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This article advances the historiography of port cities, waterfront trade unionism and imperial solidarity by comparing two distant places that, despite their colonial connections, are rarely juxtaposed: Britain and Australia. It investigates the relationship between the metropole and the periphery via the Great Dock Strike of 1889 in London (a 5-week dispute that ended in victory for the dockers) and the Australian Maritime Strike of 1890 (a 12-week strike that ended in defeat for the workers). This research shows how the responses to the strikes from the other side of the world reflected the characteristics of port cities and their waterfront workers. They were also largely determined by three neglected themes - the extent of colonial ties, the uses of the new telegraph network, and the impact of trade cycles - and how these themes influenced each other. The first theme develops and complicates Bernard Porter's argument that Britons were indifferent towards imperial affairs. On the one hand, this article confirms his position by showing the asymmetry of imperial relations between the outward-looking Australians and the mainly inward-looking Britons. On the other, it demonstrates how imperial connections led to solidarity, and how Britain's working-class leaders embodied an elitist imperial mindset. In doing so, this article draws new parallels between Britain's working-class leaders and colonial administrators. Despite their different roles and educational backgrounds, both groups - imbued with a sense of imperial superiority - demonstrated a similarly paternalistic approach in their work overseas. Therefore, imperial solidarity in port cities is a prism through which the prevalence and impact of the British imperial ethos - a far wider subject - can be illuminated and assessed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to understand the changing dynamics of internal labour market segmentation intertwined with the history of working-class struggle in an industrial belt in India's National Capital Region (NCR). Nuances of workers' class struggle in the automobile sector in Delhi-NCR over the last 15 years have shown that unity between permanent and contract workers was key to several successful struggles against worsening work conditions and management control within the global value chains of automobile production. Our fieldwork findings, along with direct and indirect political engagement in the region, reveal that increasing salaries and allotment of supervisory roles to small sections of permanent workers, coupled with the simultaneous fragmentation a lower strata of workers into multiple categories with very low salaries, benefits and heavy workloads, have been significant attempts by capital to break class solidarity among different sections of workers. Relatively pro-labour legislation and trade unions tend to concentrate in high-wage zones, while low-wage and precarious employment remains unprotected by such institutional mechanisms. Labour segmentation is inherent to capitalist exploitation, guarded by institutional mechanisms. Advanced mechanisation reduces distinction of skill requirements between highly paid permanent and lowly paid contract workers. In this context, labour segmentation is a political response to trade unionism from the side of capitalist management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Copyright of Etnográfica: Revista do Centro de Estudos de Antropologia Social is the property of Centro em Rede de Investigacao em Antropologia and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Recent debates about the most appropriate political agents for realising social justice have largely focused on the potential value of national political parties on the one hand, and trade unions on the other. Drawing on the thought of Murray Bookchin, this article suggests that democratic municipalist agents – democratic associations of local residents that build and empower neighbourhood assemblies and improve the municipal provision of basic goods and services – can often also make valuable contributions to projects of just social change. I identify a long-term and a more short-term argument for the value of democratic municipalist agency in Bookchin's thought and claim that the latter provides a compelling case for the valuable contributions this form of action can make to the achievement of a wide variety of visions of social justice. This provides a useful partial corrective to recent political theorising about the nature of the partisanship and trade unionism necessary to secure social justice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Historia Actual Online is the property of Asociacion de Historia Actual and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This paper offers a reinterpretation of Eduard Bernstein's theory of evolutionary socialism. It does so by examining the leading role that he envisioned for unions of skilled workers in the socialist movement. During his time in London in the 1890s, Bernstein's engagement with English Fabianism led him to emphasize the proletariat's differentiated nature. He claimed skilled workers most readily organized and became the first proletarians to develop class consciousness. Unskilled workers, on the other hand, remained largely unorganized and estranged from the socialist movement. Bernstein opposed the socialist political strategy of nationalization because it would subordinate unskilled workers to party revolutionaries rather than realize cooperative self-government in industry. This focus on promoting industrial self-government made Bernstein stress the importance of workers' further unionization and adoption of skilled unionists' method of collective bargaining. This would produce socialist cooperation because it facilitated cooperative wage determination. In Bernstein's view, skilled unionists influenced the socialist party to take political action to organize and elevate more proletarians to class consciousness. In contrast to those who claim Bernstein prioritized the party's autonomous ethical appeals and legislation, I emphasize his focus on union-party interactions and defense of unions as central for the advance into socialism's