WAGEDISPERSION: WHY ARESIMILARWORKERSPAIDDIFFERENTLY?
By Dale T. Mortensen. MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 2003, xiii + 143 pp., no price stated (hardback)
L
abour economics is a sub-discipline which focuses on the working of labour markets, but whose more eclectic forms extend to institutional characteristics affecting interaction between employers and employees. The subject matter of labour economics complements that of industrial relations and in its more institutional manifestations there may be a fair degree of overlap. This book, significantly mathematical in content, is very much concerned with developing a model of the labour market. As such, it is potentially complementary to the sphere of industrial relations, but there is no significant overlap.In labour economics, as traditionally mapped out, occupational wage differ-entials are explained on the basis of different levels of investment in skill. Inter-industry wage differences in a competitive world are explained by differences in ‘net advantages’. The invocation of a non-competitive world allows for the admission of differences in industry structure and relative degrees of bargaining advantage as causes of differences in inter-industry wage levels. Wage dispersion has typically been considered in an inter-firm context with firms offering a spectrum of wages around some equilibrium level, the spread of the spectrum depending upon the difficulties of acquiring relevant information – that is, the costs of search. This book sets out to formulate a general theory of wage variation, which is not confined to the wage dispersion case as just depicted.
One of the book’s initial claims is that skill-based explanations of differences in wages only tell part of the story (they can only account for 30 per cent of variation in wages). The author’s focus is on differences in the pay policies of firms, particularly as they are related to differences in firm size and differences across industries. The basic parameters of the model are worker productivity (which varies across firms), firms’ recruiting efforts, workers’ search, the amount of friction in the labour market (linked to job destruction and job offers received) and the bargaining stance adopted by the firm in formulating its pay policy. A monoponistic case is considered, with pay varying between a reservation wage and the firm’s value of extra output. A bilateral bargaining model based on ‘sharing of rents’ is also suggested and in fact this receives corroboration from the Danish data referred to. This characterisation of firms and their pay policies fits into the general model in a fairly abstract way. There is no reference whatsoever to any organisation by workers to improve their position in bargaining.
In the model, firms which are more productive pay higher wages. Differences in firms’ pay policies generate a distribution of wages paid, even if workers are ‘identical’. With non-identical workers (for example, differences in skill), we
observe typical positively skewed wage distributions. An extension of the model relates to flows of workers, who have incentives to seek out employers offering higher pay. More productive employers will recruit more workers as well as offer better pay. Another extension allows for initial employer wage offers to be followed by others that match what workers can obtain elsewhere. This leads on to a tenure-contingent wage, which trades off workers’ desires for a smooth income stream against employers’ desires to reduce quits or turnover.
The model is linked to matched employer-employee data sets. Differences in firms’ pay policies have a strong statistical connection to wage differentials associated with firm size and inter-industry variation. For this reader, having largely deciphered rather than read the book, it was difficult to feel a great deal of satisfaction over this. The mathematisation of the argument gathers together a number of elements in a way that might not be possible otherwise, but there is not much ‘flesh and blood’ in the depiction.
For the industrial relations reader, bargaining is ostensibly present in the book, but only in a very constrained format. Monopsony and bilateral bargaining are involved, but we do not get any sense of firms and workers marshalling each other’s capabilities, or gauging each other’s reactions. It is hard to see many industrial relations practitioners placing this book high on their reading priorities. Also, it is very microeconomic in its focus, with concentration of the argument centred on wages and productivity at the level of the firm. There is a big, macroeconomic, globally contested world out there, in which there are other forces or tenden-cies that have implications for wages.
UNIVERSITY OFNEWENGLAND GREGSMITH
THEMEANING OFMILITANCY? POSTALWORKERS ANDINDUSTRIAL
RELATIONS
By Gregor Gall. Ashgate, Aldershot, 2003, xvi + 348 pp., £55.00 (hardback)
Writing this review has been exceptionally difficult. This is because while Gregor Gall’s fascinating and important book documents the experiences of a major group of British workers in the 1980s and 1990s and raises a range of key questions for industrial relations (many of which are very close to my own heart and research agenda), it does have some significant and probably avoidable flaws.
the ranks. But this weakness is understandable given his main thrust, which is to critically examine ‘worker militancy’.
