El. knyga: Unions and Globalisation: Governments, Management, and the State at Work [Taylor & Francis e-book]

The authors (of the U. of New South Wales and the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, Australia and the U. of Leicester, UK) present a comparative analysis of civil service and public sector restructuring along neoliberal lines in Australia and the United Kingdom over the past thirty years. Their treatment is particularly focused on the relationship between managerial initiatives and the ways in which the public sector unions responded to them (in both cases the government eventually sought to marginalize the unions and the unions became strong opponents of restructuring). They argue that the similarity of restructuring outcome in both cases was paradoxically linked to the different relationships that governments promoted with trade unions Annotation ©2011 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

In recent decades, trade unions have suffered major reversals and experienced declining memberships. Transnational corporations and state-owned multi-nationals have increasingly implemented deteriorating terms and conditions of employment, with vulnerable and insecure job contracts.

In this context, there has been a wide-ranging debate about the form of trade unionism, the bases for collective organization and struggle and the future of trade unionism. This book addresses these questions both theoretically, in relation to debates, as well as substantively via a series of selected studies. It is a must read for all those studying industrial relations, human resource management, the sociology of work and employment, economic sociology, economic and labor geography and business studies in general.