cooperative society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Little is known about Libyan trade unionism and its role in the Arab workers' movement. Drawing on a variety of archival sources, this article contributes a general overview of trade unionism in Tripolitania and Cyrenaica from the time of the British Administration (1943–1951) until 1957. In this period, the Libyan General Workers Union (LGWU) emerged as the main workers' organisation and the first trade unions laws were promulgated. Since 1957, with the establishment of the Petroleum Workers Union and the presence of foreigners working in oil companies, the LGWU's supremacy as a representative of Libya's workers waned, and Libyan unionism entered a new phase. This article chronicles the unknown history of Libyan trade unionism and highlights the significance of trade union internationalism, specifically, the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions in Libyan labour affairs. This research discusses internal enablers as well as frictions within the labour movement, which ultimately hampered its social and political influence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Archivos de Historia del Movimiento Obrero y la Izquierda is the property of Archivos de historia del movimiento obrero y la izquierda and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This contribution explores the interplay between labour and feminist activism in Austria during the 1970s and 1980s. Focusing on the often overlooked nexus of the women’s liberation movement and the trade union movement, the analysis looks into the forms of organisation and protest used by women activists from various political affiliations on the left, including social democrats, communists and emerging alternative and green groups. These protests included the struggle for reproductive rights, conflicting ideas on the inclusion of domestic labour into labour activism, the significance of partnership as an activist concept, and the challenges of joint actions. The material is analysed using a combined source-critical and theory-driven approach, employing hermeneutic methods to reveal specific debates and the complex dynamics of cooperation and distinction in both labour and feminist activism. The study thus shows that the activism of women organised in communist, alternative (radical) left and socialist trade union contexts was part of the activist cycle of feminist movements in the 1970s and 1980s. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Cuadernos de Historia is the property of Universidad de Chile, Facultad de Filosofia y Humanidades and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The annals of working-class agitational endeavours in the early nineteenth century contain more than a sprinkling of rogues who ran off with money, and renegades who abjured their earlier beliefs. They also include a few turncoats and traitors who turned their backs on their former colleagues and went over to the 'other side'. This article explores the public careers of two reform-era renegades from the West Riding woollen textile district: John Tester and George Beaumont. Both were prominent local figures who turned coat in the pivotal year of 1834. An examination of the context and nature of their treachery attests to the importance but also the fragility of local leadership. The article argues that the special place that popular leaders held in their communities went beyond notions of fame and celebrity; but that this bond, once broken, was not easily repaired. Examining the villains as well as the heroes of labour history enables us to appreciate the local energies and tensions that underpinned popular movements and to put into context the resilience of leaders who lasted the course. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: This paper aims to discuss how trade union leaders deal with the implementation of Industry 4.0 (I4.0). The study is circumscribed to the Brazilian automotive sector and came from a human-centric (Industry 5.0) concern related to issues such as organisational learning, knowledge, innovation and workplace learning. Design/methodology/approach: Case studies in two truck plants related to union participation during new product and process implementation based on Industry 4.0. Semi-structured interviews with union leaders from both plants were conducted to determine the subtle similarities and differences between the two polar types. Findings: The findings pointed out that human resources and workplace learning must be reviewed to prepare workers to face I4.0. Four themes are explored: modernisation origins; negotiation process; workers' concerns; and results and lessons learned. The findings highlight concerns about employees and job loss; replacement of workers by technological devices; workplace learning and the trade union perspective; and influence of the country's economic situation on I4.0 implementation in social systems dependent on worker tacit knowledge. Originality/value: This paper presents labour union leaders' perspectives related to the impact of I4.0 and contributes to a better understanding of industry-worker workplace learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article uses the forgotten prospect of an industrial revolution in mid-Ulster to examine the nature of the Unionist administration and deploys 'history from below' to examine and understand the tensions and contradictions at the intersection between class and sectarianism. The analysis centres on the 'Coalisland Miracle', when Unionist insider, Sir Samuel Kelly, purchased a coal mine and various other local businesses in East Tyrone during the consolidation of James Craig's Protestant Parliament. Ultimately, Unionist dreams of a new industrial revolution resembled fevered delusions as the new polity endured precarious finances and interminable economic decline. The article also analyses how complex issues of class and sectarianism played out on the ground when Ulster's leading capitalist confronted a majority nationalist workforce in an area whose constitutional future appeared to hang in the balance, demonstrating how workers struggled to secure their meagre slice of the pie, while employers, managers and the state strove to defeat organised labour. An analysis of four labour disputes linked to Kelly's scheme reveals how sectarianism worked in employment practices, a subject much talked about but seldom supported by hard evidence. The article concludes by examining an extraordinary lockout at the Tyrone Colliery itself and a subsequent and unprecedented display of working-class solidarity in 1926, when Protestant and Catholic workers united after the much-heralded Coalisland miracle turned out to be little more than pie in the sky. