Trade Union Movement Research Articles

Trapped in uncertainty: the existential challenges of the trade union movement in Zimbabwe after 2000

Trapped in uncertainty: the existential challenges of the trade union movement in Zimbabwe after 2000

Fighting fires – firefighter organising in the UK

8 | International Union Rights | 26/1 FOCUS | UNION RIGHTS OF STATE ADMINISTRATION AND ESSENTIAL SERVICES WORKERS Fighting fires – firefighter organising in the UK Last year, the Fire Brigades Union (FBU) celebrated our centenary as the representative voice of firefighters across the UK. Our celebration was cause for much reflection on our role at home and internationally in developing our service and protecting our members. One hundred years ago organising firefighters into trade unions was heavily proscribed in the UK. There were hundreds of small local brigades, with almost half within police fire brigades and therefore closed to trade unionism. National funding and national standards were nonexistent . Poorly funded local arrangements meant fragmented services according to luck and circumstance, rather than risk. Firefighters’ generally lived and worked at their fire station, often for shifts of 100 hours a week. They were paid a pittance. The ‘Fireman’s Trade Union’ (FTU) was formed in 1918, during the great drive to unionise workers that swept through much of the industrialised world. The union would struggle to recruit more than a few thousand members in its early years. It was initially denied the right to bargain collectively and to strike. But the union allied itself with the wider trade union movement and affiliated to the Labour Party during the 1920s. It fought to establish a national legislative framework for firefighting during the 1930s and organised the influx of auxiliaries drafted into the fire service before and during the Second World War, leading to a significant growth in membership and influence. This enabled the FBU to play a central role in shaping the post-war fire service architecture. The union was instrumental in establishing collective bargaining on pay and conditions through the National Joint Council in 1947 – a body that exists to this day. We also supported the national stakeholder forum, the Central Fire Brigades Advisory Council (CFBAC), established at the time and which oversaw improvements for the next half century. The union won national standards of fire cover and campaigned for better equipment and training for firefighters. The union took its first industrial action, the spit-and-polish work to rule in the early 1950s and its first national strike action in 1977, winning a pay formula and a 42-hour week. The union established high levels of membership density in the industry – around 90 percent – which has been crucial in making and defending gains. The neoliberal turn The FBU has faced relentless attacks on our right to organise over the past forty years, starting with the Thatcher administration in 1979. Successive governments have threatened to roll back our fire and rescue service through cuts, reorganisation and antiunion legislation. Chief fire officers tried to get firefighters exempted from health and safety legislation, while central government attacked national standards of fire cover, building regulations and other fire safety matters. Ministers tried in vain to introduce privatisation into our public service, meeting a robust response from the union at every turn. Sadly the advent of Tony Blair’s new Labour government in 1997 did not improve the situation. In fact that administration weakened fire safety law, torn up the national framework, scrapped much of the national infrastructure for fire safety standards (such as the CFBAC) and tried to impose a regional fire control model. The FBU fought a bitter battle to increase firefighters’ pay in 2002-03 and faced outrageous attacks from leading Labour ministers. The union also fought many local battles, including taking strike action to defend local services. The last decade has seen the fire and rescue service in the UK battered by the economic downturn and by central government austerity. The Tory-led governments since 2010 have reduced central funding by more than 40 percent, cutting one-in-five firefighter jobs in the process and damaging national resilience to fire and other hazards firefighters tackle. This unprecedented austerity was part of making workers’ pay for a crisis we did not cause. That struggle continues today. Austerity Britain The Tory-led Westminster government launched an assault on public sector pensions, seeking to make millions of workers including firefighters pay more, work longer and still receive less when they retire. The FBU has fought a...

