Craig Phelan - Böcker

The Noble Order of the Knights of Labor was the most ambitious and significant labor organization of the Gilded Age. As the charismatic leader of this group, Terence Powderly was America's first nationally known labor leader, the first to achieve a high degree of recognition from working people, industrialists, and politicians across the continent. To most Americans, Powderly was the Knights of Labor. Based on an exhaustive examination of Powderly's voluminous correspondence, this book offers a critical analysis of Powderly's efforts to oversee the most spectacular experiment in class-wide solidarity ever undertaken.Phelan paints a sympathetic and probing portrait of a complex figure caught up in the whirlwind of local and national events. He details the challenges and pressures of labor leadership at a time when industrialization was convulsing the nation, and when the labor movement was struggling to build a viable national institution capable of creating a more egalitarian society. The national focus of this study helps to synthesize the numerous community studies written on the Knights in recent years and offers fresh perspectives on the ultimate meaning of the organization. It is the first detailed examination of the Knights' leadership since the Powderly and Hayes Papers have become available.

John Mitchell was a contradictory figure, representing the best and worst labor leadership had to offer at the turn of the century. Articulate, intelligent, and a skillful negotiator, Mitchell made effective use of the press and political opportunities as well as the muscle of his union. He was also manipulative, calculating, tremendously ambitious, and prone to place more trust in the business community than in his own rank and file.Phelan relates Mitchell's life to many issues currently being debated by labor historians, such as organized labor's search for respectability, its development of a large bureaucracy, its ambiguous relationship to the state, and its suppression of worker input. In addition, he shows how Mitchell's life illuminates broad economic and political developments in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

This book investigates the state of trade unionism in Africa’s most populous regional economic zone. With the exception of the former British colonies of Nigeria and Ghana, surprisingly little has been written on the trade union movements that have played such pivotal roles in the histories of the fifteen countries that comprise the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS). Trade Unions in West Africa is the story of how trade unions, in the face of seemingly insurmountable obstacles, have achieved a measure of success and how they remain today a weakened but still potent source of potential change in one of the most politically and economically troubled regions in the world. As the chapters in this book make clear, one of the brightest hopes for the continent is the strength of its civil society, and in West Africa, trade unionism has long been at the forefront of civil society’s efforts to make a difference.

Tomorrow It Could Be You unearths the historical significance of strikes and boycotts between 1978 and 1982 in South Africa’s Cape Province and explores their vital role in strengthening the country’s growing political movement. Drawing on archival research and interviews with union leaders, community activists, employers and workers, the author critically analyses a linchpin period between the early rise of independent unionism, following the Durban strikes of 1973, and the growth of mass political unionism in South Africa in the shape of the Congress of South African Trade Unions (1985). The book traces the evolution of political alliances between labour organisations and community activists through careful examination of four key strikes and boycotts: Eveready Battery (1978), Fatti’s & Moni’s (1979), red meat (1980) and Wilson-Rowntree (1981-1982). The author’s analysis reveals how these initial events changed the nature of South African protest, laying the groundwork for larger, more successful uprisings against the apartheid regime.

This book analyses contemporary trends in radical unionism in Europe. It contains nine country case-studies that probe the limits and possibilities of trade union renewal with a focus on radical activity. The editors follow a broad definition of radical unionism, including trade union organisations that can be characterised as radical either in terms of ideology and political identity or in terms of organising and mobilising activity. The ongoing economic crisis and consequent austerity measures, and employers’ strategies for increasing labour market flexibility have encouraged the deregulation of capitalism in Europe. The question this book asks is whether radicalised unionism, political action and grassroots activism present opportunities for union renewal and collective interest representation in this economic context. This question is examined in nine national contexts with diverse industrial relations frameworks and trade unions. The editors assess the degree to which we are witnessing the emergence of ‘radical political unionism’ as an alternative model of trade unionism in Europe, focused on class struggle, engagement in social movement activity beyond the workplace, and politicised union strategies aligned to new left-wing political formations.

With national industrial relations systems struggling to keep apace with the global and mobile nature of capital, the emergence of the European works council has caught the imagination of both practitioners and scholars of this institution in the last two decades. European works councils find themselves at the centre of an ever emerging European industrial relations landscape, offering employees of multinationals within the European Economic Area the opportunity to work together in regulating employment conditions. An in-depth empirical study of five European works councils, this book offers a unique look into factors which promote and hinder the development of solidarity amongst employees. With a sociological bent, this volume is a must for EWC delegates struggling to deal with geographical, cultural and historical factors that undermine relations between them.

The service sector has not always received the attention it merits in industrial relations research when set against its enormous economic significance. One factor in this is certainly the highly diverse nature of services. Research attention has also lagged behind long-standing processes of transnationalization undertaken by service sector companies and the challenges these pose for policy and practice in the field of employment relations. This study by Stefan Rüb and Hans-Wolfgang Platzer represents a pioneering effort to remedy this gap. Through six named company case studies, Rüb and Platzer explore the scope and background for transnational employee relations conflicts and the mechanisms that have emerged to resolve and anticipate these, highlighting the complex relationships between employee representatives, management and trade unions.The choice of case studies aims to capture a broad range of service sector employment, in terms of both working conditions and employment relations arrangements. As well as covering a number of key sectors, the choice of home countries of the selected firms also aims to capture the impact of national influences for the main industrial relations models in Europe. Overall, the study offers insights into the complexities of the Europeanization of company-level industrial relations in a dynamic field now also confronted by the convulsions unleashed by the Eurozone crisis.

This book offers the detailed historical background required for a holistic appreciation of current problems faced and the possibilities for revitalisation. In two volumes it provides introductory overviews of trade union development since the end of World War II in 26 countries from every corner of the globe. Each chapter explains the main contours of trade union growth and development in one country from the pivotal year 1945 to the present. Each chapter assesses the often dynamic expansion of trade unionism in the 1950s and 1960s; the role of trade unionism in the movements for national liberation in the Global South and the erection of social welfare systems in the developed North; the economic shocks that resulted in membership decline and loss of political influence from the late 1970s onward; the economic restructuring and growing labour market diversity of the 1980s and 1990s that undercut the traditional bases of trade union membership; and the historical roots of the contemporary political and economic context in which revitalisation efforts are taking place.