Research note: Safety,statistics and business cycles: a response to Nichols

This article considers three criticisms made by Nichols of my article on ‘industrial injuries in British manufacturing’. First, I argue that, notwithstanding recognised problems with data which include ‘minor’ accidents, this should not be rejected. I then question the reliability of the alternative data used by Nichols, namely that related to fatalities in British manufacturing. Second, I show that Nichols' claim that accident rates were increasing rather than decreasing in the years 1975–1979 can only be sustained if one shifts the years within which the trend is considered, and ignores other evidence to the effect that the latter part of the seventies witnessed a continuation of a long-term decline in accident rates in British manufacturing industries. Finally, in response to the charge that I misled readers in my original article, I note how Nichols' argument was indeed one that prioritised ‘business cycles; further, I indicate that Nichols has himself engaged in a highly focused reading of my earlier article.     

Chipping Away at the Fortress: Unions, Immigration and the Transnational Labour Market

Conventional wisdom holds that in liberal industrialized countries, times of economic recession and high unemployment create pressures for restrictive immigration legislation, proposals which will be supported by trade unions as a means of safeguarding their interests. Drawing on a case study of British trade union opposition to the 1996 Asylum and Immigration Act, this article argues that trade unions, which traditional interpretation suggests support such protectionist measures, are actually at the forefront of opposition to them. We suggest that the increased transnationalization of labour markets, combined with the particular nature of the legislative response, had led unions to adopt this apparently paradoxical position.     

Advancing Gender Equality: The Role of Women‐Only Trade Union Education

The need to improve the level of membership and the number of women activists has been a central feature of overall ‘renewal’ strategies of many British trade unions. Within this, equality education has been a key part of policy‐making. This research draws on detailed case studies of two trade unions and focuses on their women‐only education courses. We suggest that a greater understanding of the contribution of different types of trade union education to the advance of equality is a key factor in the ability of unions to maintain a central role at workplace level, within the context of an increasingly diverse labour market.     

Industrial injuries in British manufacturing industry and cyclical effects: continuities and discontinuities in industrial injury research

An article appeared in The Sociological Review for May 1990 by Steve Tombs that bore the same title as an earlier one by me (‘Industrial injuries in British manufacturing industry’ May 1986) and which took as its starting point my ‘The business cycle and industrial injuries’ which appeared in August 1989. It is argued here that Tombs's analysis does not represent the step forward that might have been hoped. It is for example extremely important in the analysis of industrial injury rates to pay careful attention to what injury rates of different degrees of severity might measure. Tombs's article is shown to be technically deficient in that he makes mistakes both of fact and interpretation in his treatment of the all reported (or minor) injury rate. Moreover, Tombs advances the claim — in the context of reference to ‘a pure “business cycle” argument à la Nicholsw’ — that ‘a generalised discussion of [business] cycles obscures important aspects of the political economy within individual cycles. In particular, the strength of the labour movement is related to the incidence of accidents at work’. For the record, it is also spelt out below that this represents an unwarranted interpretation of my own position.     

Self-organise and Survive: disabled people in the British trade union movement

This article considers 'self-organisation' as a survival strategy for marginalised groups within the British trade union movement. It arises from an ongoing research project into the 'self-organised groups' for women, black members, disabled members, and lesbian and gay members within the public sector unions NALGO and UNISON. Initially, I provide an overview of the relevant literature on trade unions and their marginalised memberships, and argue that the absence of disabled people bears the hallmarks of discrimination. The remainder of this article is intended as a first step towards remedying this injustice. It draws upon interviews with disability activists to highlight critical moments in the creation of the disabled members' group in the 1980s; key themes inscribed on their agendas and activities in the 1990s; and dilemmas which will impact upon the future survival of the group. Finally, I offer some suggestions for future work in this arena and interrogate my own position in this project.     

