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Despite nearly three decades of ostensibly pro‐employer economic reforms in India, trade union membership and density in India appear to have risen. Although similar trends have been reported and investigated in other emerging economies such as China and South Africa, the union revival thesis in India is yet to be fully explored. Using large‐scale official survey data from 1993–1994 to 2011–2012 and primary data collected through 56 interviews with key stakeholders, this paper investigates the patterns of union membership growth in India. Findings indicate varying degrees of growth in union membership across all industrial sectors and employment types. We draw upon theoretical insights from economic theories of union growth, comparative politics and social movement unionism to explain union membership growth in India.

Women face gendered barriers to union leadership. In‐depth interviews with UK and Australian female senior trade union leaders investigated how mentoring strategies can help women overcome barriers to leadership. Formal mentoring is most important, but the interaction of mentoring and informal support networks bolsters gender equality and workplace democracy.

In the 1950s, given the scope of the Trade Disputes Act 1906 that had granted immunity against specific torts (civil wrongs) to organisers of industrial action, the courts had little role in industrial relations. Hence, the importance of the House of Lords decision in 1964 that, in threatening to strike to secure Douglas Rookes's removal from the Heathrow design office of the British Overseas Aircraft Corporation after his resignation from the union, Alfred Barnard and others had used unlawful means because a threat to break a contract of employment came within the tort of intimidation that was unprotected by the Trade Disputes Act's statutory immunities, and thus, they were liable to pay damages to Rookes. The legal arguments deployed are analysed within growing unease in the Conservative Party and among employers at the emergence of workplace union organisation and national strikes. Despite being partially neutralised by the Trade Disputes Act 1965, Rookes was a harbinger of a new judicial activism that outflanked trade unions' tort immunities by creating novel common law liabilities. This in turn laid the political basis for subsequent Conservative legislation to restrict and regulate trade unions and industrial action, a project that is ongoing.

This paper examines the strategies adopted by Irish unions in responding to zero hours work in four sectors. It concludes that rather than adopting either a passive or a uniform approach, unions have pragmatically varied their strategies to curtail zero‐hours work through actively combining both bargaining and regulatory approaches.

This article argues that Danish flexicurity is preconditioned by craft unionism that has historically been predominant in the Danish trade union movement. It is furthermore argued that flexicurity was on the verge to disappear when it became famous in the early 2000s, although yet not completely dead.

Whereas there has been considerable interest in the concept of political corporate social responsibility (CSR), trade unions have been largely omitted from such scholarly discussion. This article explores the potential of trade unions as the other in political CSR and the contribution of trade unions to deliberative democracy with the firm. We discuss the importance both of the legitimacy and the efficacy of the other in political CSR. We proceed to assess trade unions as legitimate and effective deliberative partners with the firm towards CSR, evaluating the contribution of trade unions to deliberative democracy and also the potential outcomes for trade unions in adopting this role.

This article outlines a concept for analysing practices of European works councils. Much previous research has focused its attention merely on a single institution or actor, for instance the European works council, transnational agreements or trade union federations. However, previous research in the field suggests that transnational labour relations often involve many actors on different levels inside and outside an MNC who interact, refer to different cultural patterns and draw power to act from various sources. To cover those processes, a structuration theory framework is developed that models different ‘action fields’, which actors refer to in their social practices of cross-border employee representation. The framework is illustrated with case studies of Toyota and General Motors. The benefits and limitations of the new perspective are discussed with reference to previous accounts.

This article examines a theoretically informed case study of the effects of financialisation at the workplace. It focuses in particular on trade union de-recognition and trade union recognition in the furtherance of ownership interests. The paper reports on the continued diffusion of investor-owner interests under the private equity business model which has recently witnessed the AA re-listed on the stock market. It addresses two research questions. One, how are investor-owner interests secured by trade union de-recognition and re-recognition? Two, how and why, as a de-recognised trade union, does the GMB continue to campaign for and represent GMB members in the AA when the IDU (the independent democratic union) has sole recognition at the firm?