In what is a sensitive and complex account, he accounts for what is a compara-tively high official and unofficial strike rate largely in terms of the juxtaposition of a decentralised structure of collective bargaining in quite large workplaces with a quite tight national framework that sustains a strong union identity. The average 768 striker-days per 1000 Royal Mail workers between 1990 and 2001 compared to the national average of 27 striker-days (page 60) shows just how different postal workers’ open levels of conflict were during these years from the majority. It would have been helpful to establish whether there was a continuity or discontinuity in conflict levels in the Post Office between the 1960s/1970s and the 1980s/1990s. Gall cites evidence of industrial action in 1962 and 1964 and mentions briefly the 1971 eight-week national strike, but does not present any data to allow a clearer view to be formed.
Two chapters cover the 1988 and 1996 national strikes and allow some of the originality of Gall’s book to appear. Unlike many accounts of national disputes he is sensitive to the reality that national strikes are complex processes involving a balance of power and mobilising capacity between the central union leadership and local leaders, and between local leaders and their members. Another chapter discusses ‘strike propensity and strike potency’. It considers postal workers’ ‘industrial confidence’, their ‘union’, ‘workforce’ and ‘social characteristics’, the distribution of strikes around the branch structure and between delivery offices and processing centres, as well as the role of branch leadership. This refreshing focus on the detailed processes involved in mobilisation extends into a major chapter on ‘strike organisation and strike characteristics’ where the tactical considerations weighed by strike organisers are highlighted.
The strength of the book is thus its direct treatment of what is too often today a totally taboo subject — strikes. Gall shows why these postal workers took strike action so often, how they mobilised for it, how their mobilisation reflected different tensions between the central and local unions and how some of these tensions were political (and although this is not stressed, often personal as well).
chosen not because it is the most difficult but because it helps lead on to the second group of flaws discussed below. Gall concludes on page 163 that ‘local processes’ are very important in shaping strike propensity. ‘Where these local processes lead to striking,’ he goes on, ‘approximates to one aspect of militancy: creating and deploying available means in a combative manner, and represents the fusion of capacity to be disrupted and capability to disrupt’. In this case Gall’s meaning can eventually be discerned (in some it cannot). But it does slow down the reader, making the book ultimately more of a chore than the pleasure it should have been. My strong sense is that the whole book should have undergone one further re-write by a skilled sub-editor.
The second group of flaws derive from Gall’s ambition to say something more significant about strikes other than the fact that they take place, and that they reflect grievances, opportunity and mobilising capacity. From the question mark in the book’s title we expect to be enlightened. Is the use of the term ‘militancy’ helpful? What or who does it embrace? What is its significance today?
Unfortunately Gall’s book provides no clear answers to these questions. This is in part because while his research instincts are probing in the right areas, his industrial relations analysis remains weak. Instead of thinking more creatively about the powerful evidence he has uncovered of resistance to workplace change among generally very low-paid and relatively unskilled but organised workers, he is too concerned to dispose of the ideological straw man that automatically equates industrial action with heightened class and political consciousness. Thus for Gall the need to shout out that ‘militancy’ has no ‘political clothes’ means that he is less perceptive about the adaptive nature of worker resistance than he might have been.
Gall thus makes little considered use of research I carried out on Communication Workers Union activists’ attitudes, showing that there are considerable differences between ‘political activists’ and ‘struggle activists’. The former group are more likely to try and mobilise their members collectively around such issues as equal pay and anti-racism; the latter group are more likely not to vote for the Labour Party. This evidence adds another level of understanding to the relationship between activism and political consciousness. Where ‘struggle activists’ frame the grievances, we should not be surprised if the eruption of a legitimate grievance into open resistance rarely goes further in terms of raising political awareness generally. In contrast, where the framing is done by ‘political activists’ (or imposed by governments) then the broader solidarities involved may be what trigger the increases in politicisation experienced by some of those whose working routines are interrupted by open resistance. The issue of politicisation is not quite so black and white as Gall suggests.
to bow to the collective workers’ view; or management may make concessions that dissipate the collective sense of grievance. Are the activists who mobilise to frame a distinct employee perspective more ‘militant’ in the first scenario than in the second? The term itself is perhaps not very helpful. Ultimately Gall’s easy equation of ‘militant = regular striker’ undersells the trade union activist who does not strike but who may be every bit as involved in resisting employer arbitrariness and social injustice.