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Lan Harremanak - Revista Relaciones Laborales is the property of Lan Harremanak and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Beginning in the early 1970s, various communist groups decided to become active at the Bremer Vulkan shipyard. The article shows that they did not immediately go for confrontation to older trade union structures but were willing to change the movement from within. With the support of a wildcat strike at the shipyard in 1973, the New Left raised the question of alternatives. As a result, the Social Democratic works council chairman resigned because of a lack of support from his colleagues, and in 1974 some communists were elected to the works council. I argue that there was no division into old and new but rather a diverse field of actors: a disparate group of workers with different occupational status, and political approaches; works councils and shop stewards with close ties to Bremen's Social Democracy; and various communist groups that pursued very different policies and goals, sometimes joined forces, but basically fought each other—especially in conflicts—rather than taking joint action. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Historia is the property of Historical Association of South Africa and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

During the 1980s Margaret Thatcher's government attempted to reduce the economic power of the industrial working class by legislating against the trade unions and defeating the 1984–85 Miners' Strike, which saw her brand the miners as the 'enemy within'. At the time English football was an important part of male working-class culture, particularly for northern industrial workers and was coming under attack from the Government and press over football hooliganism. It has often been argued that Thatcher's trade union policies were designed to break the economic power of the industrial working class. If, through comparison, a link between this policy and the treatment of football supporters is found it will determine whether this conflict had a cultural aspect. Scholars have anecdotally made this link previously, but there has not been sufficient analysis of the comparison. This treatment will not analyse any actual links between the trade union movement and football supporters, but will focus on the Government and press treatment of football and trade unions and assess whether the Government was seeking to bind the two issues together. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Freedom of association can include the right of labour unions to take collective action in the interest of their members. In this regard, it is presumed that unions increase worker freedom. However, there is little literature on how worker freedom as self‐actualization is linked to union collective action involving coalition‐building with civil society. This article uses the notions of freedom according to Berlin (1969) and MacCallum (1967) to assess the meaning of such coalition‐building for worker freedom. It then employs a radical democratic perspective (Laclau and Mouffe 2001) of union engagement with the Just Transition in New Zealand to explore how unions enhance worker freedom. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Hallazgos: Revista de Investigaciones is the property of Ediciones USTA and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Conference Journal of Social Policy / Sosyal Siyaset Konferanslar Dergisi is the property of Journal of Social Policy Conferences/Sosyal Siyaset Konferanslar Dergisi and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Izquierdas is the property of Izquierdas, Universidad de Santiago de Chile and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Arxiu d'Etnografia de Catalunya is the property of Universitat Rovira I Virgili and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This article aims to analyse the trade union trajectory of the Movimiento Comunista (MC) and of the Liga Comunista Revolucionaria (LCR) within the Comisiones Obreras (CCOO), the main workers' organisation during the Transition. Both, the MC and the RCL actively participated in its construction, seeing the CCOO as the materialisation of the workers' United Front (FU). Both organisations maintained relations within the CCOO for many years. These relations went through moments of collaboration and sympathy, moments of distancing and later moments of stable alliance against the Partido Comunista de España (PCE) inside of CCOO. From this alliance came the Izquierda Sindical (IS), a trade union platform which for many years brought together trade unionists from the two organisations until its absolute dissolution at the end of 1991. The history of their trade union intervention can help to better understand the history of these organisations, which are still in the process of being re-discovered by the academy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the origins and development of trade unions in Spanish football. The origin of the Spanish Football Players' Union (Asociación de Futbolistas Españoles, AFE) and the process that led to the first footballers' strike held in March 1979 are specifically studied. Particular emphasis is placed upon the specific industrial and organizational contexts in which the AFE emerged, as well as on the structure, membership and leadership of this trade union. The paper argues that the AFE managed to wield considerable influence by directly challenging the authority of the controlling bodies represented by the Royal Spanish Football Federation (Real Federación Española de Fútbol, RFEF). The findings of this study shed light on the behaviour shown by RFEF, the media and football fans themselves in the face of the emergence of the football union. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since 2016, new legislation governing strike ballots has made it more difficult for trade unions to achieve a mandate for industrial action. Such a mandate now requires that a majority of members vote in the ballot. This article argues that these balloting processes are undemocratic. The turnout requirement means that a mandate for industrial action does not simply depend on its level of popular support amongst union members. This has surprising consequences. Sometimes opponents of action would be better advised to abstain, rather than to vote against it. Thus, it is not always clear how they should vote. Whatever they do, their actions may be counterproductive. Further, even when they do know how best to promote their desired outcome, there may be a conflict between voting strategically and clearly expressing their true preferences. Consequently, there is no guarantee that the outcome of the ballot accurately reflects what people really want. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Historia Actual Online is the property of Asociacion de Historia Actual and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Sociohistórica: Cuadernos del CISH is the property of Universidad Nacional de La Plata and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

We develop a 3 × 4 full‐employment small open economy model for examining the consequences of anti‐immigration policy against skilled labor adopted in the developed country on both national income and wage inequality in a source developing economy, keeping aside the aspect of immigration of unskilled labor. We find that both social welfare and wage inequality are likely to deteriorate when, ceteris paribus, the degree of distortion in the unskilled labor market is sufficiently high. In addition, through quantitative analysis we have recommended a couple of policies that are likely to lessen the adverse outcomes on both the economic indicators. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Michael McGahey was born in the Lanarkshire mining town of Shotts in 1925, a year before the general strike and miners' lockout. He died in 1999, the year that the Scottish Parliament, which he was credited with playing a leading role in bringing about, was established. McGahey had come to public prominence in the preceding decades as President of the National Union of Mineworkers Scottish Area (NUMSA) and a public face of British miners' industrial action in the 1970s and 1980s. This paper is based on trade union and archival records, as well as oral testimonies recorded with close comrades of McGahey, including his son, senior Scottish Communists and NUMSA officials. It firstly assesses the foundation of McGahey's worldview in the context of class struggle, personal and familial hardship and entering the mining industry as a young man. The second section overviews McGahey's evolution from a colliery activist to a national trade union leader, underlining his willingness to build pragmatic broad left alliances between Labour and Communist affiliated miners. Section three explores the the connection between McGahey's commitment to Communism and his support for a Scottish Parliament within the United Kingdom. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Estudos em Comunicação is the property of Labcom / Universidade da Beira Interior and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The logistics sector in France is emblematic of contemporary labor processes in the service sector, where working conditions are at the root of a long-term, but silent, health crisis. Although the unionization of French logistics workers has gained some strength since the early 2000s, struggles over wages and working conditions remained segmented and local, and were unable to contain the progressive casualization of the employment or to counter the intensification of work. This article is a reflection on the fragmented and low-intensity conflictuality of the French logistics sector. Drawing on three ethnographic studies and on quantitative data, we analyze labor conflicts in various segments of the warehouse industry during the last decade in France, and identify some of the limits of French trade union strategies toward organizing logistics workers. We show that the massive use of temporary work and the weakness of the efforts made by traditional trade unions federations prevent the emergence of a larger labor movement in the sector. We argue that the fragmentation and the very high turnover that characterizes the French warehouse industry should encourage trade unions to invest more resources, often local and rooted in logistics zones, from outside the workplace. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A common challenge for all trade unions in most of the Western world is the growing trade union density gap between young and older workers. In this paper, we examine the generational trade union gap with point of departure in the Danish case. Our data stem from two large surveys (APL II & III). We find that young workers are not more individualized; to the contrary, unorganized young workers have a growing collective mind-set. Through the lens of a life-course perspective, our data show that young workers have a growing 'fluidic' working life. Many young workers also take jobs in parts of the labor market with weak trade unions representation not allowing them to get in contact with trade unions representatives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent historiographical trends have ensured the continued relevance of the strike at the Mansfield Mills' hosiery factory in Loughborough in 1972. How this dispute, one of three in the East Midlands in two years dubbed 'race strikes' by the press, gained notoriety and were interpreted as an exemplar of British working-class racism requires re-evaluation. The article uses sources underutilized in previous studies, including the archive of the National Union of Hosiery and Knitwear Workers (NUHKW), to better understand the industry, the traditions of the hosiery craft, and how its processes of training and promotion differed from other industries that experienced 'race strikes'. This article relocates the dispute within the processes of deindustrialization, demographic and social change, workplace culture, and the importance of press reportage in shaping interpretations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Copyright of Sociología del Trabajo is the property of Universidad Complutense de Madrid and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