In this article, I examine the work of the 1992–93 Labour Party Trade Union Links Review Group. I ask whether the measures it proposed amounted to a new, durable settlement that governed internal relationships within the party. I detail disagreements amongst trade unions over the format that parliamentary selections should take; I evaluate the demands for reform of the party-union link; I ask whether support for reform and for one member, one vote was falling in the early 1990s; I consider whether unions launched a ‘no say no pay campaign’ with regard to the Labour Party; I assess how much restraint was demonstrated at this time by Labour's affiliated unions and I consider what might have been at stake in these debates more generally. I conclude that there was considerable antagonism in party-union relations during the early 1990s and that the work of the review group did not amount to an enduring settlement.

This paper examines how two trade union organisations in Quebec (Canada) manage to integrate issues of concern to young members (30 years old and under) and spur changes in their agenda, structures and practices. Between 2009 and 2014, 25 interviews were conducted in these two organisations, while 41 focus group discussions were held with more than 430 members. We contend that improving young members' feeling of belonging to the union, enhancing internal network density and implementing more participatory forms of democracy are key elements when it comes to increasing their participation. Our findings reveal that unions must dare to integrate young members, without seeking to mould them to fit with the values and practices they deem to be outdated. It means not only training young members to carry the necessary message to their peers but also allowing them to challenge the strategic orientations suggested therein.

This article explores the organisational dynamics of the ‘Association of Call Centre Workers’ and aims to discover the effectiveness and sustainability of it as a new actor for representing the interests of call centre workers in Turkey. While traditional trade unions have fundamental problems such as efficacy and representation of various worker groups in changing workplaces, in the Turkish context, they have additional difficulties based on structural and legal constraints. Call centre workers seldom utilise the formal representation channels because of these and some other individual reasons such as a lack of information about their rights and labour movements. Moving from the importance of analysing the informal worker organisational dynamics in the case of a new trade union for call centre workers, the emphasis of the research is on the ability of the Association to develop a form of resistance and representation for the previously unrepresented.

Over the course of his career Professor Ben Roberts became an increasingly vocal critic of the trade union movement and a firm advocate of the case for legal restrictions on their activities. The growing influence of neoliberal ideas inside the Conservative Party, driven by think tanks such as the Institute of Economic Affairs, could have provided him with the opportunity to exert some influence over industrial relations policymaking, after years of political isolation. In fact Ben Roberts remained on the margins of the policy networks that constructed the Thatcherite programme of industrial relations reform. His labour movement background and lack of involvement in think tank seminars and activities made it difficult for him to penetrate the tight and cohesive networks that were integral to Conservative policymaking. In any case his main focus was institution building in the academic world of industrial relations, rather than policymaking in the political world, and his legacy continues today in the British Journal of Industrial Relations and the International Labour and Employment Relations Association.

Union organisation was studied by Lord (Bill) McCarthy throughout his academic career. It also figured large in his political engagement with national policy making under both Labour and Conservative Governments. From 1968 onwards he was particularly interested in conducting research into, and producing related publications and unpublished papers on, the efficacy of various models of union structure and union government. The following article therefore focuses on these two critically important aspects of union organisation. It also assesses the different roles Bill played in his attempts to influence the reform of union organisation between 1968 and 1979, a relatively, and at least initially, benign political period and his attempts to protect union organisation in the more hostile political and economic climate of 1979 to 1996. It is also argued that Bill, following his appointment as Labour's front bench spokesman in the House of Lords in 1980, now occupied his niche role.

A union possesses characteristics research indicates makes gender equality activity likely, yet it acts like most unions in its limited, variable engagement with women's interests. Studies of the union 1997–2010 enable consideration of Dickens's three-pronged approach to equality action and develop Heery's conclusions on influences on union behaviour.

The Transparency of Lobbying, Non-Party Campaigning and Trade Union Administration Act 2014 (the ‘Lobbying Act’) imposes tight restrictions on the campaigning and lobbying activities of civil society organisations in the UK, diminishing their capacity to represent the interests of working people and thus likely compounding the ‘representation gap’ within British workplaces. Along with austerity measures and employment law reforms, the legislation exemplifies the UK government's attempts to shift the balance of power further towards employers.