The book is worth looking at as an antidote to the benign volumes considering the advent of team working and partnership in the UK over the last 15 years. It also remains a major addition to the recent history of the British labour move-ment. What it is not is a serious discussion of the nature of trade union activism and of the relationship between resistance to the employer and resistance to capitalism.
LONDONMETROPOLITANUNIVERSITY STEVEJEFFERYS
STEELTOWN: THEMAKING AND BREAKING OFPORT KEMBLA
By Erik Eklund. Melbourne University Press, Melbourne, 2002, xii + 236 pp., $40 (hardback)
Ever since I read early local histories by Weston Bate, Max Kelly, and Geoff Blainey, I have, like many others, been fascinated by the interaction between local communities and the broader context. Certainly, this book is written by one who has a great passion for his topic and an historian’s eye for detail.
The book began in part from Eklund’s doctoral thesis and demonstrates his capacity for primary research. However, sometimes in rewriting a thesis for a general audience, scholars omit detailed ‘theorisation’. This can be problematic. If theory is meant to illuminate reality, then the general reader, as much as the academic reader, deserves to know the basis for the author’s claims. In the admittedly difficult task of converting a thesis, Eklund sets out to ‘explore the boundaries and meanings of Port Kembla’ (page 7). For Eklund, place or locality is important, rather than the community.
The section covering the decades before 1947 is the stronger section. It covers most of the first 150 pages, with the second half of the twentieth century dealt with in less than 50 pages. This imbalance is perhaps a weakness given the wealth of industrial development and community changes, in a rapidly changing wider context. In chapter 1, ‘Port Kembla: The Global and The Local’, Eklund begins by discussing the broader context, emphasising the importance of the inter-national context, although it would have been useful to consider fundamentals such as product markets and social ideas. This is followed by a highly readable example of the historical imagination with three fictional tours of Port Kembla at three points: 1900, 1920 and 1940.
Then the formal economy from 1900 until World War II is examined, taking as a theme, industrialisation as the engine of transformation of the locality. In this respect I was disappointed that there was no reference to either local industrial historian Don Reynolds or to the important and comprehensive thesis of Glenn Mitchell, ‘Company, community and governmental attitudes and their consequences to pollution at Port Kembla, with special reference to the Electrolytic Refining and Smelting Company 1900-1970’. The latter offers important findings in terms of the decisions to develop the area in the vicinity of Port Kembla as an industrial region and the later effects of pollution on the area. Nevertheless, this is a sweeping and ambitious chapter which seeks to explore the evolving locality in terms of gender and class.
The following chapter on the informal economy provides interesting vignettes on its nature and the ways in which families supplemented the family wage, or even, in the case of small farmers, acted as self-producing economic units. Drawing particularly on some of his 20 oral history sources, Eklund describes with verve the different informal economy activities of men, women and children in the early years of the twentieth century.
The next two chapters deal with the structures of locality and the competing tensions of class and locality in local politics. This is perhaps the strongest section of the book, where Eklund teases out some of the notions of locality in looking at the different cross-sections of the Port Kembla community. He draws a longbow perhaps in his claim that the ultimate failure of syndicalism was localism not labourism, but in the main it is this section that Eklund’s attempts to integrate the ideology, the broad context and local community are strongest.
The chapter on ‘Kooris and Port Kembla to the 1970s’ is an interesting and sensitive overview of the marginalisation and resistance of local Kooris as they met the incursions of nineteenth and twentieth century morés and regulations and their progressive removal from the land. Mindful of his non-aboriginality, Eklund offers the suggestion that what is needed is ‘an indigenous writer armed with the Koori community to take Koori stories of Port Kembla into the public sphere . . . [if] . . . the local indigenous community wants such stories to have a wider currency’ (page 130).
the earlier chapters, but with the difference that it takes a long-term perspective, focusing on some of the continuities. Thus the chapter highlights the ways in which changes to local transport services, administrative boundaries, economic developments, the Great Depression and even management strategies all appeared to challenge the town’s political and social identity. The section on competing local organisations begins a fascinating tale but more on the interaction of local organisations would have been useful as an identifier for locality.