Trade unions fight for urgent climate action

UK trade unions made a giant leap forward in September this year supporting the most radical climate politics agenda to date. At TUC Congress, delegates voted overwhelmingly to support the school student climate strikes. Extinction Rebellion mobilisations have brought workplaces and cities to a standstill. Then at Labour Party conference, where affiliated trade unions make up half of the votes, a socialist Green New Deal motion was carried after an enthusiastic debate. The most eye-catching commitment was for the Labour Party, in collaboration with the trade unions and the scientific community, to ‘work towards a path to net zero carbon emissions by 2030, guaranteeing an increase in good unionised jobs in the UK, and the cost of which would be borne by the wealthiest not the majority; and implementing this target into law if it achieves a just-transition for workers’. Matt Wrack – general secretary of the Fire Brigades Union (FBU) – moved the motion on behalf of most unions and more than 100 Constituency Labour Party branches that had submitted the text, committing the Labour Party to ‘a state-led programme of investment and regulation, based on public ownership and democratic control, for the decarbonisation and transformation of our economy that reduces inequality and pursues efforts to keep global average temperature rises below 1.5°C’. Perhaps the most significant demand concerned the ability of trade unions to take collective action over climate matters. The resolution stated: ‘Repeal all anti-union laws, facilitating worker-led activism over social and political issues, including climate change.’ Labour’s manifesto for the December 2019 general election committed the party in government ‘to achieve the substantial majority of our emission reductions by 2030’, ban fracking and take energy firms and railways into public ownership. It also committed to ‘repeal anti-trade union legislation including the Trade Union Act 2016 and create new rights and freedoms for trade unions to help them win a better deal for working people’. Origins of green stewards Although many commentators saw this as a new development, trade unionists in the UK have been campaigning for climate action at work for three decades. In 1988 a TUC memorandum submitted to the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution, demanded ‘the need to involve trade union representatives in decision making at the workplace about environmental protection policies’. 1988 was of course the year that climate science hit mainstream politics. At TUC Congress 1989 and 1990 speakers referred to ‘green shop stewards’ and ‘green strikes’. The TUC’s Charter for the Environment (1989) stated that trade unions needed to be more active around the issue of global warming. Congress 1991 called for union reps to have the statutory rights for inspection, information and training on environmental issues. Labour’s policy statement, An Earthly Chance (1990) stated that ‘trade unions should have the right for time off to receive training in environmental matters’. Labour’s statement, In Trust for Tomorrow (1994) pledged that a Labour government would ‘introduce a statutory obligation for companies to consult their workforce over environmental issues, in just the same way as they currently have to consult on health and safety matters’. Trade unionists kept the flame of union climate action alive during the gloom of the Blair and Brown years (1997-2010), when the prime minister boasted that the UK had ‘the most restrictive union laws in the Western World’ and when the union voice was marginalised within the Labour Party. Let’s not forget it was Margaret Thatcher who blazed the trail for anti-union legislation. Successive Employment Acts, starting in 1980, restricted lawful picketing to one’s ‘own’ place of work, removed the closed shop, restricted the right to take secondary action (eventually to one’s ‘own’ employer) and imposed only six pickets on a picket line. By 1990 all secondary action was unlawful. Solidarity – the guiding principle of the trade union movement for decades – was denied by legal diktat, imposed by the police and enforced by the courts. These laws are a dagger in the heart of our movement. Only with the election of Jeremy Corbyn as Labour leader have unions been restored to the centre of policy making in the party and new opportunities have...

In Mexico, a new dawn for independent unions?