Insights from the representation literature were applied to industrial relations in order to study the representativeness of union officials. Based on a member-survey in a major Belgian trade union, we found that union representatives mirror quite well their followers in descriptive (except for gender) and substantive terms (issue congruence).

Margaret Thatcher's death in 2013 was followed by extensive tributes to her achievements, often describing her role in ‘saving Britain’. Other more sceptical voices pointed to the destructive aspects of her politics. This article explores these issues through an examination of the major confrontation with the coal miners and their trade union the NUM. Through published sources and interviews with key actors it argues that the dispute epitomised Mrs Thatcher's concern to weaken trade unionism and defeat socialism. This (rather than issues of employment or energy policy) is seen as her strategic objective and her success can be measured in the changed nature of the Labour Party. In this the exercise of state power was decisive. However, the article questions the extent to which ‘Thatcherism’ and the associated individualism has prevailed as an hegemonic force. It provides examples of a continuing patterns of collective behaviour and beliefs and raises the possibility of an emerging and different form of labour movement.

This article explores the possibilities for temporary agency workers to gain union representation at workplace level. Using Heery's classification of four different union responses to agency work—Exclusion, Regulation, Replacement and Engagement—we found that, even though the union wishes to represent agency workers, there are institutional conditions obstructing them from succeeding.

