(Re‐)Locating the Local and National in the Global: Multi‐Scalar Political Alignment in Transnational European Dockworker Union Campaigns

Labour activists have called for greater international co‐ordination among trade unions in response to the assault on organized labour by global capital, but such co‐ordination faces many hurdles. Under what conditions can unions overcome those barriers and co‐ordinate effectively to achieve campaign goals? I examine this question through a comparison of European‐level international solidarity with Portuguese, Greek and English affiliates of the International Dockworkers Council involved in labour disputes. The divergent outcomes of otherwise similar cases reveal the critical role of politics and strategy at different scales and sites of union organization in determining the successful exercise of labour internationalism.     

Legacies,Conflict and ‘Path Dependence’ in the Former Soviet Union

This article analyses management–union–worker relations in a foreign‐owned Moldovan clothing factory. Studies of post‐socialist industrial relations have focused on explaining labour quiescence, advancing ‘path dependence’ and ‘Soviet legacy’ arguments. These draw attention to strong links between management and unions, and weak relations between the latter and workers. We show how the union has, in one case, drawn creatively on Soviet legacies to develop strong articulation between itself and women workers. This was part of a wider adaptive strategy within which the union transformed the meaning of previous functions and developed novel ones. The outcome is a well‐organized representative union capable of challenging management at the negotiating table, as well as on the shop floor. This seems unlikely to be universal but equally unlikely to be unique.     

Restructuring Managerial Labour in the USA,the UK and Japan: Challenging the Salience of ‘Varieties of Capitalism’

This article provides a cross‐national, qualitative investigation into the experiences of middle managers in large organizations in the USA, the UK and Japan, following organizational restructuring. Despite well‐documented national differences in administrative heritage, institutional regimes or ‘varieties of capitalism’, our data point towards considerable similitude across the three countries in terms of a general expression of the need for change, and the concrete impacts of organizational reforms on managerial work. Specifically we analyse the changing nature of work roles, career paths, working hours and spans of control of mid‐level managers in five large firms in each of the three countries. The data demonstrate that middle managers in all three countries face fundamental changes to key areas of their work experience. In Japan, although changes do not amount to a genuine shift towards ‘Anglo‐Saxon’ institutions or business practices, the robust use of organizational reforms with very similar aims and underpinning assumptions to those used in the USA and the UK entails similar impacts in terms of work processes of middle managers across the three nations. This shared experience involved the augmentation of middle management skill levels, responsibilities and span of control, but alongside the downgrading of career expectations, and increased workload and work intensity. We argue that these changes are in keeping with some, but not all, of the features explained and predicted in Bravermanian labour process theory.     

Implications for food production, land use and rural development of the European Union’s Single Farm Payment: Indications from a survey of farmers’ intentions in Germany, Portugal and the UK

The 2003 reform of the European Union’s (EU) Common Agricultural Policy introduced a decoupled income support for farmers called the Single Farm Payment (SFP). Concerns were raised about possible future land use and production changes and their impact on rural communities. Here, such concerns are considered against the workings of the SFP in three EU Member States. Various quantitative studies that have determined the likely impact of the SFP within the EU and the study countries are reviewed. We present the results of a farm survey conducted in the study countries in which farmers’ responses to a decoupling scenario similar to the SFP were sought. We found that little short-term change was proposed in the three, rather different, study countries with only 30% of the farmers stating that they would alter their mix of farm activities. Furthermore, less than 30% of all respondents in each country would idle any land under decoupling. Of those who would adopt a new activity, the most popular choices were forestry, woodland and non-food crops.     

Collective Bargaining and Technological Investment: The Case of Nurses’ Unions and the Transition from Paper‐Based to Electronic Health Records

Does the presence of a unionized nursing workforce retard US hospitals’ transition from paper‐based to electronic health records (EHRs)? After tying archival data on hospitals’ structural features and health information technology (IT) investment patterns to self‐gathered data on unionism, I find that hospitals that bargain collectively with their registered nurses (RNs) appear to delay or forego the transition away from paper, consistent with existing theory and research in industrial relations and institutional economics. However, this relationship is fully mediated by a hospital's payer mix: those serving a larger share of less lucrative, elderly, disabled and indigent patients are more likely to adopt EHRs if they are unionized than if they are not, a result that holds even at the median payer mix. Indeed, this accords with research on the interplay of labour and technology as the aforementioned dynamics are driven entirely by RN‐exclusive bargaining units for whom the new IT serves as a complement rather than as a substitute in production. Given the outsized role that unions play in the US healthcare sector, the overall sluggish performance of the sector, and the expectations that policymakers have for EHRs, evidence that these unions are welfare‐enhancing should be welcome news.     

Accounting for National and Sectoral Variance in the Implementation of European Social Partner ‘Soft’ Law: The Cases of the Implementation of the Telework and Work‐Related Stress Agreements

This article investigates the factors that explicate the implementation of European social partner ‘soft’ framework agreements. The implementation of two such agreements, the Telework and Work‐Related Stress Agreements, in four countries and two sectors is investigated. Seven hypotheses, primarily derived from the study of generic European ‘soft’ law, about the factors that explain the implementation of European social partner ‘soft’ law are tested. The article concludes that European social partner ‘soft’ law is distinctive from generic European ‘soft’ law in that its successful implementation is contingent upon the extent the industrial relations system in which it is implemented is centralized and co‐ordinated.     

Output‐Based Performance Pay,Performance‐Support Bias,and the Racial Pay Gap within a Large Retail Stock Brokerage

We measure sources of racial inequality in stockbroker pay. Pay differences arise from sales differences. We measure the extent to which sales differences are due to performance‐support bias, whereby African American brokers receive weaker firm supports, or to forces outside the firm, including client access, selection, and consumer discrimination. Data on firm policies are matched to sales results. Data on self‐generation of accounts measure access to wealthy clients. Sales generated from accounts with sales histories show racial differences in sales arising from selection or consumer discrimination.