As noted earlier, the second part of the book, covering the latter half of the twentieth century, is somewhat thin and the notion of ‘locality’ is still more ephemeral. This is especially disappointing in light of the subtitle of the book. The 1960s are almost invisible while on page 176 there is a leap from the 1980s to 2001 in one paragraph. Indeed the 30 years from 1970 are covered in only 15 pages. The town of Port Kembla receives quite uneven attention.
More problematically, parts of these chapters take on an anachronistic character where the predominant cultural norms and hopes of the 1950s and 1960s are dismissed as almost unworthy. This bias is evident for example in the photograph facing page 116 of the hot strip mill from a 1955 company publication where ‘The workers in this photo are tellingly unnamed’. Yet the same is true in the photo of the staff at Fairley’s in 1937 opposite page 84, that of the Wentworth street road layers in 1937 following page 116, and that of the workers in the government quarry following page 148. All are unnamed. This kind of Ruskinesque bias diminishes the argument. These are all good and useful photo-graphs, but consistency and rigour is needed in drawing on such sources.
There are also errors of fact. For example, on page 175 Eklund asserts that nearly 12 000 jobs were lost from the steelworks in 1982-3. If that were the case the workforce by 1985 would have been about 9000 — from the high of around 20 000 in 1982. Yet records indicate that there were nearly 13 000 employees at Port Kembla steelworks in November 1984 and employment numbers remained at this level for some years. Similarly, Eklund lists J.C. McNeil as the managing director of the Steel Division. This position was held by Brian Loton, not McNeil who was director of BHP. There are other errors in the book which should have been avoided by an experienced historian such as Eklund. For example, the photograph facing page 117 is of the foundations of Number 1 Open Hearth. Yet the caption states that it is of a blast furnace, even despite the fact that the handwritten annotation on the photo states that it is of a steel furnace.
on their memories in creative and interesting ways, but it is not clear why and how they were chosen. Availability of appropriate (however defined) sources for oral history is an occupational hazard and that may have been an issue for Eklund. The difficulty is that a wider array of oral sources may have enabled more effective use of the notion of locality.
This is a bold and ambitious book which covers big and small issues over 100 years. It seeks to present the making and breaking of a steel town, taking account of the broad context and local lives. It deals with important issues which deserve thorough and scholarly analysis. The first two-thirds of the book highlight elements of such attributes, but it then fades. I hope we can see more of Eklund’s material of the early years of Port Kembla.
UNIVERSITY OFWOLLONGONG DIANAKELLY
NEWFRONTIERS OFDEMOCRATICPARTICIPATION ATWORK
Edited by Michael Gold. Ashgate, Aldershot, 2003, xvii + 326 pp., £50 (hardback)
This edited collection of conference papers on democratic participation at work seeks to combine a ‘new frontiers’ perspective with a still new-ish millennium opportunity for stocktaking, reflection and renewal. It succeeds, despite rather than because of, its adoption of a quasi-scientific model of explanation. It succeeds in providing information, illustrations and insight into relatively recent European experience with the struggle (or is it now the social partnership?) for democratic participation at work. The book describes some of the conditions that have sustained or hindered democratic participation and sheds some light on possible future developments in Europe. It is, however, perhaps less about ‘new frontiers’ and more about ‘familiar territory’. It is less about the frontier of control and more about the frontier of cooperation. It will fail to convince either friend or foe of the scientific basis of democratic participation at work. Nevertheless, the scientific approach adopted provides structure, illustration and theme and thus some coherence to the perennial challenges posed by an edited collection.
The chapters in the book were originally presented as papers at a seminar of the Scenario 21 Network in December 2000 at the European Trade Union Institute (ETUI). This Network is a group of academics and researchers from across Europe who share an interest in promoting the ideals of democracy and participation and are supported by the Brussels-based ETUI. The authors, individually and collectively, draw on considerable experience and knowledge of European developments in democratic participation at work. The information and insights presented have a certain timeless quality. Nevertheless, the three-year delay till publication is both frustrating and unhelpful in reviewing the book, particularly given the dynamic yet still vulnerable nature of the case studies that underpin the book’s argument and conclusions.