Bill McCarthy was not New or Old Labour but Real Labour, a faith he retained to the end. When I went up to Oxford in 1967, I fell into the McCarthys’ laps. Bill was then amongst the top industrial relations experts in the country. He was a famously energetic and influential research director to the Donovan Royal Commission on industrial relations before joining Barbara Castle in her sustained and ill-fated attempts to follow it up with legislative action. But it was not industrial relations that brought us together. Bill was also chair of the Oxford Labour Party. There he and Margaret, the queen of councillors and the queen of canvassers, formed a formidable team. He combined that with being the senior member (‘president’ in non-Oxford English) of the more right wing of the then two Oxford Labour Clubs, though, this being the late sixties, more right wing was a distinctly relative term. As activity in the Labour Club was my main interest besides my studies—no punts or girls for me—I rapidly became acquainted with both McCarthys, who remained amongst the most influential forces in my life. It was thanks to Bill that I got my first job, in the then immensely sought-after post of a researcher at the General and Municipal Workers’ Union (GMWU). He, with Derek Gladwin of the GMWU, secured me my second, as Special Adviser to Tony Crosland, later Foreign Secretary. Those were the days when the relationship between the Labour Party and the Unions was far more intimate than it has become. Labour conference speakers could refer to ‘this great movement of ours’ (or THIGMOO as the journalist Alan Watkins famously abbreviated it) without fear of contradiction. Bill personified that link. He was intimate with all the leading trade unionists of the day. But he also knew Labour politics. If some of these relations were strained by Castle’s failed attempts at trade union reform—for Barbara was more of an instinctive interventionist that Bill—he never resiled from his view of the essential integrity of Labour’s political and industrial ambitions. This did not mean that he was an unreconstructed supporter of free collective bargaining. As he wrote in The Socialist Agenda: Crosland’s Legacy (Lipsey and Leonard, 1981) ‘there is a necessary link between incomes policy and socialism’. He argued that income policy was integral to Labour goals: ‘public intervention and control, plus the basic socialist belief in equality and social justice’. Typically though his high ambitions for incomes policy were tempered by more than a dash of ❒ David Lipsey is a Labour Peer. Correspondence should be addressed to David Lipsey, House of Lords, London SW1A 0PW; email: lipseyd@parliament.uk Industrial Relations Journal 46:1, 31–33 ISSN 0019-8692 © 2015 John Wiley & Sons Ltd pragmatism. Its aims would be ‘modest and realistic’, and there would in practice be periods in which a ‘free-for-all’ was unavoidable. There was no mention of statutory back-up for incomes policy, for he belonged firmly in the long-dominant British industrial relations tradition. He respected the autonomy of trade unions and their members and supported their collectivist traditions. There was for him no clash, none whatsoever, between his political and his industrial beliefs. They were the two sides of the same coin. I remained a friend of Bill and Margaret’s long after Oxford. An annual Conference dinner with them, their friends Derek Gladwin of the GMWU and Ruth, and, while he was still alive, Tony and usually Susan Crosland was a high point of the political year. What the participants in those dinners had in common was a genuine faith in working people, their aspirations and their concerns, and a certain distaste for the gradual embourgeoisement of the Labour Party embodied for most of us in Roy Jenkins’s ‘Eurofanaticism’. I overlapped with Bill in the Lords too. His subjects were not by then mine, though we bumped into each other as loyal party supporters. He started to withdraw from its proceeding in the early nineties, a few years after I arrived, as Labour politics continued to move in ways that were uncongenial to him. For his THIGMOO philosophy more and more distinguished Bill’s politics from the politics of virtually everyone else in the Labour party. Quite simply, his general stance, held with complete consistency even when he was in his Oxford nursing home at the end of his life, was that nothing had changed. Not the socialist goals of Labour; not the means by which they could be attained; not the electoral appeal the party should make; not the policy positions it should take on many of the great issues of the day: all were for Bill constants. Of course, that meant that he had many disappointments. He fell out irreparably with Jim Callaghan over trade union reform in the 1960s—Callaghan standing up for even more union freedom than McCarthy embraced. Later, according to Martin Adeney’s fine obituary in the Guardian 19th November 2012, he fell out with Tony Blair as employment spokesman. Certainly he did not attain ministerial office in either the Callaghan or the Blair governments. It was because he was so confident in his original beliefs that he became more critical—some might even say disillusioned—with Labour, though in a way which never compromised his fundamental loyalty to the party. The fashionable wisdom had it that Labour’s problems, in getting elected from 1979 to 1997 and in governing, had their origins in its union links and its left wing, collectivist instincts. Bill would have none of this. The party’s failings he put down to the personal failings of its leadership, and its deviations from the true faith. He was not New Labour. But he was not exactly Old Labour either. He was Real Labour. So dominant are the fundamentals of New Labour thinking today—whatever may be thought of Tony Blair as its midwife—that this may make Bill sound as if he was not just conservative (which he was) but closed-minded. But this was not true. He defended his position not just with passion but with logic. And you could end up after a conversation with him not at all sure that the verities of the modernised faith were really verities at all. He lived that faith too in his work: publishing a large opus of work on industrial relations from his base in Nuffield College Oxford. He chaired the Railway Staff National Tribunal for more than a decade; and he was a close friend to the unions and the TUC, as John Monks records in his contribution to this volume. We shall not see his like again. 32 David Lipsey © 2015 John Wiley & Sons Ltd

Union density in France has fallen to exceptionally low levels, yet unions are able to mobilise millions of supporters against government austerity measures. Some authors therefore argue that the union revitalisation literature overemphasises density over other power resources. The article first confirms the decline of density and the scale of the challenges unions face in organising in the face of restructuring and casualisation. Second, it is argued that unions have retained some policy influence by forming strategic alliances among themselves, although pressures for fragmentation remain strong. Third, unions' mobilising capacity indicates the need to find new ways of coordinating action at all levels. The article thus not only confirms the inadequacy of density alone as a measure of union vitality but also highlights the challenges, and some opportunities, facing unions in hostile economic conditions.

Why was the 2008–09 economic downturn not matched by an internationally coordinated trade union response? Drawing on the evidence from General Motors, this article argues that this was due to states' extraordinary involvement in the economy during the crisis, which provided strategic alternatives to labour transnationalism at the national level.

Is adopting a social movement role the most effective organisational strategy for organised labour or is it little more than an ideal, in an age of austerity and union defensiveness? This article draws on a national survey of Congress of South African Trade Union (COSATU) members to test perceptions of union activities and finds that COSATU unions largely embrace a social movement role. However, in the context of insecurity, unions need to address the central challenge of declining formal sector employment and precarious jobs.

