concerns, it appears blind to wider policy issues. Reporting on the rise of the private sector as an important centre of decision making, Christopoulos and Dimoulis note that ‘Private ownership of a company is not an individual matter like private ownership of a pair of trousers. It is a matter for society as a whole, which nevertheless today is decided by individuals, who exercise private-structural violence in order to obtain submission to their decisions. As long as private ownership of this kind persists, the majority in society cannot determine the conditions of their common existence’ (page 214). As centres of decision-making power, the supranational level and the market raise serious doubts about how and what they can deliver in the interests and welfare of the citizens of the respective European Union member states.
Each chapter develops a convincing argument for the reevaluation and recon-struction of theory, policy, legislation, and institutional structural development to set the primary agenda within nation states. This is achieved by the analysis of a number of questions which are explored throughout this text: Given the shift in the decision making centre both from the nation state to the supranational level and to the market, in whose interests are decisions made? Thus, who are the winners and losers from this new politico-economic reality? How are capi-tal, labour and production exchanges organised? Is this new reality creating regional imbalances and if so how are we to deal with them? What is the role of democracy in this structure? That is, who is representing the citizens of each nation state which ‘democratically’ elects its leaders?
legislative framework are thus informed by the push away from neo-liberalism, as fuelled and shaped by the ‘Euroskeptics’ who present the case for the centrality of the nation state in shaping policy and legislation.
Christopoulos and Dimoulis further contend that ‘Government for the people is on the way to being abolished in present day Europe. The multiplicity and confusion of power centres put these beyond citizens’ control. Thus, for exam-ple nowadays the standard riposte to citizens’ protests at unemployment is the inability to act, both on the part of states (“community policy”, the need to meet “convergence criteria”) and on the part of the central administrative bodies of the European Union (subsidiarity, flexibility, lack of competence over social policy owing to shortage of Community resources)’ (page 214).
The reality is that European integration goes beyond the mere economic characterised by politico-economic integration. It is precisely this mix of polit-ical and economic concerns that the contributing authors highlight as being presently overlooked by the European Union decision makers and to which the market is blind. The cost of the uni-dimensional focus on economic integration is highlighted by Katseli: ‘economic integration as pursued so far has introduced systematic policy biases and produced policy outcomes that, in turn, have eroded the democratic functioning of the political process. Democratic re-consolidation can only be achieved if there is a re-equilibration of the policy process and of the respective competencies between national and community institutions’ (page 110).
Each chapter resonates with a ‘truth’ which is relevant to the citizens, work-ers, decision makers and businesses in the European Union member states and beyond. The text provides us with a framework for reform which can develop into ‘responsible’ globalisation, thus protecting us from being imprisoned in a space within which we have little or no say as to the direction of the socio-cultural and politico-economic agendas. For those interested in exploring theories, policy prescriptions, legislative ideas and philosophical questions that get us ‘back to class politics’ this is a significant and useful book.
UNIVERSITY OFSYDNEY DIMITRIAGROUTSIS
CULTURE OFMISFORTUNE: ANINTERPRETIVEHISTORY OFTEXTILE
UNIONISM IN THEUNITEDSTATES
By Clete Daniel. Cornell University Press, Ithaca and London, 2001, x + 327 pp., £25.95 (hardback)
social, political and legal contexts ‘ruinously infected’ the progress of the TWUA. Here the text attempts to understand ‘the singular challenges of leadership’. Finally, ‘the study discloses that it was the special fate of the TWUA to glimpse the first telltale evidences [sic] of America’s fall from manufacturing pre-eminence . . . [and] unwittingly became the first major union in the United States to con-front the specter of post industrialism in actualised form’. With the possible excep-tion of the final objective, this Herculean task has been accomplished and in the process contributes significantly to the body of industrial relations knowledge.
Theory in the social sciences, and no less so in industrial relations, is charac-terised by what Anthony Giddens has referred to as an ‘epistemological divide’ (see Giddens A, The Constitution of Society: Outline of the Theory of Structuration. Polity Press, Cambridge, 1984) or that space between subjectivist and objectivist approaches to the explanation and understanding of social phenomena. Daniel demonstrates a capacity to utilise elements of both approaches in his history of textile unionism and his interpretive framework is clearly premised on the belief in a pluralistic approach to industrial life with the need, in this case, of a better balance of power between labour and management.
Broadly, the first three chapters present many structural features to be found in the pre-CIO initiative of the middle to late 1930s: the ethnic roots of workers, the mill villages, the geographical distribution of mills, the craft workers’ self-interest, the organisational structure and chronically underfunded finances of unions, the economic, political and technological changes which are interwoven with more subjectivist issues such as the beliefs and perceptions of the union leadership, management’s anti-unionism (particularly in the South) and aspects of the workforce, particularly in relation to failed industrial action.
The major thrust of the text and its contribution to theory is in reminding us that the frailties of union leadership in changing contexts can provide a rich under-standing of an organisation (see chapters 4–9). These chapters are anchored around the objectives and shifting fortunes of the leadership closely involved in attempts to unionise textile workers.
The ambitions of Sidney Hill to emulate John Lewis’ success in unionising steel and auto workers, and Hillman’s subsequent failure are well argued. The subsequent challenge by Frank Gorman who had been ousted by Hillman, his resurrection of the United Textile Workers and their breaking away from the CIO’s organising committee (which later became the Textile Workers’ Union of America), and the subsequent leadership battles within the TWUA, are all grounded in context-specific events and, as such, provide a fresh understanding of the choices and forces on union leadership.
The final objective is rather disappointingly addressed in the last chapter which charts continuing leadership struggles––a particularly long drawn-out dispute with a manufacturer and ultimately the merger of the TWUA with the Amalgamated Clothing Workers’ which serves to illustrate the declining fortunes of the American textile industry. Whether this decline is a reflection of post-industrial America or not remains unsubstantiated.
that the value system that informs the interpretive analysis is a reflection of the dominant ideology of the United States.