The effects of co-operating or conflicting over work restructuring: evidence from employees

This paper examines patterns of worker response to the introduction of teamworking at two similar large work sites. We consider whether the patterns of response are significantly different where change has been introduced through a more cooperative or a more conflictual bargaining process. In the cooperative negotiations that more typified one site, trade unions made concessions, generating both dissatisfaction with the terms under which teams were introduced and a decline in job satisfaction. At the site more characterised by conflictual negotiations, employees were more satisfied with teamworking after unions protected manning in teams, negotiated a pay increase for more workers and the side payment of a desired 12‐hours shift pattern. The findings indicate how response to workplace change depended upon the terms under which teams were introduced, in turn shaped in important part by the process of negotiating change.     

‘There Isn't Supposed To Be a Speaker Against!’ Investigating Tensions of ‘Safe Space’ and Intra‐Group Diversity for Trade Union Lesbian and Gay Organization

Trade union engagement with the continuing inequalities facing minority groups has been one of the guiding principles of attempts to re‐energize the labour movement in recent years. This article focuses on attempts by six British trade unions to create and maintain separate organizational ‘spaces’ for their lesbian and gay members. Through consideration of group representation within a union framework, the strategy of separate organizing and the complications of representing a diverse membership, this article considers issues of intra‐group diversity and ‘safe space’ for this particular group of members. It concludes that the recognition and actualization of the internally diverse lesbian and gay constituency will be important in the long term for trade unions seeking to renew their pool of potential activists.     

Democracy and oligarchy in trade unions: The independent trade unions in the Transvaal and the Western province general workers’ union in the 1970s

The aim of this paper is to examine democracy and oligarchy in the independent trade unions in the Transvaal and the Western Province General Workers Union in the 1970s. The unions considered in the Transvaal comprise the Federation of South African Trade Unions (FOSA TU) and the Consultative Committee of Black Trade Unions. The Consultative unions consisted of the Commercial Catering and Allied Workers’ Union (CCA WUSA) and a large proportion of the present Council of Unions of South Africa (CUSA). This study covers the period from the foundation of the unions in the early 1970s to the second half of 1979 for the Transvaal unions and to the end of 1980 for the Western Province General Workers’ Union. It is divided into two major sections. The first deals with theories of democracy and oligarchy in trade unions by considering Michels’ iron law of oligarchy. His iron law is evaluated in the light of two centuries of experience in the British trade unions as analysed mainly by the Webbs, Clegg and Hyman. After deriving a theory of democracy and oligarchy in trade unions based on the historical material, it moves on to examine democracy and oligarchy in the independent trade unions in the 1970s. The stage the unions reached at the end of the period is evaluated and some conclusions are drawn.

Before considering theories of trade union democracy and oligarchy however, it is necessary to clarify some key concepts and consider the role of democracy in trade unions.     

Sustaining and Developing Women's Trade Union Activism: A Gendered Project?

Against the background of heavy membership decline, the increasing importance of women as a source of members for unions and union efforts to attract women into membership, this paper explores the nature of women's union activism. The focus is on why women stay active in unions. The paper employs Klandermans' model as a framework for examining senior union women's activism. This study suggests that the model is gendered in that women's experiences and perceptions of trade unions are highly gender specific and further that their union activities are underpinned by a feminist paradigm. The women in the study expressed a strong desire to ensure that the union works for women, indicative of the gendered nature of their commitment to the union. They revealed gendered bargaining priorities and thus gendered perceptions of union instrumentality. Their social integration within the union is shown to be highly or partially contingent upon, formal and informal women's support networks.     

Union decline: A view from Canada

Important changes are occurring in the Canadian unions’ political and economic environments. This paper argues that such changes may be detrimental to Canadian trade unions, given their structural and institutional situation. To support this argument, private-sector union and nonunion firms in Alberta are compared. This comparison uncovers some structural (union members’ employment patterns and union firm characteristics) and institutional (union services) attributes of unions. Combined with the politico-economic environments that Alberta unions have faced since the early 1980s, these attributes have led to a decline in union membership. Because these attributes are shared by many other Canadian unions, those unions may increasingly confront some of the same hardships currently plaguing their Alberta counterparts. I am indebted to Brian Bemmels, Alan Murray, and John G. Fricke for helpful comments on an earlier version of this paper, and to Mike Jones for his research assistance.     