In April 2019 the new government of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador began undoing 36 years of neoliberal economic reforms in Mexico. The Chamber of Deputies and then the Senate passed a labour law reform bill proposed by López Obrador’s party, the National Regeneration Movement (Movimiento Regeneración Nacional, MORENA). The reform follows Mexico’s ratification of the ILO Right to Organise and Collective Bargaining Convention, 1949 (No. 98) in 2018, after sustained pressure from national union centres and the international trade union movement over many years. (It will enter into force on 23 November 2019). The labour reform deals primarily with the rights of unions and their members. For more than half a century, a set of established, conservative ‘charro’ unions have been tied to the government and the Institutional Revolutionary Party (Partido Revolucionario Institucional, PRI), which ruled Mexico for most of that time. In return for political support, charro leaders held office sometimes for life, with no accountability to their members. Labour boards made up of representatives of conservative unions, employers, and a pro-employer government made it extremely difficult for workers to form independent organisations. In thousands of workplaces, charro unions and employers negotiated secret ‘protection’ contracts guaranteeing labour peace. Whenever workers would try to organise independently to win better wages and conditions, employers would usually claim a ‘protection’ union already represented them, posing an enormous legal obstacle to workers’ attempts to establish their own unions. Achievements and Limits of the New Labour Reform Under the MORENA labour law reform, union leaders must now be elected by direct, secret ballot, making them more accountable to members. Contracts must be public, and members must have the right to vote on them. Unions that don’t comply will lose their legal status. And labour tribunals – as part of the judicial system – will replace the old procompany labour boards. The law explicitly covers domestic workers, but not agricultural workers. The reform has been widely welcomed, explains Hector de la Cueva, director of the Independent Centre for Labour Investigation and Union Research (Centro de Investigación Laboral y Asesoría Sindical, CILAS): ‘the current reform will have a big impact. One effect will be the democratisation of charro unions, and independent unions are preparing to take advantage of the new situation. It will be good for independent and new unions. There will be a new wave of workers’ struggles - in fact it’s already happening’. The near-unanimous votes in both chambers in favour of the reform demonstrated just how badly the old unions had lost power in last July’s presidential election. Carlos Aceves del Olmo, the head of the largest charro union, the Confederación de Trabajadores de México (Confederation of Mexican Workers, CTM) called the law ‘impossible to implement’. The old charro unions are continuing their protests, and have gone to court to stop the implementation of the law entirely. For some however, the new law did not go far enough. For one, the MORENA law did not reverse a 2012 reform allowing companies to outsource jobs (which had previously been banned). The 2012 also law allows no-cause termination during workers’ first six months on a job, part-time and temporary work and hourly pay rather than day-long rates. At the time of its passage, Arturo Alcalde - one of Mexico’s most respected labour lawyers - called the 2012 reform ‘an open invitation to employers, and a road to a paradise of firings’. Subcontracting proliferated. In Mexico City alone, 22 percent of the labour force, or about 800,000 workers, are now subcontracted. Some unions would like to address additional issues. University workers, for instance, can’t organise a national union, so each of their unions is tied to a single institution. Furthermore, the new law gives a period of four years before the labour tribunals will replace the old labour boards. During that period a growing number of workers will undoubtedly demand elections for their leaders, and will petition for legal recognition of new unions. There is no budget yet for the new tribunals and setting them up and training their personnel will be very costly. Labour Secretary Luisa Alcalde has...

AFL-CIO Against the AUCCTU: Struggle for Influence in Tradeunion Movement of Africa (the Late 1950th - 1960th)

One of important episodes of cold war is considered in the article, when two leading trade-union centers of opposing parties (AFL-CIO and AUCCTU) developed a fight for influence and attraction on their side of trade union movement of the African countries. In this context the aim not to admit strengthening of the rival in the given region and to use the influence for advancement of foreign policy of their states was pursued. The expansion of the US trade union center in Africa began in the North African region, where the AFL-CIO supported national liberation movements in these countries, helped establish national trade union centers in Algeria, Tunisia, and Morocco; the reasons for the deterioration of their relationship with the AFL-CIO in the future are considered. There are analyzed the methods used by AFL-CIO and the AUCCTU to attract African unions to their side, and the policy of balancing African labor leaders in these conditions. The changes in the policies of the Soviet and American trade union centers after 1960 (“Year of Africa”), when immediately 17 African states became independent, are analyzed. After that, the AFL-CIO and the AUCCTU identified for themselves priority countries in Africa, which are becoming a kind of «bridgeheads», «strongholds» for the development of their activities on the continent. For the AUCCTU this is Guinea; for the AFL-CIO – Kenya. It was found out how it happened that the AUCCTU actually lost its «bridgehead». The history of the confrontation between the trade union centers of the two superpowers for the influence in the trade union movement of Kenya, which became the stronghold of the AFL-CIO in Africa, is examined. The author concludes that the balance of power following the results of the struggle between the AFL-CIO and the AUCCTU for influence in Africa by the end of the 1960s evolved not in favor of the latter.

New Generation Trade Treaties – The Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership