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Copyright of Izquierdas is the property of Izquierdas, Universidad de Santiago de Chile and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Izquierdas is the property of Izquierdas, Universidad de Santiago de Chile and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

In the field of labour studies and industrial relations, there's a long-standing tradition, common to both the reformist and Marxist left, of focusing the analysis on the trade unions, the par excellence form of workers' organization. Changes in the global political economy in the past decades have completely altered the productive and social landscape in which trade unions have historically been inserted questioning the extent to which existing trade unions are still representative of broader working-class interests. I argue that despite this adverse context, labour relations research on collective organization and conflict has remained trapped into a logic which I call, paraphrasing Marx, of trade union fetishism. My critique is a methodological call to abandon the comfort zone of the capital labour relation and of its 'symbiotic relationship' with trade unions to advance the field of study toward a truly working-class analysis, based on actually existing social processes of struggle. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Copyright of Divergencia is the property of Taller de Historia Politica and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The study of traditional industrial relations institutions in the hospitality industry (such as trade unions) is somewhat in the doldrums. This is, perhaps, unsurprising, given that the sector has historically never had high union membership. This article briefly explores the general influence of trade unions today in terms of overall membership and the concept of union density. The observed decline in the numerical (membership) strength of unions and their influence is clearly attributable to the — albeit uneven — pursuit of conservative economic policies over the last half-century. Membership of trade unions in the hospitality industry has also remained low but not collapsed completely. Extant explanations for the absence of union activity in an industry notorious for its poor conditions of employment are recounted and, employing secondary data from a number of sources, an effort is made to contextualise the present state of trade union membership and activity in the hospitality sector. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Within many coordinated market economies, labour unions have demonstrated to be key actors in shaping corporate social responsibility. Researchers have, however, paid surprisingly little attention to the role of unions in shaping corporate social responsibility strategies and responses in liberal market contexts. This article extends the emerging research on unions and corporate social responsibility through a case study which investigates union influences over corporate social responsibility within the liberal market context of Australia. We conceptualise the role of unions in corporate social responsibility in this context through an industrial relations lens with particular reference to collective bargaining. Drawing on qualitative data, the case study examines the Ford Motor Company's recent closure of its Australian assembly operations which was hailed by a wide range of stakeholders as an exemplar of 'best practice' in their assistance of displaced workers. We conclude that, while highly socially responsible, Ford's actions were far from voluntary but influenced by a combination of union influence and a 'subsidised' corporate social responsibility, where the state, unable and/or powerless to legislate good corporate social behaviour, chose to financially underwrite its cost to the firm. The study represents one of the first studies to demonstrate how unions shape corporate social responsibility strategies of firms in liberal market contexts and how 'subsidised' corporate social responsibility becomes an alternative political solution within such a context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The place of digital activism in relation to trade unionism is a crucial area of concern at a time when conditions of work, and the ability to protect workers' rights, have been transformed by a congruence of technological developments, neoliberal ideology and rising corporate power. In this brief essay, we situate digital activism in the context of the political cultures of trade unionism, highlighting in particular three fundamental divisions that have marked their development: 1) reform vs. revolution; 2) internationalism vs. nationalism; and 3) the relationship with political parties and business. Whilst this has meant that there have been elements of conflict and factional alliances within the labour movement, the dominant form of trade unionism, certainly in Europe and North America, advanced a position based on a corporatist model rooted in hierarchical structures, centralized control and formal routes of negotiation, most notably through collective bargaining agreements, and often centred on a strong sense of national identity. Digital activism and the uprisings of recent years have pointed to the possibilities for wider, societal and more militant forms of resistance to emerge that have also been reflected in changes in the labour movement. Only by integrating digital activism as part of more horizontal worker-driven forms of organization and articulating an alternative vision of society (including the organization of technology) in alliance with other communities and social movements, can the labour movement start to rise to the challenges of the current crises facing the world system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]