This article overviews welfare state retrenchment in the UK under the Conservative-led coalition government that formed in May 2010 and has centred its response to economic crisis on rapid public deficit reduction through public expenditure austerity targeted increasingly on the welfare benefits budget. It locates the coalition's reforms of public services and public sector employment relations in the long trajectory of public sector restructuring in the UK: the policies of New Right governments in the 1980s and New Labour from 1997 to 2010 that installed marketisation and privatisation in a permutation of forms, intensifying challenges for trade union organising. Focusing on the English NHS, the article identifies the respects in which the coalition's reforms continue and depart from New Labour's.

This paper first describes the evolution of Willy Brown's thinking on trade union membership and collective bargaining coverage. The second part explores some of the issues around his growing conviction about the role of product markets and offers some critical reflections about his analysis of product markets by drawing on comparative evidence. The final section turns to his analyses and prescriptions for trade union strategy.

This article deals with issues relating to trade union density and the fact that while over the past 30 years, union densities have followed a declining path in all regions, this retreat was not uniform across space. Analysis of the Labour Force Survey reveals that Wales exhibits among the highest levels of union density in the UK. The reasons for this are examined through statistical analysis, historical analysis and interview data. These analyses reveal that there appear to be intrinsic differences in the nature of workplace representation in Wales; one linked to a particular style of trade unionism supported by the authority of a devolved state that continue to contribute to higher levels of membership.

Trade union membership in Spain has undergone several transformations during the long employment boom (1994–2007) and the following crisis. New generations of workers with different attitudes towards trade unionism, the incorporation of female workers and immigrants have changed the forms and contents of the workers' organisations in Spain.

This article analyses obstacles to transnational union cooperation within Europe. It is based on a survey of unions in 14 European countries and all members of the European Trade Union Confederation. The result shows that ‘hard’ industrial relations factors are generally more important obstacles to transnational cooperation than ‘softer’ factors such as cultural, linguistic, ideological and religious differences and that there are sectoral differences in experiences of obstacles to transnational union cooperation: unions in the manufacturing sector tend to emphasise differences in industrial relations and a lack of organisational resources for transnational union cooperation, whereas low organisational priorities are held to be of more importance in the services sector and for unions for professional workers.

Trade unions around the developed world face common challenges in terms of declining membership and influence, and ‘conventional’ union revival strategies have yielded limited success. A relatively recent innovation has been the embrace of ‘social movement unionism’ (SMU), which challenges traditional workplace conceptions of trade union roles via alliances with campaigning civil society organisations. This empirical study examines how SMU is conceived and applied in a small country context, focusing on the role of the New Zealand Council of Trade Unions. The findings suggest that SMU can appeal to trade union associations in smaller national (or regional) settings owing to a combination of institutional and size effects which concentrate networks. This has implications for unions and union federations interested in advancing both workplace and wider social justice concerns.

This article explores how government public service modernisation policies have impacted on management practices and employment conditions in voluntary sector welfare organisations and the problems unions have encountered in responding to such impacts in the context of public service modernisation. The study finds that employees encounter problems developing workplace union organisation and unions face problems developing a coherent strategy on support for the sector and for resisting public sector reform, which hinders trade union resistance. The implications of this may be important in strengthening managerial control over the public service labour process.

This article explores approaches to rebuilding trade union capacity in Sierra Leone. It analyses their potential by assessing the problems encountered in an economy dominated by informal employment. It evaluates union strategies in building workplace organisation; working with civil society and influencing government, and concludes by assessing change in the context of a case study of diamond mining.

This article reports findings that suggest that trade union representation both protects worker interest and also facilitates the informal resolution of disciplinary disputes. However, this is dependent on robust representative structures and high-trust relationships with employers. Conversely, non-union companions were found to have no substantive impact on disciplinary processes and outcomes.

This article compares the consequences of privatisation for collective bargaining, trade union membership size and bargaining power within two economic sectors. The results indicate that privatisation has significant impact on industrial relations, and that this impact is mediated by other factors, with variations within and between sectors.

