Explore the vast range of titles available.

InThe Politics of Social Inclusion and Labor Representation, Heather Connolly, Stefania Marino, and Miguel Martínez Lucio compare trade union responses to immigration and the related political and labour market developments in the Netherlands, Spain, and the United Kingdom. The labor movement is facing significant challenges as a result of such changes in the modern context. As such, the authors closely examine the idea of social inclusion and how trade unions are coping with and adapting to the need to support immigrant workers and develop various types of engagement and solidarity strategies in the European context. Traversing the dramatically shifting immigration patterns since the 1970s, during which emerged a major crisis of capitalism, the labor market, and society, and the contingent rise of anti-immigration sentiment and new forms of xenophobia, the authors assess and map how trade unions have to varying degrees understood and framed these issues and immigrant labor. They show how institutional traditions, and the ways that trade unions historically react to social inclusion and equality, have played a part in shaping the nature of current initiatives.The Politics of Social Inclusion and Labor Representationconcludes that we need to appreciate the complexity of trade-union traditions, established paths to renewal, and competing trajectories of solidarity. While trade union organizations remain wedded to specific trajectories, trade union renewal remains an innovative, if at times, problematic and complex set of choices and aspirations.

[...]the emergence of new business models in the economy, the introduction of new technologies at work, and the proliferation of atypical forms of relations between workers and their “company” have led to a proliferation of challenges in the labor market that have generated difficulties in the implementation of traditional trade union regulatory tools and repertoires (Keune, 2013). [...]while globalization in the shape of mobile and increasingly powerful multinational corporations –and the deregulation of workers and social rights in a range of national contexts– has reduced trade union power broadly speaking in terms of strike rates and the effectiveness of national union structures (Baccaro and Howell, 2017), we have nonetheless also seen incumbent trade union bureaucracies grappling with new forms of worker activity as they seek to maintain more traditional and institutional forms of engagement with the state (Piazza, 2010), although there has been some discussion regarding the nature of union revitalization in recent years (Murray, 2017) and new waves of union-led protest in various contexts since mid-2022 require any pessimistic views about unions to be cautious. [...]although we are beginning to see significant changes in work- and employment-related politics, it is the national context (in terms of a country's legislation, economic structures, trade union political identity, and specific labor market institutions) that remains the key arena for researchers studying patterns of trade union and labor protest across European countries. Recent changes in European trade unionism: new trade union cleavages, trade union renewal, and new labor subjects New types of organization advocating for workers' rights and working conditions are emerging in response to this new, neoliberal, economic context.

Spain was one of the countries at the heart of the work of Manuel Castells due to its history of urban struggles and labour–urban based alliances. It formed one of the key examples of city movements and the democratisation of urban spaces. The 1960s and 1970s were seen to throw up a range of new types of urban mobilisation and engagement—in part based on issues of internal migration and its urban and employment impact. With the changes in Spain during the late 1970s and 1980s—which were economic, political and social—this dimension of urban politics steadily fell away, although Spain continued to exhibit unique organisational forms at the level of the local state and local civil society. Civic politics were linked to local associations in a curious way, but the extent of mobilisation had changed due to the steady institutionalisation of urban and labour movements (and a weakening of their relations). However, this civic dimension began to re-emerge with the strong wave of immigration after the mid 1990s when, from being a country with one of the lowest levels of first-generation immigrants, it has become the European country with one of the highest. The paper focuses on the way migrant organisations and trade unions have organised in relation to migrants in the labour market. It shows how the legacy of previous mobilisations and structures continues to provide a framework for the politics and inclusion of migrant communities. However, it also argues that much of the new urban politics of migration has been influenced by a service delivery—leading to a similar set of outcomes that faced the indigenous urban movements of the 1960s and 1970s. This is of theoretical significance to how we see network and urban politics in relation to unions and employment relations.

