The behavioural impact on trade unionists of the trade union legislation of the 1980s: a research note

This note is concerned with research conducted through a survey of trade union lay representatives to identify their perceptions of the current law and attitudes to compliance/non-compliance with it. Emphasis is placed on how any misconceptions could affect the conduct of an industrial dispute.     

Fighting against the odds

The fight for power is not only over immediate rents, but also over advantageous positions in future power struggles. When incumbency yields an extra fighting edge, current struggles involve high stakes as a victory today may guarantee the victory also tomorrow. Such an incumbency edge may stem from the control of the army, the police and other instruments reserved for the government. The conclusions drawn from static conflict models are turned on their head when the fight is also over the incumbency edge. A sharper incumbency edge increases the implicit prizes of winning. The fighting intensity may therefore rise when the strength of each side becomes more unequal. Unbalanced fights can last long and become particularly severe. This is in contrast to the standard result that equal strengths give the most intense fighting. Received: June 2004, Accepted: December 2004, We want to thank the editor and a referee.     

Transforming union women: the role of women trade union officials in union renewal

The article investigates the nature of the increasing involvement of women in the decision-making structures of the fifth largest UK union through a study of senior women union officials. It is argued that senior union women, operating within a feminist paradigm, balance both transformational and status quo objectives in working towards union survival and renewal.     

The emergence of shop-floor trade union power in South Africa

This is the first of two papers dealing with the emergence of black shop floor union power and the changing structure of industrial relations in South Africa. This paper examines the evolution of black and white trade unions and their attitudes towards the officially sanctioned system of industrial relations. The observation is made that black unions are placing greater emphasis on shop-floor organization, leading to the development of an additional, but unofficial, tier in the negotiation structure in the form of work pi ace-level union recognition and bargaining.     

The making of women trade union leaders

A trade union's constitution is intended to produce its leaders in a democratic and even-handed manner, but the reality for women is one of inequality. They remain almost invisible in senior positions in British unions. The social processes by which women do or do not progress in a union's career structure are investigated through a case study of SOGAT ‘82.     

Possibilities for remote participation in trade unions: mobilising women activists

This paper argues that trade union activism within the new era of information and communication technologies (ICTs) offers the potential for unions to become more inclusive of under‐represented groups. Traditional conceptions of activism, participation and democracy within trade unions require physical presence at meetings at times and in spaces incompatible with caring responsibilities and atypical hours of work. This restricts the participation of women and other ‘atypical’ workers in trade unions. The paper explores the complexities of electronic forms of union activism in practice, indicating that while some positive features are experienced, there are also a range of obstacles, barriers and possible negative consequences.     

The dynamics of positive action in UK trade unions: the case of women and black members

This paper considers positive action strategies amongst UK trade unions, aimed at increasing membership and levels of participation and representation among women and black workers. It provides an overview of women’s, black members’ and race structures within large Trades Union Congress unions and a detailed case study of one large UK trade union. We find that there are salient differences in the way that unions approach issues of gender equality, compared with the approach adopted towards race equality. The paper explores possible explanations, justifications and implications of these differences.     

Business,trade and the environment: An agenda for stability in world trade

Conflicts between trade liberalization, as promoted by the World Trade Organisation, and demands for environmental protection have the potential seriously to disrupt the world's trading system to the point of detriment of, among others, the business community. The paper sets out the essential issues raised in the trade/environment debate, with some case study analysis as to how and why the problems have arisen. One of the principal constraints of freer trade on environmental policy making is fears of impacts on business competitiveness. The paper concludes that, while these fears are often exaggerated, they are justified for some environmentally intensive sectors, and they certainly constrain the introduction of environment policies. The paper makes proposals as to how the rules governing world trade, and their interpretation, could be modified to make domestic environmental policy making easier, and suggests that it is strongly in the interests of international business to see these modifications implemented. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.     