1996 out of earlier research undertaken by the Scenario 21 Network. The four propositions are: (i) that different forms of employee participation can be cumulative and may mutually reinforce each other; (ii) that major shifts in employ-ment relations require innovative approaches to employee participation, including the need to link shop-floor and enterprise changes to local, sectoral, national and international labour issues; (iii) that appropriate conditions (including the provision of information, research, training, media and legal support) are required for the spread of participation; and (iv) that trade unions remain a crucial foundation for the promotion of participation.
These four propositions all echo key premises of the Dunstan state govern-ment’s initiatives to develop industrial democracy in South Australia over 25 years ago. The most controversial perhaps, being the debate on the complementary nature, or otherwise, of direct and indirect forms of worker participation. So much for ‘new frontiers’.
The four propositions are explored in 12 chapters organised into three parts, comprising European Union and national dimensions, sectoral and company case studies and thematic aspects primarily focusing on worker participation, working time, trade union strategy and training. The book considers an eclectic range of European experiences with chapters on European works councils, the role of the Social and Economic Councils, the Dutch information and communi-cations industry, French and Italian hospitals, the Norwegian offshore petroleum industry, new management systems in Sweden, working time issues in France and Italy, self-organisation at work in Germany, worker participation in Central and Eastern Europe, and trade union education and democratic participation in Malta.
The introductory chapter provides the expected background, summary and overview of key themes and findings in regard to the four propositions previously outlined. The new frontiers of participation are reviewed as comprising initiatives toward more concerted democratic participation in the workplace, initiatives toward more inclusive democratic participation and initiatives toward greater investment in the development of participation. The introduction includes a reappraisal of Scenario 21, particularly with a view to analysing the extent to which the data now available confirm, qualify or reject the four propositions articulated in 1996.
The editor argues in the introductory chapter that the opportunity to
. . . broker grass roots experiences and expectations at all levels of decision making by taking into account broader issues of social and economic justice and solidarity . . . may well be the most important mission for the trade union movement in the twenty-first century. Failure could lead to further social disintegration; success to a new partnership with benefits for all.
This is a strikingly similar sentiment to that expressed by the Guild Socialists and others 100 years ago about the workers’ rights case for industrial democracy. Despite this, the book has much to offer to trade unionists, managers and researchers and it should be part of any library on employee participation. For trade unionists the book provides cause for optimism and for caution: optimism that a broadly-based agenda for democratic participation at work remains on the agenda and that a foundation of representative structures and processes has been established in Europe; caution that the focus on partnership and co-operation intensifies the risks of co-option by management and the state. For managers the book provides cause for optimism and realism: optimism that high performance workplaces can be built by taking the perceived risks involved in extending democratic participation at work; realism in better understanding the scope of the broadly-based changes and the investment in time and resources required for transformative change. For researchers the book provides, as always, more questions than answers.
Finally, it needs to be recognised that the new frontiers for democratic partici-pation at work are now in China, India and Brazil. It is in these countries and the like that millions of people are grappling anew with issues of safety, control, co-operation, equity and democracy at work.
UNIVERSITY OFSOUTHAUSTRALIA STEWARTSWEENEY
PROMISEUNFULFILLED: UNIONS, IMMIGRATION, AND THEFARM
WORKERS
By Philip L. Martin. Cornell University Press, Ithaca and London, 2003, vii + 232 pp., US$22 (paperback)
This book examines why the efforts of Californian reformers in the 1970s and beyond have failed to improve farm worker wages and alleviate poverty in this industry. It examines the history and operation of the Californian Agricultural Labour Relations Act (ALRA), the key unions, the employers and the changes in immigration policy over the past quarter-century and arrives at a clear and definite analysis of the important factors.
Martin is an agricultural economist who has published several books on immigration and poverty. He writes in a clear, concise and engaging manner. At the same time, his prose is dense, making this volume an invaluable resource of facts and figures on the agricultural workforce and industrial relations.