Horticultural Decline in the Vale of Evesham,U.K., 1950–1980

There has been little geographical research on the spatial decline of particular agricultural enterprises. This paper traces the regression of horticulture in the Vale of Evesham since 1950 and shows how spatially the decline has been from the periphery inwards, leaving a distinct ‘core’ of production to the east of Evesham. Reasons for the demise of horticulture, both internal and external to the Vale, are outlined and it is demonstrated how the present plight of this part of the Avon Valley is the result of a complex interplay of economic, social, institutional and physical factors.     

The (Parlous) State of German Unions

We trace the profound decline in German unionism over the course of the last three decades. Today, just one in five workers is a union member, and whether this degree of penetration is consistent with a corporatist model built on encompassing unions is now moot. The decline in union membership and density is attributable to external forces that have confronted unions in many countries (such as globalization and compositional changes in the workforce), to some specifically German considerations (such as the transition process in post-communist Eastern Germany), and to sustained intervals of classic insider behavior on the part of German unions. The "correctives" have included mergers between unions, decentralization, and wages that are more responsive to unemployment. At issue is the success of these innovations. For instance, the trend toward decentralization in collective bargaining hinges in part on the health of that other pillar of the dual system of industrial relations, the works council. But works council coverage has also declined, leading some observers to equate decentralization with deregulation. While this conclusion is likely too radical, German unions are at the crossroads. We argue that if they fail to define what they stand for, are unable to increase their presence at the workplace, and continue to lack convincing strategies to deal with contemporary economic and political trends working against them, their decline may become a rout.     

Formalization,collectivization, and the demand for union services

Formalized collective bargaining rather than individual employer-employee negotiation is the fundamental characteristic of a unionized labor market. Formalization involves the substitution of rules for employer discretion. Collectivization substitutes simultaneous decision making on behalf of all workers in a unit for a set of individual employee decisions. Formalization and collectivization are present in nonunion as well as union labor markets and their extent varies within as well as between these two sectors. In particular, individuals may negotiate where they belong in a union environment, and the presence of rules invites negotiation over their interpretation. Nevertheless, because formalization and collectivization are obvious concomitants of trade union organization, their costs to both employers and employees should explain the probability of union organization, as well as the incidence of such antecedents of the modern trade union as the Italian padrone who acted as foreman, pay-master, and employment agency for newly-arrived immigrants to the United States; and the Indianjamdar, a construction industry recruiter-foreman. Our occasional observations of union-induced costreductions may appear to counter the implicit assumption in much of the trade union literature that unions always induce suboptimal combinations of factor inputs and factor payments (nonunion firms could choose union-induced parameters on their own and do not). Because these cost reductions may be accompanied by increased costs imposed by unions, however, the cost reductions discussed below imply nothing about overall effects of unions on employers or employees. I wish to thank John Pencavel for helpful comments on earlier versions of this paper. For further analysis of these points, see Flanders (1968). See Epstein and Monat (1973) for a discussion of the services provided by labor contractors.     

Sugar,Slavery and Productivity in Jamaica, 1750–1807

The article revisits one of the most significant questions in the historiography of British West Indian slavery and abolition. It examines the argument that the relatively weak state of the British West Indian economy from the 1780s onward was the main reason why Britain abolished the slave trade in 1807. In confronting this question of decline, the article analyzes the largest and most important slave plantation economy – Jamaica – during the early eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Using newly generated indicators such as total factor productivity and national income, the paper constructs a case for the dynamism and efficiency of the plantation system in Jamaica right up to abolition in 1807.     