INTERNATIONAL union rights Page 28 Volume 22 Issue 3 2015 were made to ILO Conventions, reaffirming workers ’ rights, that nothing in the agreement could bind corporations and secure enforcement of rights, and nothing was included to protect collective agreements. Finally he argued that CETA and TTIP, if agreed, would provide the opportunity for corporations to challenge differences between employment law regimes of EU member states, undermining the basis for social Europe and facilitating the race to the bottom. A north American perspective on trade agreements was provided by Ben Davies (USW). He outlined some of the differences between EU and US standards and how, in the area of chemicals, TTIP could lead to the undermining of the EU’s precautionary principle (where chemicals must not be used until evidence indicates they are safe). He provided evidence of the difficulties of using ILO conventions within free trade agreements (not least due to their low level of ratification in the US) and how the US state has not responded to the assassination of trade unionists in Guatemala, despite complaints filed under the bilateral trade agreement over 7 years ago. Despite the challenges , the USW continued to campaign and lobby actively against these new generation trade agreements and stressed the importance of building support against TTIP and CETA from among the European trade union movement. Discussions surrounding the position in Europe included contributions from Penny Clarke (EPSU) who stressed the federation’s opposition to ISDS and the liberalisation of public services, Steve French (Keele University) who examined the TTIP negotiations in the light of the proposed referendum on EU membership in the UK and Ben Richards (Unite) who examined the issues in building support across European trade unions to oppose free trade agreements. He highlighted the contrasting positions of CO Industri (Denmark) and CGT-FTM (France) within IndustriALL-Europe and how agreement was being forged around key principles which had to be applied in any new generation agreement. The final speaker was Labour MEP, Judith Kirton-Darling, who stressed the opportunity that the new generation trade agreements might play in re-regulating international trade, and the role of Labour MEPs within the social democratic bloc within the European Parliament in trying to secure opposition to TTIP if it did not exclude ISDS, public services and secure binding labour rights. She highlighted the difficulties in building a coalition to oppose TTIP in the Parliament, and the difficulties in gaining access to information about the treaty. In summary, the seminar was an excellent event to promote debate and understanding around the complex and apparently remote topic of international trade agreements for many trade unionists. to be added T his is a brief report of a three-day seminar organised by Unite the union in July 2015, focusing upon the growth of free trade agreements and trade union responses. Opening the seminar Adrian Weir (Assistant Chief of Staff, Unite) placed the seminar into context, outlining how Unite had adopted a position of opposing TTIP in in its entirety at its policy conference in July 2014 and how this position had been adopted in relation to the proposed TTIP, CETA, TPP and TISA trade agreements at the 2014 TUC Congress. Finally, the steering group of Workers Uniting (Unite-USW partnership) had committed to full opposition to these new trade agreements. The seminar was then addressed by Peter Rossman (IUF) who outlined how the development of the new generation trade agreements, starting with NAFTA in 1994, was little to do with removing trade barriers, and focused upon protecting the investment rights of transnational corporations . One example was the attempt to extend trade deals to services, affecting those services associated with manufacturing as well as public services traditionally supplied by the state. Crucially, one aim of the new agreements was to apply a principle of ‘negative listing’, so that governments could only exclude services from a trade agreement at the time of signature, meaning that returning these to the public sector and excluding new emergent sectors would become impossible, locking in privatisation. This would be secured through Investor State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) clauses in agreements which allowed corporations to take governments to secret courts for loss, or even the...

Transformation 100

Transformation 100 Lindy Stiebel (bio), Rachel Matteau Matsha (bio), and Kira Erwin (bio) For anything or anyone to reach a centenary point is an enormous feat – and so it is with this issue which is Transformation's 100th, appearing in the journal's 33rd year of existence. How did we as an editorial team get here? How did the journal – one of the few independent academic journals not managed by a professional publisher in South Africa – get here? And has the journal still got anything relevant to add to public debate around the pressing issues of our day, based as we are on the south eastern edge of Africa? As with all centenaries, a longer view is now possible because there is a significant history to draw upon. In the beginning, as all good narratives start, Transformation was a journal established across a variety of disciplines to discuss the nature of change in Southern Africa, and to provide a forum for analysis and debate about South African society in transition, as well as the surrounding region, for academics from across the world. The primary focus of the journal was on contemporary society whilst, however, acknowledging the need to locate day-to-day movements and emerging broader patterns in an historical context. Of course, the late 1980s in South Africa marked the most intense final years of the struggle against apartheid, and issues of a transforming society dominated political debate, especially on university campuses. Gerhard Maré, a sociologist, Bill Freund, an economic historian, and Mike Morris, an economist, founded Transformation in 1986. Maré came from the journal Work in Progress which he had co-founded, Morris from some years in the independent trade union movement, and Freund from living and researching in other parts of Africa. All three were based in Durban at the then University of Natal. The editorial of issue No.1 is worth outlining again here: [End Page i] Transformation is a new South African journal intended to serve as a forum for analysis and debate about this society and the surrounding region. Change seems to be definitely on the South African agenda. 'Reform' is the catch phrase of the day. Its material content will have major political and economic implications for our lives. Whether it will be fundamental, and how far reaching it will be, is the concern of all those involved in this country. Attention is intensely focused on the daily rush of events as the balance of forces and the nature of consciousness shifts. However, without clear analyses of objectives and forces impeding or facilitating advances, such struggle is in danger of becoming 'all movement and no direction'. There is, therefore, a fundamental need to situate these day to day movements and the emerging broader patterns into a current and historical framework for analysis and criticism. History, more than ever, has its own particular pertinence for all struggles to create a new future. Contemporary conditions in South Africa are altering rapidly. The balance of class forces that has shaped this society's past is undergoing a fundamental restructuring. New class initiatives are apparent with every twist and turn of struggle. Fresh contradictions and struggles for different alliances pervade all the social forces on the historical stage. As part of this process capital is reorganising its agenda in order to bring about political restabilisation and a renewed basis for sustained accumulation. There is a new terrain of state reaction, intervention and ideological experimentation. One striking aspect of the new terrain of mass politics is the openly expressed interest in socialist ideas and practices. The two catch phrases in this new mass politics are 'socialism' and 'democracy'. Sometimes they are counter posed as a political choice between 'workerists' and 'populists'; sometimes they are fused as a struggle for 'democratic-socialism'. Yet the whole question of what these concepts mean has not been seriously broached. Sectarianism, dogmatism, and violent resolution of differences of opinion too often characterise political discussions. Transformation will examine these issues in a spirit which is intended to spur debate and encourage the exposition of different considered positions but without any partisanship other than the conviction that there is no settled and established...

