Convergence in International Unionism, etc. The Case of Canada and the USA

Industrial relations systems differ across countries, yet their outputs converge. Canada and the USA are a striking example. Over the past two decades, private and public membership and density, employer opposition, and bargaining have converged. These findings contradict the conventional wisdom and invalidate the recommendation that the USA emulate Canadian policy.     

Unionism in State and Local Governments: Ohio and Illinois, 1982-87

Census of Governments (COG) data for 1982 and 1987 were analyzed to assess growth in state and local government unionism in Ohio and Illinois, two states that enacted comprehensive public employee bargaining legislation in 1983. Against a backdrop of stable state and local government unionism across the United States, Ohio and Illinois recorded substantial gains in certain sectors. The greatest gains were observed in sectors that had been only lightly unionized prior to enactment of law. Laws had much less impact on more heavily unionized sectors. In spite of the gains, Ohio and Illinois remain substantially less unionized, on average, than do states that enacted comprehensive bargaining legislation earlier.     

Membership Participation in Workplace Unionism: The Possibility of Union Renewal

This article reports membership involvement (participation and commitment) in five case studies. Membership participation in and commitment to workplace unionism is greater than is customarily portrayed and, additionally, there are fluctuations in both. However, the solidarity dimension of commitment is more important in discussing participation than that of ideology since active members can have either an instrumental or an ideological orientation to unionism. Surges of involvement in a workplace are experienced in response to the impact of events in the local union environment, as mediated particularly by local leadership style. The possibility for union renewal comes through building up the base level of participation by careful local leadership so that members can more easily be encouraged to take part in collective activities in times of necessity.     

The Effect of International Unions on Wage Determination in Canada

This article uses collective bargaining agreement wage data spanning 1964–92 to analyse the effect of international unions on wage determination in Canadian manufacturing. Real wage levels for international unions relative to domestic unions are estimated to decline from approximately 4 per cent higher in the 1960s to 4 per cent lower in the 1990s. International unions are also found to be more responsive to US economic conditions. Finally, affiliation with different union federations is a significant determinant of real wage outcomes with AFL–CIO affiliated unions having lower real wages, on average.     

Decentralization in the NHS: Prospects for Workplace Unionism

The substantial changes that are taking place in the organization of the UK public sector are transforming traditional patterns of industrial relations based on centralized and institutionalized collective bargaining. Whether the trade unions can successfully respond to this process will be of prime importance for the future development of industrial relations in the public sector. The paper considers recent evidence of the impact of decentralization on union organization in four hospital units. The research findings suggest that there is a growth in union activity as a result of the process of decentralization, but that the effectiveness of unions is likely to vary considerably between hospitals.     

The Direction of Union Mergers in the United States: The Rise of Conglomerate Unionism

Trade union mergers have become common throughout the industrial world. In the United States, since the late 1970s, these have become increasingly multi-jurisdictional. Beginning in the 1990s, the trend has been dominated by five 'conglomerate' unions, who have embraced this as a strategy for growth and increased effectiveness. This article will examine the roots of this 'conglomerate' direction and quantitatively assess the claims for greater effectiveness in finances, organizing, and collective bargaining. The tentative conclusion is that while resources and policy matter, the conglomerate merger strategy of these unions has not improved any of these functions either over time or in comparison to other unions that have put less emphasis on multi-jurisdictional mergers.     

Social Movement Unionism and Social Partnership in Germany: The Case of Hamburg's Hospitals

This paper traces the emergence of social movement unionism in Hamburg, Germany, as labor's channels of influence have broken down and economic pressures have intensified. Trade unionists have responded to the privatization of the municipal hospitals by mobilizing members and building coalitions around issues beyond their members’ immediate interests, including democracy and public service quality. Although the loss of union influence has facilitated social movement unionism in much of West Germany, economic crisis has had a demobilizing effect in the east.     

The Evolution of Enterprise Unionism in Japan: A Socio‐Political Perspective

This article proposes an alternative framework for understanding enterprise unionism by emphasizing political dynamics and the role of the state in labour relations. Our framework delineates the strategic behaviour patterns of each of the tripartite IR actors under collective bargaining. It maintains that the initial period of the collective bargaining era constituted a critical juncture for state labour policy that occurred in distinctive ways in different countries and that these differences played a central role in shaping the different union structures in the following decades. Our historical analysis shows that unlike its Western counterparts, the Japanese state was able to eradicate the horizontal union movement at the onset of the collective bargaining era because of its advantages as a late developer and Cold War politics, which resulted in enterprise unionism in Japan.     

Towards a New Flashmob Unionism: The Case of the Fight for 15 Movement

Unionism renewal has been described as a hybridization process between ‘old’ and ‘new’ logics. Understanding how these two potentially conflicting logics might be combined, however, has so far received little attention. Through the study of the Fight for 15 (FF15) movement, we investigate how the old ‘collectivist’ logic of action-oriented unions and the new ‘connectivist’ logic are being hybridized. To do so, we develop a mixed-methods approach that combines interviews with Twitter data. We evidence three mechanisms through which the collectivist and connectivist logics are being hybridized, namely, imbrication, camouflage and cumulation. We suggest to name ‘flashmob unionism’ the hybrid logic of FF15, characterized by apparently spontaneous mobilizations, a loosely co-ordinated organization, a personalized communication and online virality.     

Telecommunications in Canada: The regulatory crisis

The article highlights the need for a national dimension in Canada's telecommunications systems. But the national dimension is undermined by the country's haphazard regulatory structure, and the consequent barriers to fair and equitable access to telecommunications services. A solution is proposed in the form of a national regulatory body which, without constitutional rearrangement, would yield effective federal authority and simultaneously ensure that valid concerns of a local or intraprovincial nature are taken into account.