Leaders emergence in artificial populations: the role of networks

Social networks can be viewed as graphs in their basic form, but many networks of interest include positive and negative affect relations among nodes. The structural balance theory originally developed by Heider suggests how nodes may locally modify their relationships to maintain a sort of balance within sets of nodes. We analyze a model of leadership emergence in a social network and extend it by introducing structural balance among members when modeling the attitude toward the leader. This approach takes into account some of the mutual relationships among co-workers, including the adaptation process to achieve the balance. This component helps to explore differently the bounded rationality of agents when interacting, and prove the difficulty of finding a rapid and smooth covergent path to a social stable equilibrium.     

Occupational pension schemes: the trade union demension

Here the scope for unions to further the interests of the members of occupational pension schemes is discussed. These complex issues have been further complicated by recent pensions scandals, associated employee distress, and proposals for reform of a relatively modest nature.     

Diversity in trade union membership: a typology based on the study of a Spanish trade union

While existing literature on the changing nature of trade union membership concentrates on unidimensional differences between members, this article proposes a multidimensional typology, which considers demographic characteristics as well as labour market position and length of union membership. Our results allow the identification of different member profiles; these are significantly associated to differences in employment conditions, work participation, job satisfaction and union activism. In the last section of the article, we discuss the practical implications that these different member profiles may have for union policy and organisation.     

Sibling rivalry: The emergence of competition among the baby bells

The Modification of Final Judgment (MFJ) prohibits the seven regional Bell operating companies (RBOCs) spun off by AT&T from competing with one another in various markets ‘adjacent’ to the local telephone exchange. I have examined the competitiveness of three of these adjacent markets (cellular telephone, paging services, and yellow pages publishing) since divestiture in order to assess the likelihood of collusion among the RBOCs. On the basis of a decade of post-divestiture experience, I find the prospect of collusion to be remote and, hence, the probability of anticompetitive effects from lifting the MFJ to be vanishingly small.     

A new approximation of the posterior distribution of the log–odds ratio

In this paper, the posterior density of the log–odds ratio is studied. It is assumed that the observations have a multinomial distribution and that the prior on the multinomial parameters is a Dirichlet density. Several approximations currently available are reviewed. Under certain conditions on the prior parameters of the Dirichlet density, it is shown that the posterior moments can be computed exactly. A new approximation, similar to the Edgeworth expansion is also proposed. Using a numerical example, the different methods of approximation of posterior density are compared.     

玛莎·斯图尔特:因违规内线交易触雷的『美国家庭用品皇后』

面对美国工商界各种欺诈丑闻不断引发出的“诚信”危机,许多明智的企业巨子都惟恐避之不及而引火烧身,纷纷采取明哲保身的防御措施,尽量远离各种欺诈丑闻这个涉不得的“雷区”。可是,竟有这样一位“聪明一世,糊涂一时”的女企业巨子,为了从区区4000股股票中捞取     

New communication systems and trade union politics: a case study of Spanish trade unions and the role of the internet

This article shows how engagement with the internet and aspects of the new economy/society require an appreciation of union difference and politics. It shows how union responses vary due to four factors: communication strategies, union identity, forms of internal democracy and a range of organisational and social contingencies. The article will study the phenomena of the internet in the context of one national case study, Spain. It is a country that allows us to view the political dimensions of the internet, and the way they link to communication strategies, due to the manner in which the labour movement has transformed and modernised itself. It is also of interest because methods of communication have been at the heart of the way in which unions have developed and differentiated themselves. This article will argue that a greater sensitivity is required in terms of union history, politics and identity if the impact and use of new forms of communication are to be fully appreciated. It also points to the need to appreciate tensions between different forms of communication.     

French trade unions: crisis in the 1980s

France has had a Socialist President since 1981, and yet support for French trade unions has declined markedly. This article assesses the nature of this decline and examines the role of government, changes in the labour market, employer policies and trade union strategies, in order to explain this apparent paradox.     

Economic Democracy: are the trade unions equipped?

Recent policy statements from the TUC and the Labour Party announce an ambitious and radical programme for democratising economic life—but do the trade unions have the organisational competence and the motivation to carry this through?