The British National Union of Teachers (NUT) against the background of the Cold War: An International Peace Conference between teachers in Western and Eastern Europe

The aim of this article is to explain the political and trade union stance of the British National Union of Teachers (NUT) – representing the teachers of England and Wales – against the arms race and nuclear warheads set up in the European Continent during the Cold War (1947-1991). After adopting resolutions in support of «Education for Peace» at its Annual Conferences (Jersey, 1983 and Blackpool, 1984), the NUT held an International Peace Conference (1984) involving Western and Eastern European countries in which teachers’ unions from the following countries participated: the United States, Finland, the Soviet Union, the German Democratic Republic and Bulgaria. The international event was held in Stoke Rochford Hall (England) during the British miners’ national strike against the socioeconomic reforms instituted under the governments of Margaret Thatcher (1979-1990). The article started from the methodological presupposition based on the principle of political connection on an international scale within the scope of the trade union movement of teachers. Indeed, despite differences in nationalities, the educational processes institutionalized by schooling have acquired a universal character. Thus, teachers, irrespective of their nationality, are workers who are politically committed to the cultural values consecrated by the knowledge accumulated by humanity throughout history, especially when it comes to peace among peoples. It should be emphasized that the topic addressed has never before been analysed on an international level, and that primary sources that fall within the historical context of the facts studied were used in the production of the article.

Fighting fires – firefighter organising in the UK

8 | International Union Rights | 26/1 FOCUS | UNION RIGHTS OF STATE ADMINISTRATION AND ESSENTIAL SERVICES WORKERS Fighting fires – firefighter organising in the UK Last year, the Fire Brigades Union (FBU) celebrated our centenary as the representative voice of firefighters across the UK. Our celebration was cause for much reflection on our role at home and internationally in developing our service and protecting our members. One hundred years ago organising firefighters into trade unions was heavily proscribed in the UK. There were hundreds of small local brigades, with almost half within police fire brigades and therefore closed to trade unionism. National funding and national standards were nonexistent . Poorly funded local arrangements meant fragmented services according to luck and circumstance, rather than risk. Firefighters’ generally lived and worked at their fire station, often for shifts of 100 hours a week. They were paid a pittance. The ‘Fireman’s Trade Union’ (FTU) was formed in 1918, during the great drive to unionise workers that swept through much of the industrialised world. The union would struggle to recruit more than a few thousand members in its early years. It was initially denied the right to bargain collectively and to strike. But the union allied itself with the wider trade union movement and affiliated to the Labour Party during the 1920s. It fought to establish a national legislative framework for firefighting during the 1930s and organised the influx of auxiliaries drafted into the fire service before and during the Second World War, leading to a significant growth in membership and influence. This enabled the FBU to play a central role in shaping the post-war fire service architecture. The union was instrumental in establishing collective bargaining on pay and conditions through the National Joint Council in 1947 – a body that exists to this day. We also supported the national stakeholder forum, the Central Fire Brigades Advisory Council (CFBAC), established at the time and which oversaw improvements for the next half century. The union won national standards of fire cover and campaigned for better equipment and training for firefighters. The union took its first industrial action, the spit-and-polish work to rule in the early 1950s and its first national strike action in 1977, winning a pay formula and a 42-hour week. The union established high levels of membership density in the industry – around 90 percent – which has been crucial in making and defending gains. The neoliberal turn The FBU has faced relentless attacks on our right to organise over the past forty years, starting with the Thatcher administration in 1979. Successive governments have threatened to roll back our fire and rescue service through cuts, reorganisation and antiunion legislation. Chief fire officers tried to get firefighters exempted from health and safety legislation, while central government attacked national standards of fire cover, building regulations and other fire safety matters. Ministers tried in vain to introduce privatisation into our public service, meeting a robust response from the union at every turn. Sadly the advent of Tony Blair’s new Labour government in 1997 did not improve the situation. In fact that administration weakened fire safety law, torn up the national framework, scrapped much of the national infrastructure for fire safety standards (such as the CFBAC) and tried to impose a regional fire control model. The FBU fought a bitter battle to increase firefighters’ pay in 2002-03 and faced outrageous attacks from leading Labour ministers. The union also fought many local battles, including taking strike action to defend local services. The last decade has seen the fire and rescue service in the UK battered by the economic downturn and by central government austerity. The Tory-led governments since 2010 have reduced central funding by more than 40 percent, cutting one-in-five firefighter jobs in the process and damaging national resilience to fire and other hazards firefighters tackle. This unprecedented austerity was part of making workers’ pay for a crisis we did not cause. That struggle continues today. Austerity Britain The Tory-led Westminster government launched an assault on public sector pensions, seeking to make millions of workers including firefighters pay more, work longer and still receive less when they retire. The FBU has fought a...