Merchant networks,the guarantee system and the British slave trade to Jamaica in the 1790s

This paper contributes to the literature on payments for slave sales in the later phase of the British slave trade. It analyses the procedures used in the ‘guarantee’ system in transatlantic slaving whereby merchants in British ports forged close connections with African factors in British America and with British businessmen who guaranteed to pay the factors’ bills presented as payments for slave sales. This was an important institutional procedure in the history of the transatlantic slave trade. Though the ‘guarantee’ system has been explained in outline in previous studies, the case study presented here offers the most detailed appraisal of this system. Examining the British slave trade to Jamaica in 1790s, then the most significant disembarkation centre for enslaved people taken on British vessels, the paper explains the coordination necessary between groups of British merchants, their African factors in Jamaica and their British guarantee in order to secure payments for slave sales at a time of considerable volatility in the demand for slaves in Jamaica. The paper suggests that cooperation between merchants in different British ports in connection with the slave trade is as worthy of investigation as the rivalry between the British ports involved in the ‘Guinea’ traffic.     

The Performance of Power: Sam Watson a Miners' Leader on Many Stages

This paper draws on the biography of Sam Watson, a miners' leader in the North East of England, to examine the ways in which power relations operated within the British labour movement in the forties and fifties. At that time the Marshall Plan and the concern by the US government to control the spread of communism in Europe provided a critical backdrop with the CIA's labor attaché programme providing links between the AFL and the CIOand the British TUC. Recent research has identified the significant role played in the development of these arrangements by Watson. The reliance of the Labour Party on the networks of national, regional and local trade unions has not been a central concern of students of this period. Certainly in accounts of the Marshall Plan, national figures like Ernest Bevin predominate. The “unveiling” here of Watson suggests the possibility of more fruitful investigations on a wider canvass. His relationship with the US mission in itself raises questions as to the social and political processes that made it possible for a middle ranking trade union official to occupy such a significant position of power and influence. The article draws on archival research and, most significantly, upon interviews conducted by the authors in the late seventies with key trade union officals and polticians. It explores the different ways that Watson dealt with communism and with members of the Communist Party, and the key role he played during critical struggles within the Labour Party. The detail of the “insider” accounts reveals the complex ways in which power was performed across and within different arenas – in North East England as regional secretary of the NUM; in London on the national executive committees of the Labour Party and NUM; and abroad as a member, then Chair, of the Labour Party's International Committee.     

The humanities unplugged

The business of keeping ‘Native eating houses’ has roots in the earliest days of the mining camp on the Witwatersrand and for the past century Native eating houses have constituted an important institution in the everyday lives and experience of the city's working classes. The task in this paper is to reconstruct the emergence, rise and recent demise of the Native eating house trade in Johannesburg. Issues of concern include the struggles surrounding early licensing and organization of eating houses; locational conflict over eating houses as noxious facilities; and, the progressive decline of the trade with the growth and strengthening of new competitive food sources for Black workers in Johannesburg.     

Working Part‐Time for the State: Gender,Class and the Public Sector Pay Gap

This article explores the role and nature of disadvantages associated with part‐time working in perpetuating the gender pay gap in the public sector. It does so by means of a detailed case study of local government workers in the UK, with particular reference to the more than one and a half million local government service workers covered by National Joint Council bargaining arrangements. The article draws from original pay data analysis and national survey work conducted by the author. It argues that little has changed since the findings reported 20 years ago by Beechey and Perkins with respect to the disadvantages experienced by part‐time workers and the ‘construction’ of employment in gendered ways. However, the role of class may have been understated in previous accounts: class fractions in gender‐segregated employment continue to hold deep significance and provide some potential for solidaristic approaches by trade unions alongside traditional ‘equality’ initiatives.     

Interindustry patterns in unfair labor practice cases

This paper studies unfair labor practice charges filed against unions and employers in two-digit manufacturing industries. Such cases were found to follow distinct and consistent patterns across industries, suggesting that litigiousness in labor-management relations is, among other things, part of the relationship’s culture. Cases against employers and unions by individuals appear to be unrelated to many of the factors studied, thus supporting the view that such cases are the product of workers’ unrealistic expectations.