Trade Unions and Democracy Strategies and Perspectives

This book explores the changing role of trade unions as products of, and agents for, democracy. Despite conventionally being portrayed as politically marginalized and in terminal decline, trade unions continue to represent a significant component of society within most industrialized countries and have demonstrated a capacity for revival and renewal in the face of difficult corcumstances. A distinguished panel of leading and emerging scholars in the field provide a critical assessment of the current role of trade unions in society, their capacity to impact on state policies in such a manner as to ensure greater accountability and fairness, and the nature and extent of internal representative democracy within the labor movement.

Mark Harcourt is Associate Professor in the Department of Strategic Management at Waikato University in New Zealand.

Geoffrey Wood is Professor of Comparative Human Resource Management at Middlesex University Business School, and Overseas Associate of the University of Witwatersrand in South Africa.

Introduction -- Trade Unions and democracy: possibilities and contradictions * Trade unions and theories of democracy * Neo--Liberal reforms and accords: are they compatible with democracy? * Trade unions and democracy: can the third way recast the lnk? * Unions and non--standard employment * New forms of work and the representational gap: a Durban case study * The changing impact and strength of the labour movement in advanced societies * The U.S. and Canadian labour movements: markets vs. states and societies * The rise and fall of the organizing model in the US * Union growth and reversal in newly industrialised countries: The case of South Korea and peripheral workers * The rise of unions in semi-industrialized countries: the cases of South Africa and Zimbabwe * Social movement unionism * Unions and politics * Trade union democracy: the dynamics of different forms * Unions and social partnerships * Engagement or disengagement? unions and a new politics * Conclusion