This study identifies three types of workplace union strategy in the development of cross-border relations within North American and European multinational companies: defensive isolation, risk reduction and proactive solidarity. Qualitative case studies of MNCs with operations in Canada and Mexico indicate that the nature and intensity of participation in cross-border trade union alliances are shaped by the union dynamic at the local, national and international levels. A combination of greater workplace union power resources, notably discursive capacity, and of strong supportive approach of the national union, notably dedicated resources and space for bottom-up initiatives, contributes to proactive solidarity strategies towards international union networks. The absence of these factors is associated with risk reduction and defensive isolation strategies.

In the context of massive outward migration after Poland’s accession to the EU in 2004, this article explores the possibilities for cross-border collaboration by Polish trade unions. The findings are based on interviews with the two main trade union/ trade union federations, Solidarity and Ogolnopolskie Porozumnie Zwia?zkow Zawodowych: All-Poland Alliance of Trade Unions, at national, regional and sectoral levels. Examining the issues and challenges faced by Polish trade unions in terms of loss of membership and social capital, the article also evaluates the significance of Poland’s status as a country of some inward migration. It is argued that cross-border trade union collaboration has become an even more urgent project as the economic crisis intensifies competition in the labour market and increases the potential for xenophobia.

Despite extensive research on the impact of social partnership in the workplace, limited investigation has been undertaken around its removal. This article examines, from a trade union perspective, the removal of the partnership agreement by the Department for Work and Pensions and the Public and Commercial Services Union.

Despite the growing research into China's industrial relations system there is remarkably little research into how China's workers regard their trade union. This article draws on over 500 interviews conducted in three SOEs in the auto industry in Hubei Province to examine this question.

The authors review the strike that took place during 2007–08 that was called by the oldest existing German trade union, the professional union of train drivers Gewerkschaft Deutscher Lokfuhrer (GDL). In so doing, the outcome of the strike is analysed, together with the dynamics of relationship between the GDL, the industrial union TRANSNET, the Gewerkschaft der Bahnbeamten und Anwarter (DBDA), the union of the civil servants employed by the German railway, and the railway company Deutsche Bahn (DB AG). These relationships are examined as paradigmatic of politics of a particularistic organisation like GDL and for politics of an encompassing organisation like TRANSNET. These relationships raise the question: would the growth of professional unions in Germany lead to an erosion of the German system of industrial relations, which currently is still relatively stable due to the predominance of encompassing industrial unions?

During the past 15 years, membership rates in many unions have been declining in Denmark, Finland and Sweden. Reasons for this decline may be similar to what has happened in other countries—occupational change and neoliberal ideology and policies—but in the three Ghent countries, changes in the unemployment insurance system may also have affected trade union membership losses. The major part of the decline has taken place in a period of low unemployment, which may have reduced the employee incentive to take unemployment insurance, but will increasing unemployment rates mean more trade union members? At least for the LO- and SAK-affiliated trade unions, it seems that trade union independent unemployment funds may be alternatives for workers who take unemployment insurance.

The assumptions and values of neoliberalism came to dominate the Conservative governments, 1979–97, inspiring a range of policies that included industrial relations and employment law. Inasmuch as New Labour has adopted many of these policies then it can be presumed to have accepted their neoliberal underpinnings. Moreover, New Labour's policies owe much to neoliberalism. Wedderburn's exposition of the relationship between the writings of Hayek and the policy of Conservative governments, 1979–88, is utilised and extended to display the continuity and distinctiveness of New Labour's policy on industrial relations and employment law in relation to its Conservative predecessors. New Labour's neoliberal assumptions and values are evaluated. The conclusion argues for a fundamental rebuttal of New Labour's values as an integral component of a campaign to re-establish trade union rights and liberties, and effective employment protection.

This article makes the case for a fundamental reassessment of an important stage in the history of industrial relations in the UK port transport sector vis-a-vis the regulation of employment and the controversial demise of the National Dock Labour Scheme. It argues that the popular view that state regulation combined with trade union organisation and restrictive working practices in the 1970s and 1980s to undermine the competitiveness of the port transport sector lacks convincing empirical foundations. It notes some implications for wider debates around Britain's variety of capitalism.