This essay argues that the notion of there being a decline in collectivism does not adequately engage with a whole new set of initiatives within labour process theory on collectivism in its various forms. These debates demonstrate how diverse social influences and experiences, and the memory of previous experiences and collective endeavours, are essential features that must be acknowledged in terms of their implications. There are series of interventions on occupational identity, the everyday lives of workers, gender and ethnic relations and the experience of work that nourish our understanding of collectivism as a more complex and broader concept. Furthermore, how features and relations are mobilized, linked and developed is becoming a vital feature of how collectivism should be understood. It is argued that the nature of these relations needs to be a greater focus of the debate if we are to develop a more dynamic view of collectivism, and a more relevant one.

In this article we explore the question of how as sociologists of work we might research those who constitute the substance of our labour process. We approach this question through an examination of the new management practices debate, principally in the labour movement where a distinctive and critical view of NMP developed in the late 1980s. Second, we argue that there is a link between this debate and the wider politics of labour process discussion both within and beyond the labour movement which has witnessed a shift away from an earlier engagement with worker interventions. In response we suggest the need to re-evaluate the nature of academic engagement with labour thus reanimating a closer engagement with labour-in-work and collective worker narratives.

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to reflect on some of the problems and issues emerging from the changing role of the state in the UK’s industrial relations since 1964 – the year the Labour Party was elected to power under Harold Wilson’s leadership. The paper argues that the UK has seen an uneven set of developments in terms of the role of the state in the industrial relations system. Increasingly progressive interventions on a range of subjects such as equality, health and safety and others have coincided with a greater commercialisation of the state and greater fragmentation. Design/methodology/approach – This is based on a reflective review of various texts and a personal interest in the role of the political in the arena of employee relations. It references a range of texts on the subject of the state in the context of the UK’s employee relations system. Findings – In political terms there has been an uneven and incoherent set of positions which have meant that there is a growing set of tensions and breakdown in the political consensus over worker rights. In addition, the agencies of the state and other state bodies entrusted with the development of a more socially driven view of industrial relations have been increasingly and steadily undermined and weakened by governments especially those on the right. The political context of industrial relations has become fractured and unable to sustain a coherent longer term view. Originality/value – The paper tries to bring out the role of the political context and the way in has shaped the changing terrain of industrial relations and argues that the question of fragmentation is not solely visible in employee relations but in the broader political context.

The article shows that community initiatives take different forms and are the outcome of a broader interplay of factors between workers' interests, representation, and the strategies of unions and broader coalitions that are mobilized in specific communities. Drawing from three case studies on black and minority ethnic (BME) workers and trade unions in the UK the article looks at how the rhetoric of community unionism has been adopted in an uneven manner by trade unions: the article suggests that: (a) community initiatives are variable, (b) they lack a structure and clear vision, (c) the question of BME engagement is rarely central in many projects, and (d) the ambivalent role of the state is a significant factor in many of these initiatives. This state role is downplayed in much of the literature, thus raising dilemmas in terms of community initiatives.

This article aims to outline some of the ways in which issues of migration and employment relations have been studied in the European context, cross referencing recent interventions in the USA. The argument is a discussion of some of the different dimensions of migration and the way debates within Industrial Relations have been shaped. More specifically, the article will look at the way trade unions have made the ethical turn towards questions of migration and equality. The article will observe the way these issues have been academically framed and the manner in which the 'problem' of migration is conceptualized. It will attempt to provide a framework for discussing the way we have been analysing these issues and the ethical dimensions of these discussions. The relevance of the article is that institutionally responding to migration is not solely a question of adjusting employment relations or Industrial Relations institutions to various 'new' constituencies. The article will show that the topic raises issues as to how we actually understand what the study of employment and especially Industrial Relations are. The article also argues that there is a growing need for researchers to be aware of ethical issues when studying in the area of migration, and to be sensitive to competing voices and methodologies in this area. In particular we need approaches that are multidimensional and that emphasize the history and context of change in social constituencies, the new mechanisms of representation within communities, the role of the political in terms of discourses and resources, and the broad play and spaces of regulation and social policy.