Lviv printings general professional assosiation of mutual assistance in 1856-1867. Analysis of activity

The attempt to analyze and show the important role of Lviv printers and to describe their role in the development of Galician society has been made in the article. This attempt has been made on the basis of documents, the principle of historicism, scientific and objective approach. The importance and problematic of the comprehensive study of the oldest history of the creation, formation and development of Lviv printers’ professional co-operation of mutual assistance has been highlighted, and the history and activities of this organization in stages have been described. In general, trade unions emerged as an independent united self-defense organizations and they were formed in the form of workers’ associations and mutual assistance funds. During the first half of the nineteenth century the crystallization of the activities of trade unions happened under the influence of various measures, hold by the administrations, the police and the authorities. This contributed to the further unification of labor and the creation of all-city union of printers in Lviv. It is quite logical that the basis of their actions was their desire to achieve and get the working solidarity, mutual support and assistance. The activities of the trade union were regulated by the statutes. First of all, the purpose of the establishment and operation of the organization was socio-economic, cultural and educational ones. Those purposes were approved by the relevant state authorities and, thus, prevented trade unions from participating in political life.The short period of the 1860-1880s can be considered to be a separate stage in the process of the formation of the mass trade union movement in Galicia. Together with the trade unions of printers, settlers, brokers, masons, carpenters, builders, tanneries, metal workers, doctors, pharmacists, tradesmen, postmen, civil servants, lawyers and many others united and became active partners of the region.The problem, which has been investigated in the article, has a valuable scientific significance as it allows to solve one of the most important issues: to get the historical understanding of activities of Lviv trade union organizations, which have not been thoroughly studied yet.

La imagen del sindicato en el siglo XXI a la luz de su contestación por los Nuevos Movimientos Sindicales

El objeto de este artículo es actualizar las críticas que el sindicato mayoritario ha venido recibiendo desde la segunda mitad del siglo XX. En especial incorporamos las provenientes de experimentaciones en el ámbito de la representación de los trabajadores surgidas a inicios del siglo XXI, denominados Nuevos Movimientos Sindicales. Entre éstas señalamos las vinculadas al cuestionamiento de su modelo de acción y participación, el alejamiento de la utopía trasformadora y la apuesta por la confrontación ante el cambio del paradigma económico, cuestionando los conceptos de diferentes recursos de poder sindical. Conclusiones sugeridas por la investigación llevada a cabo en Cataluña, cuya metodología empírica se ha basado en la revisión literaria y el análisis cualitativo de entrevistas semiestructuradas a diferentes representantes del ámbito sindical, académico y patronal.