Workers Union; part 2 examines in detail the provisions of the ALRA and a multitude of cases relating to union elections, unfair labour practices, strikes and remedies; part 3 examines non-traditional farm worker unions, as well as the role of immigration in agriculture.
Martin’s historical analysis charts the influence of political change, union strategies, immigration policy and employer policy on the final outcomes. He concludes that the continued immigration of large numbers of poorly educated men from Mexico and the Caribbean is the major factor undermining attempts to upgrade farm labour wages and living standards. An associated factor was the switch by employers from the 1980s onward from direct hiring to the use of contractors. In this, there are parallels with sectors in Australia which make extensive use of sub-contracting to employ very low-paid immigrant workers, such as non-unionised areas of clothing and building construction. Attempts to unionise and regulate these employment arrangements have proved largely unsuccessful in both countries.
Since immigration has been shown consistently by economists to provide small but measurable economic benefits for the national economy, it is unlikely this policy will change. Moreover, Martin documents well the preference by agricultural employers for cheap imported labour and the reasons for it. Cheap labour translates into high land prices, which benefits the large businesses operating most agricultural concerns in the US. In contrast, given the low annual expenditure by most US households on fresh fruit and vegetables, Martin shows that even major wage increases for farm workers would have a negligible impact on household budgets. As such, producer claims that higher wages would hurt consumers are shown to be groundless. All this is clearly and engagingly explained by Martin in a way that makes the economics very transparent and easy to understand.
For those whose interest focuses on the industrial relations side of the issue, there is plenty of detailed analysis of Agricultural Labour Relations Board cases, with colourful descriptions of characters and circumstances. Of particular impor-tance to analysts of union strategy is the discussion of the four main industrial tactics available to farm worker unions — the strike, consumer boycott, union control of labour supply and political action. There is also an excellent discussion of how and why the United Farm Workers Union failed to keep close to its membership and run its affairs efficiently, although this factor alone does not explain the continuance of wages that are about one-quarter the average wages of non-farm workers. Martin examines why most union strategies proved ineffective in the long-run, despite some high profile union-run consumer boycotts which gained mass support from the late 1960s onwards and a temporary rise in wages and benefits in the 1960s-70s. Paradoxically, strike action in this industry actually helps growers get richer, since the inelastic demand for products like lettuces and strawberries ensures that higher sales can be generated with lower volumes of product.
and mass negative publicity is reminiscent of the ‘Fair Wear’ campaign in Australia by the Textile, Clothing and Footwear Union, though on a much larger scale. Farm worker industrial relations, it seems, is the stuff of popular media coverage in the United States.
Nevertheless, this book argues that the ‘farm labour problem’ is unlikely to disappear until curbs on immigration and abandonment of ‘agricultural exceptionalism’ (the notion that agriculture is different from other industries), as promoted by employers, finally occurs. It paints a credible scenario of what would happen if this alternative policy course were taken — fewer farm workers, but higher wages, more mechanisation and little impact on consumer food costs. In contrast, the book ends with the spectre of continuing poverty and social exclusion of a large section of US workers if the current policy continues. One wonders, however, whether Martin’s analysis is too rooted in a deregulated labour market framework to consider alternatives to curbs on immigration. Minimum wage legislation for farm workers seems an obvious alternative. Given that he indicates that higher wages would not have a large effect on product demand, it is reasonable to question whether such legislation would affect labour demand significantly and assist in raising living standards.
Promise Unfulfilled is recommended to anybody interested in the role of immigrant workers in a Western capitalist economy, industrial relations and its history in the US and the economics of immigration and industrial relations.
VICTORIAUNIVERSITY SANTINABERTONE
GOINGPUBLIC: THEROLE OFLABOR-MANAGEMENTRELATIONS IN
DELIVERINGQUALITYGOVERNMENTSERVICES
Edited by Jonathan Brock and David B. Lipsky. Cornell University Press, Ithaca and London, 2003, vi + 320 pp., US$30 (paperback)
This book is the ninth in a series on public sector employment relations published under the auspices of the Industrial Relations Research Association. Like the preceding monographs, Going Publicfocuses on the changing workplace and the ensuing pressures on workplace actors. The specific setting for this book is the US public sector, which employs around 40 per cent of the country’s union members. Pressures for reform in the US, as elsewhere, have been intense, and many of them have directly affected union–management relations. With its focus on the ‘growing and promising practice of cooperative relationships’ (page 3) between labour and management, the book comprises a series of essays by a number of authors divided into three broad sections. These sections explore, first, the critical issues in public sector collective bargaining; second, the balance between equitable employment practices and efficient service delivery; and third, the effect of the structure of labour–management relations on the quality of service.