The extremely challenging external environment poses numerous challenges to union formation among call centre agents in India. Complicating matters is the acquired professional identity of call centre agents. In this scenario, the union organising call centre employees envisaged that partnership with employers was the only possibility acceptable to call centre agents, employer organisations and society at large, enabling them to regain some acceptability and credibility for the heretofore tainted Indian trade union movement.

While existing literature on the changing nature of trade union membership concentrates on unidimensional differences between members, this article proposes a multidimensional typology, which considers demographic characteristics as well as labour market position and length of union membership. Our results allow the identification of different member profiles; these are significantly associated to differences in employment conditions, work participation, job satisfaction and union activism. In the last section of the article, we discuss the practical implications that these different member profiles may have for union policy and organisation.

Community unionism has emerged in the past decade as a growing strand of industrial relations research and is influencing trade union strategies for renewal. This article seeks to further develop the concept, while exploring the potential roles for unions in communities subject to projects of urban regeneration.

The underlying policy objectives and the degree to which they are served by current trade union financial reporting and disclosure regimes in the US and the UK are examined in this article, along with a detailed comparison of the government oversight agencies, annual disclosure forms and member access to union financial records.

Coordination through collective bargaining is recognised as an influential determinant of labour market outcomes and macroeconomic performance. This article provides a systematic review of the empirical literature on the subject. What emerges from the review is that it is different types and coverage of bargaining coordination, rather than cross-country variation in trade union density, that matter for economic performance. High levels of bargaining coverage tend to be associated with relatively poor economic performance, but this adverse relationship can be at least mitigated by high levels of bargaining coordination. In the absence of formal bargaining arrangements, economies often develop informal bargaining mechanisms whose effects are similar to those arising from formal bargaining provided they both operate at similar levels of coordination. The consequences of labour market coordination or absence thereof depend on the monetary policy regime as non-accommodating monetary policy can eliminate some of the adverse unemployment consequences otherwise associated with industry-level collective bargaining. Finally, bargaining coordination seems to matter most in times of rapid economic change rather than under more stable conditions. Overall, we conclude that it is the total ‘package’ of (formal and informal) labour market institutions that matters for the performance of the economy rather than unionisation as such or individual aspects of unionism.

The late 20th century saw the rapid decline of collective bargaining, which had hitherto been the dominant means of regulation of employment in Britain. The article uses a comparison of the Workplace Employment Relations Surveys for 1998 and 2004 to assess how far this changed during the later period of economic growth and sympathetic labour legislation. Contrary to expectations, the data show that collective bargaining coverage has continued to fall, although much of this decline is concentrated in small firms in the private sector. The article goes on to analyse the recent change at sectoral level and examines evidence on the extent to which the character, as well as the extent, of collective bargaining had changed. The locus of management decision making has continued to move down organisations, both where collective bargaining occurs and also where unions are absent. Finally, the article evaluates how the perceptions of those involved in the bargaining process have shifted at a time of greatly diminished trade union influence.

This article focuses on the first wave of call centre offshoring from the UK to India (2002-04). Trade union responses in five case-study companies are documented. Drawing upon theories of union power resources, including international action, the relative efficacy of these union responses is analysed.

It has been widely assumed that type-of-contract segmentation represents a strong structural constraint on trade union growth. The analysis of a sample of the Spanish workforce shows, however, that the effect of contract type on union membership is not statistically significant once the availability and performance of local union representatives are introduced in the explanatory model. Additionally, the worker’s participative potential, as indicated by his/her social and political capital, is also found to be a major explanatory factor. These findings are placed in comparative perspective and discussed in relation to possible union revitalisation strategies.

In most Member States of the European Union, trade unionists are reforming trade union structures through engagement in the merger process. This article charts the scale of the merger process since 2000 and identifies the key features of the unions that result from it. The article assesses the outcome of the merger process by reference to aspects of trade union purpose. While much of the merger process is shown to be defensive, particular mergers are highlighted as comprising features that may assist in the renewal of trade union organisation.