‘Six o’clock is late enough’: the 1947 New South Wales liquor referendum

This article considers the outcome of the controversial 1947 New South Wales liquor referendum. As part of proposed reforms to liquor legislation, the New South Wales government asked the people to decide whether evening trading hours for hotel bars should be extended from six o’clock to either nine or ten o’clock. Early closing was retained with a significant majority, despite widespread recognition that early closing had created a problematic binge-drinking culture. Drawing on newspaper articles, letters to the editor, advertisements, trade journals, parliamentary records and temperance literature, this article will examine why there was such extensive public support for six o’clock closing in 1947. It will focus in particular on the role of two seemingly opposed groups – the temperance movement and the trade union movement – in the campaign to retain early closing, revealing surprisingly similar arguments used by these groups during their campaigns. The article argues that mid-century notions of restraint, moderation and respectability perpetuated public support for restrictive liquor legislation, and that temperance and trade union groups successfully capitalised on these notions in their campaign for six o’clock closing.

“Regrettably up-to-date”

Patterns of Discrimination against Women in the Film and Television Industries, a report issued in 1975 by the Association of Cinematograph, Television and Allied Technicians (ACTT), was a seminal document on gender discrimination in the workplace. Upon its publication, it was heralded as “by far the most comprehensive and informed to have been produced within the trade union movement so far” by feminist film scholar and activist Claire Johnston. However, by the time of the ACTT's first Women's Conference six years later, in 1981, Gillian Skirrow described the report as “regrettably up-to-date,” indicating that little had changed. This article examines the relationship between women and the ACTT between 1968 and 1981 to situate the report in historical context.

Праблемы фарміравання механізму забеспячэння сацыяльна-эканамічнай бяспекі прамысловага сектара з боку гледжання прафсазнага руху (Problems of Formation of the Mechanism of Ensuring Socio-Economic Security of the Industrial Sector from the Point of View of the Trade Union Movement)

Belarusian Abstract: Дэфініцыя сацыяльна-эканамічнай бяспекі прамысловага сектара, прадстаўленая з боку гледжання прафсаюзнага руху, дазволіла кваліфікаваць асновы сістэмнага страення (метадалагічныя, метадычныя, аперацыйныя), метад дэкмпазіцыі элементнага складу. Мэты фарміравання сістэмы знаходзяцца ў залежнасці ад больш важкіх і маштабных задач сацыяльна-эканамічнай бяспекі прамысловага сектара, што і вызначае прызначэнне сістэмы. Пры гэтым цяжкасці сацыяльна-эканамічнай бяспекі фармулююцца з 2-ух пазіцый. Для пачатку, з пункту гледжання абароны дзяржаўных і карпаратыўных сацыяльна-эканамічных інтарэсаў і прамысловага сектара як носьбіта дадзеных інтарэсаў. У гэтым выпатку адным з носьбітаў інтарэсаў выступае трыдавы калектыў, прадстаўніком якога з’яўляецца мінавіта адпаведны прафісійны саюз. Па-2-ое, зыходзячы з патрэбы падтрымання характарыстык функцыянавання прамысловага сектара на небяспечным узроўні. У адпаведнасці з набытымі вынікамі, намі распрацавана структурна-лагічная схема фарміравання сістэмы забеспячэння сацыяльна-эканамічнай бяспекі прамысловага сектара. English Abstract: Definition of socio-economic security of the industrial sector, presented from the point of view of the trade Union movement, helped to qualify the basics of the system strenna (methodological, operational), the method daceasy elemental composition. The goals of the system formation depend on more significant and large-scale tasks of social and economic security of the industrial sector, which determines the purpose of the system. At the same time, the difficulties of socio-economic security are formulated from 2 positions. To begin with, from the point of view of protection of state and corporate socio-economic interests and the industrial sector as a carrier of these interests. In this vipadku one of the media of interest appears tridevi team, a representative of which is suitable profesini Union. Second, based on the need to maintain the characteristics of the industrial sector at a dangerous level. In accordance with the obtained results, we have developed a structural and logical scheme for the formation of the system of socio-economic security of the industrial sector.

A socialization paradox: trade union policy cooperation in the case of the enforcement directive of the posting of workers directive

AbstractThe formulation of common political positions from the trade union movement at the European Union (EU) level mainly takes place at the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC). In the case of the Enforcement Directive of the Posting of Workers Directive, a central cleavage line runs between neither countries nor political parties, but between different vertical levels of the system of European labor relations—the sectoral and interprofessional levels. Here, due to both horizontal and vertical differences, trade unions were unable to effectively formulate and pursue joint positions. On these grounds, we aspire to provide a theoretical argument on political dynamics in the EU’s multilevel system. While the ETUC representatives internalize supranational norms through their embeddedness in the EU’s institutional landscape, this socialization process does not advance—but rather prevents—integration by disrupting trade union power at the supranational level.