bargaining in the public sectors of the US, Japan, Australia, New Zealand and Canada through privatisation and contracting out. The breadth of the chapter makes it a necessarily limited, if otherwise useful contribution. Thomson and Burton take up the issue of declining US unionisation rates in chapter 2, arguing that while the overall rates for federal and state governments have remained relatively stable over the past few decades (thus providing unions with an ongoing representational presence in the workplace), this has not led to greater cooperative labour–management relations. Indeed, at the federal level, unions have been under threat from current privatisation policy (which, if implemented, will affect the jobs of half the civilian workforce) and the limitations on collective bargaining rights.
The second section opens with a case study describing successful union– management co-operation during the relocation of city fire stations in Indianapolis. From this particular management-driven initiative, chapter 4 moves to a knowledge-worker environment and considers the role and responsibility of union leaders spearheading the delivery of quality services. Tobias, in a polemic piece, argues that ‘if unions can enhance knowledge-worker satisfaction by creating opportunities for meaningful participation, worker productivity will be enhanced, thereby satisfying management needs’ (page 126). The final essay in this section, by Ospina and Yaroni, continues the cooperative labour–management theme by arguing that such relations should be the norm rather than the exception in the public sector. From their empirical study of three cases of successful labour–management co-operation they provide a taxonomy of behaviours (competencies) identified as conducive to co-operative relations.
The expectations of union–management co-operation in the US public sector by the contributors to Going Public, particularly those advocating a more proactive role by union leaders, belie the ideology of the current Bush adminis-tration, which is actively seeking to avoid (and even eliminate) unions and a labour law regime which does not consider alternatives to litigation or collective bargaining. The empirical work presented demonstrates that the many employers, employees and unionists support a more cooperative work environ-ment. So, while not offering solutions to these dilemmas, the contribution of
Going Publicis in its identification of the source of tensions between the rhetoric and (limited) practice of labour–-management co-operation in the US and the reality of its political and legal barriers.
VICTORIAUNIVERSITY BERNADINE VANGRAMBERG
LEADERSHIP INORGANIZATIONS: CURRENTISSUES ANDKEY TRENDS
Edited by John Storey. Routledge, London and New York, 2004, xiii + 349 pp., £23 (paperback)
On the very first page of this overdue but nevertheless most welcome assessment of leadership, John Storey reveals some quite telling statistics. A literature search of the word ‘leadership’ on the Amazon.com website netted an astounding 11 686 results. In terms of the focus of current scholarship, a much more sobering encounter may be experienced if the search term is restricted to ‘leadership and development’. This netted Storey a mere 4.8% of the total results.
If the Amazon.com experiment isn’t enough to convince the reader that we are up to our armpits in publications about leadership, then consider this measured deconstruction of the Ebsco database. Ebsco, which indexes and abstracts publications on business and management, listed a mere 136 published articles on leadership from 1970–1971. Fast-forward to 1980–1981 and the number doubles to 258. By 1990–1991 the total inflates to over 1100 articles but within another decade (2001–2002), the total is an overwhelming 10 000 or so publications. Add to this the myriad of workshops and development courses and you get some impression of the magnitude of the leadership ‘business’; a business which attracts an annual corporate expenditure of over $40 billion in the US alone each year.
The answer is the regurgitation of a familiar thesis which remains deficient, inadequately tested and debated, and ineffectively scrutinised. This thesis posits that the environment has forced organisations to respond to increasing uncer-tainty, instability and unregulated competition. Thus, there is a perceived need to change organisational shape, size, scope and methods of operation. With scarce resources, flatter structures and employees in need of motivation and direction, change-management has thus dominated organisational agendas for more than two decades. Leadership has offered a most attractive response to the challenges presented.
