Labor Relations In New Democracies

Labor Relations in New Democracies explores how democratization has changed the material and political fortunes of workers in the new democracies of Europe, Latin America, and East Asia. It also examines how workers have responded to their newly found environment.

West Germany from 1949 to 1990 was a story of virtually unparalleled political and economic success. This economic miracle incorporated a well-functioning political democracy, expanded to include a social partnership system of economic representation. Then the Wall came down. Economic crisis in the East—industrial collapse, massive layoffs, a demoralized workforce—triggered gloomy predictions. Was this the beginning of the end for the widely admired German model? Lowell Turner has extensively researched the German transformation in the 1990s. Indeed, in 1993 he was at the factory gates at Siemens in Rostock for the first major strike in post-Cold War eastern Germany. In that strike, and in a series of other incisively analyzed workplace and job developments in eastern Germany, he shows the remarkable resilience and flexibility of the German social partnership and the contribution of its institutions to unification. His controversial and, to some, radical findings will stimulate debate at home and abroad. Moving from world markets to the shop floor, this book is an ambitious and comprehensive analysis of the fate of contemporary unions in industrial societies. The international results of intensified competition and technological advance have stimulated much policy debate, but Lowell Turner is interested in clarifying a phenomenon that is far less widely understood: the political effects of new work organization on labor and management. Noting that the same cluster of production innovation and technological change has produced widely contrasting crossnational industrial relations outcomes, Turner provides a detailed, systematic study of the politics of new work organization at selected auto plants in the United States and Germany. He then examines in a more schematic fashion the telecommunications and apparel industries of those countries, as well as developments elsewhere. Exploring diverse patterns of union-management relations, he demonstrates the importance of existing national institutions and patterns of labor-management-state bargaining as sources of variation in work reorganization and in the collective representation of workers' interests. Particular national institutions of worker interest representation, he argues, shape managerial decisions and hence national industry responses to intensified competition in world markets. His industry-by-industry comparison explains why the American labor movement has declined in influence over the last decade, while the labor movements in Germany and several other countries have not. Further observations on the situation in Britain, Italy, Sweden, and Japan give depth and specificity to the terms of his argument. Most important, perhaps, Turner's analysis shows the conditions necessary for stable industrial relations settlements and a resurgence of union influence in the contemporary world economy. As interest grows in international business and comparative industrial relations, Democracy at Work will attract the attention of political scientists, economists, sociologists, and industrial and labor relations specialists, as well as representatives of labor, business, and government.

In this new political history of the labor movement, Clayton Sinyai examines the relationship between labor activism and the American democratic tradition. Sinyai shows how America's working people and union leaders debated the first questions of democratic theory—and in the process educated themselves about the rights and responsibilities of democratic citizenship. In tracing the course of the American labor movement from the founding of the Knights of Labor in the 1870s to the 1968 presidential election and its aftermath, Sinyai explores the political dimensions of collective bargaining, the structures of unions and businesses, and labor's relationships with political parties and other social movements. Schools of Democracy analyzes how labor activists wrestled with fundamental aspects of political philosophy and the development of American democracy, including majority rule versus individual liberty, the rule of law, and the qualifications required of citizens of a democracy. Offering a balanced assessment of mainstream leaders of American labor, from Samuel Gompers to George Meany, and their radical critics, including the Socialists and the Industrial Workers of the World, Sinyai provides an unusual and refreshing perspective on American labor history.

Democratization in the developing and postcommunist world has yielded limited gains for labor. Explanations for this phenomenon have focused on the effect of economic crisis and globalization on the capacities of unions to become influential political actors and to secure policies that benefit their members. In contrast, the contributors to Working through the Past highlight the critical role that authoritarian legacies play in shaping labor politics in new democracies, providing the first cross-regional analysis of the impact of authoritarianism on labor, focusing on East and Southeast Asia, Eastern Europe, and Latin America. Legacies from the predemocratic era shape labor’s present in ways that both limit and enhance organized labor’s power in new democracies. Assessing the comparative impact on a variety of outcomes relevant to labor in widely divergent settings, this volume argues that political legacies provide new insights into why labor movements in some countries have confronted the challenges of neoliberal globalization better than others.

The future of unions in the United Statres is a hotly contested matter. While different commentators reach different conclusions, all agree that public policy will be of vital importance to the union movement. The present volume considers a wide range of policy questions, analyzed by a variey of experts in the field, and is organized in four parts: a brief introduction considering the current policy climate for unions; policy and the new workplace; labor and economic issues; and, finally, political strategy and democratic politics. This work will be of interest to scholars and policymakers in labor studies, labor economics, labor law and industrial organization.

In the countries of the global north, workplace democracy may be thought of as a thing of the past. Today, working relations are regulated primarily by contract; workforces are increasingly fissured and fragmented. What are the consequences of this? How should we respond? Ruth Dukes and Wolfgang Streeck argue that the time is ripe to restate the principles of industrial democracy and citizenship for the post-industrial era. Considering developments within political economy, employment relations and labour law since the postwar decades, they trace the rise of globalization and the “dualisation” of labour markets - the emergence of a core and periphery of workers - and the progressive insulation of working relations from democratic governance. What these developments amount to, they argue, is an urgent need for political intervention to tame the new world of “gigging” and other forms of highly precarious work. This, according to the authors, will require far-reaching institution-building, designed to fill legal concepts such as “employment” with political substance. This eloquent call for a reimagining and renewal of the institutional and material conditions of freedom of association and the reinvention of industrial democracy will be crucial reading for anyone interested in work in the 21st century.

For two decades during which the US government led the way in providing new employment opportunities for women and African Americans, the author examines national labor relations policies, practices, and ideology from the perspective of managers. She demonstrates how growing unionization and attention to administrative management make the period critical in the history of US government labor relations.

Labor Politics in Latin America assesses the capacity of working class organizations to represent and advance working people's demands in an era in which capital has reasserted its power on a global scale. The book's premise is that the longer-term sustainability of development strategies for the region is largely connected to the capacity of working class organizations to secure a fairer distribution of the gains from growth.

How do governments in newly democratized states treat civil society actors that helped to usher out the previous authoritarian regime? Do they reward them with economic rents through policies that are favorable to those actors? Or are these actors ignored in the policy debate following transition? This study focuses on the case of organized labor, a civil society actor with broadly universal policy interests, which tends to play a significant role in both the transition process under autocratic regimes and in the policymaking process under democratic regimes. It examines the correlation of democratization with subsequent labor policy, controlling for lagged effects of pre-transition union activity, trade openness, and workforce professionalization, to determine whether organized labor tends to have greater leverage in influencing labor policy in newly democratized countries than in established democracies. Regression models show that recent democratization has a positive correlation with most measures of labor-friendly policy. This study informs policy for organizations involved in democracy promotion as well as for international social and labor movements engaging with their counterparts in authoritarian states, and suggests that countries experiencing future waves of democratization may take on a more social democratic orientation than a free market policy agenda.