Социальное партнерство и корпоративная социальная ответственность как институты регулирования трудовых отношений

Social partnership is a social institution regulating labor relations based on the trilateral cooperation of employees, employers, and the state. Although social partnership declares normative orientation toward equal cooperation and mutual interests, the reality is that participants accept this conception instrumentally and this institution can be effective only under some specific conditions. Taking into account widely recognized decline of trade-union movement in many countries, developing new mechanisms of balancing interests of employees and employers becomes increasingly important. It is proposed that corporate social responsibility (CSR) can be considered as one such mechanism. Two social institutions are compared in terms of their ability to regulate social and labor relations. It is argued that, reviewing labor relations in the broader context of stakeholder relations, the CSR has a great capacity to balance interests of companies and employees and enhance the effectiveness of social partnership.

Syrian refugees in Turkey and trade union responses

ABSTRACTThis article discusses trade union responses in Turkey to Syrian refugees against a background characterized by shrinking boundaries of union inclusion. The analysis is based on semi-structured interviews with trade union executives from confederations and affiliated trade unions in textile and garment, construction, local public services, commerce and metal sectors, and focus group discussions with union members in the workplace. At the confederation level, Turkey’s trade union movement generally adopts a solidaristic rhetoric regarding Syrian refugees and attempts to shape trade union policies accordingly. However, there is little articulation with sectoral unions and the work-place level. Sectoral unions who do not encounter Syrian workers in the workplace do not place refugee issues on the trade union agenda. Instead union-level responses foreground the negative effects of Syrian refugees on the labour market while humanitarian considerations remain secondary. Unions demand formal employment of Syrian refugees should be ensured to eliminate these problems to prevent competition with local labour leading to a race to the bottom regarding pay and working conditions. Members at the workplace level oppose Syrian refugees with an exclusionary and somewhat hostile attitude, alleging that they damage the labour market, urban security and social life.

Women's Participation in a Radical Trade Union Movement That Claims to be Feminist

AbstractThis article investigates the under‐researched topic of women's representation in radical unions, drawing on an in‐depth case study of the French Solidaires, Unitaires et Démocratiques (SUD) movement. In addition to an overview of the institutional and organizational dynamics of unions’ ‘inequality regimes’, it offers a contextually grounded analysis of the barriers and enablers of women's participation in SUD unions. More specifically, this research reflects on the complex interrelationships between class and gender in class‐based militant trade unions that claim to be feminist but fail to support working‐class female workers’ participation.

Pension Funds and the Politics of Ownership in Britain, c. 1970–86

The growth of occupational pensions in the post-war era transformed the pattern of capital ownership in Britain, as workers' collective retirement savings purchased a substantial share of the national economy. This article examines the response of the Labour and Conservative parties to this significant material change, and considers how it shaped their respective politics of ownership at the end of the post-war settlement. It demonstrates that Labour and the trade union movement recognized occupational pension funds as a new form of social ownership but had to reconcile their desire to give pension scheme-members direct control over their investments with a broader belief that the funds needed be used for a state-coordinated revitalization of the industrial economy. Meanwhile, the Conservative Party's initial enthusiasm for occupational pensions, which it championed for helping to create a 'property-owning democracy', was challenged by a radical neoliberal critique in the early 1980s that sought to dismantle pension funds and to individualize investment. The findings in the article assert the need for historians to situate the politics of the tumultuous 1970s and 1980s in the context of the substantial economic and social changes that had taken place during the post-war decades. These changes often created opportunities to formulate new policies and political agendas, but they also served to highlight deeper tensions within the ideologies of the main political parties.

Bringing Gender to the Forefront of the Trade Union Movement: A Roundtable with Women Labour Union Leaders around the World

Solidarity within the labour movement is contingent on the representation of the needs of all labouring members. Therefore, it is essential that women attain positions of leadership within the union in order to represent those interests most salient to female workers. Unfortunately, gendered proportional representation in the union executive has been a historically persistent problem at the global level and women continue to be underrepresented in positions of leadership despite their increasing participation in the labour force. Hence, the following roundtable with women labour union leaders from around the globe illuminates those systemic and institutionalized barriers that prevent women from attaining positions of leadership within the union, while also providing potential solutions to rectify this inequity. The very nature of such a project that draws on the collective knowledge of women union leaders from around the globe can invoke solidarity among those invested in achieving gender equity within unions.