In considering both these questions, this book starts with the observation that there are changing interpretations about what constitutes leadership. Various essays then go on to suggest that interpretations of desired models of leadership are culturally shaped and that there are signs of a further shift which in turn raises questions about the viability and sustainability of the charismatic-transformational model. In parts 5 and 6, leadership development issues in both the private and public sectors loom as an additional concern. Many of the essays here are critical of the conventional methods of leadership development and consider some alternative approaches.
Several of these essays consider the processes involved in leadership training and development. The success or otherwise of this depends, of course, on whether it is possible to ‘learn’ leadership or whether, indeed, leadership can be taught. These questions are old chestnuts in the arena of leadership scholarship but current trends in leadership research point to a negative answer to both questions. Antonacopoulou and Bento suggest in their essay that these questions are redundant as leadership in their view is learning. They explore the notion of ‘learning leadership’ as one which focuses on the ‘learner’ discovering and experiencing leadership from within. This is seen as manifesting itself as a continuous process rather than something which can be conferred by others.
Alternatively, Graham Mole argues that any attempt to teach people the ‘universals’ or the fundamental ‘truths’ of leadership is virtually doomed to failure. Mole contends that leadership is a job and should be perceived as such. Jobs can be analysed and Mole’s view is that analysing leadership as a job can enlighten us as to what is effective performance and what is not. Armed with this knowledge, says Mole, we are provided with the basis for modelling it (in behavioural terms) as a means by which to learn.
Leadership in Organizations is a particularly thought-provoking book which leaves the reader contentedly mugged by a welcome reality. But it does not do it all for us. While it clarifies some important debates within leadership scholarship, it leaves both scholars and practitioners still locked into others — the somewhat circuitous debates around the issue of leading diversity, particularly in terms of gender, is a case in point. But it would be indulgent to end on this criticism. Storey and his collaborators have performed a valuable service by providing us with a more practical route through what often seems an almost impenetrable forest of leadership scholarship and debates.
UNIVERSITY OFSYDNEY HARRYKNOWLES
THENEXTUPSURGE: LABOR AND THENEWSOCIALMOVEMENTS
By Dan Clawson. Cornell University Press, Ithaca and London, 2003, xii + 235 pp., US$19 (paperback)
With trade union density dipping under 10 per cent in the US private sector, this book argues for a ‘fusion’ between various progressive social movements. True to his activist roots, Clawson moves beyond calls for membership and leadership diversity within unions, toward alliances between the trade union movement and new social movements. By ‘fusion’ he means that distinctions between movements are abolished ‘such that it is no longer clear what is a “labor” issue and what is a “women’s” issue or an “immigrant” issue’ (page 194).
Organised in seven chapters, The Next Upsurgehighlights selected successful union campaigns in each chapter. The book commences with two chapters reviewing 1930s US trade union expansion and the New Deal system. The social movement nature of trade unionism is highlighted in this period, providing Clawson with the basis of his argument that social movement fusion will provide the impetus for ‘the next upsurge’. From this historical base the book moves to the empirical data, gathered from case study evidence. The focus in these next two chapters is sex and colour. In the first of these Clawson uses the term ‘gender’ to refer to ‘sex’ and his analysis extends only to women entering the masculinist domain of trade union activism. This is confounding to those active in the new social movements and betrays a need for old-style, class-based movement activists to incorporate, for example, gay liberation and queer theory. Here we witness that even a progressive ‘fusionist’ can write queers out of history, leaving one to wonder if there is, after all, any hope.
and shows that Clawson has his finger firmly on the pulse, impressing as he does with a discussion of new technology as an organising tool.
But the general argument is flawed. Offe has shown in his ‘triangulation theory of social movement interaction’ that the working class may or may not align (or fuse) with the interests of the new social movements. It may be that the new social movements line up with capital against the working class, or that capital and unions array against the new social movements. While ‘fusion’ is certainly a possibility, moving and switching alliances seem more the reality of social movement interaction today. Clawson could have been more rigorous in this respect. While it is edifying to hear of the successes of ‘fusion’, what of the failures, and to what extent is ‘fusion’ taking hold, or does it still only consist of disparate odd cases, beyond the mainstream? More information needed to be supplied by Clawson to address these important questions.
