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Throughout the world, unions are under challenge. Collective bargaining and many traditional forms of union representation are beset by industrial,
economic and political challenges which undermine their power to improve the lives of their members in different national settings. Yet workers - both unionized and not - are seeking more, not less, participation and representation at work as they seek to have a greater say and improved decency at work. How are unions responding? Are they able to rebuild their power and on what basis? Are they still relevant? Or, are they giving way to alternative forms of work regulation? How do these responses vary from one national context to another?
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 News
Key Books
Further Information
Contacts
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News
What Public Policies for Work in the Global Era?
The Interuniversity Research Centre on Globalization and Work (CRIMT) is organizing an international conference on public policies for work and employment in the global era. This will take place from May 24th to 26th, 2007 in Montreal.
The focus will be on the renewal of public policies for work and employment, their social and economic goals, the institutions most able to develop and implement these policies, whether these policies should be national or transnational in scope, and the role (and renewal of the role) of social actors in policy development and implementation.
With six plenary sessions, twenty-four workshops and more than 120 international researchers and practitioners responding to a call for papers and invitations, we can promise an extremely stimulating program over three days in an exciting city!
For the CRIMT organizing committee (Jean Charest, Lucie Morissette, Nicolas Roby, Gilles Trudeau, Gregor Murray, Annick Charest et Francine Jacques),
Gregor Murray, Director
Interuniversity Research Centre on Globalization and Work (CRIMT)
School of Industrial Relations, Montreal University
Quelles politiques du travail à l'ère de la mondialisation? Le Centre de recherche interuniversitaire sur la mondialisation et le travail (CRIMT) organise un colloque international sur les politiques du travail et de l'emploi à l'ère de la mondialisation. Ce colloque aura lieu du 24 au 26 mai 2007 à Montréal. Les thèmes au cœur du colloque ont trait au renouveau des politiques étatiques du travail et de l'emploi, à leurs objectifs sociaux et économiques, aux institutions les plus aptes pour les définir et les appliquer, aux espaces (national ou transnational) où il faut les développer et au rôle (et au renouveau du rôle) des acteurs sociaux dans l'élaboration et l'implantation de telles politiques. Avec six séances plénières, vingt-quatre ateliers and plus de 120 chercheurs internationaux et praticiens qui ont répondu à l'appel de communications et aux invitations particulières, nous pouvons vous assurer un programme relevé sur trois jours dans une ville des plus agréables! Pour le comité organisateur du CRIMT (Jean Charest, Lucie Morissette, Nicolas Roby, Gilles Trudeau, Gregor Murray, Annick Charest et Francine Jacques),
Gregor Murray, Directeur
Centre de recherche interuniversitaire sur la mondialisation et le travail (CRIMT)
École de relations industrielles, Université de Montréal
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Key Books
In this section you will find some important books recently published on union renewal. Except for the book edited by the International Institute for Labour Studies, the links included do not lead directly to full text version available on-line but rather to webpages providing further information.
Paths to Union Renewal.
Edited by Pradeep Kumar & Christopher Schenk, Broadview Press, 2005
Paths to Union Renewal critically examining union renewal in a variety of unions, providing a basis for informed discussion and debate on the role and place of trade unions in contemporary society.
Varieties of Unionism: Strategies for Union Revitalization in a Globalizing Economy
Edited by Carola M. Frege and John Kelly, Oxford University Press, 2005
The book charts the strategies unions use to respond to global union decline and to revive their fortunes in five countries - US, UK, Germany, Italy and Spain - providing a wide range of institutional settings, union structures, identities and union responses.
Trade Unions in Renewal : A Comparative Study
Edited by Peter Fairbrother and Charlotte Yates, Routledge (Taylor & Francis Group), 2003
The contributors to this volume are among the leading researchers and commentators on trade unionsim in their countries. The introduction offers a rare comparative analysis of convergence and divergence in union renewal strategies across these five countries, while the separate chapters offer a penetrating, critical analysis of union renewal strategies and pose some difficult questions about the likely success of unions as they try to regroup.
Organized Labour in the 21st Century
Edited by A. V. Jose, International Institute for Labour Studies, International Labour Organization, 2002
This volume presents the result of comparative research organized by the Institute on "Trade union responses to globalization". It includes a representative sample of country case studies, edited and abridged to illustrate experiences drawn from three broad groups of countries: industrialized economies, middle-income countries, and developing nations.
Mutual Aids and Union Renewal: Cycles of Logics of Action
Edited by Samuel B. Bacharach, Peter A. Bamberger and William J. Sonnenstuhl, Cornell University Press, 2001
The ongoing decline in union membership is generally attributed to an increasingly hostile economic, legal, and managerial environment. Samual B. Bacharach, Peter A. Bamberger, and William J. Sonnensthul argue that the decline may have more to do with a crisis of union legitimacy and member commitment. They further suggest that both problems could be adressed if the unions return to their nineteenth-century, mutual aid-based roots.
Further Information
Key Articles
Trade Unions
Globalising Solidarity - Building a Global Union Movement for the Future. ICFTU World Congress Report, Miyazaki 5-10 Dec 04
A Trade Union Guide to Globalization, ICFTU, Nov 04
Economic and Social Impacts of Trade Unions, Mar 2004 / Impacts économiques et sociaux des syndicats, mar 04
Union Renewal in Australia
Others
Union renewal admid the global restructuring of work relationships. Just Labour: A Canadian Journal of Work and Society, 2005
Innovations for union renewal. Transfer, 2005
Le pouvoir syndical dans l'économie mondiale: clés de lecture pour un renouveau (in French). Revue de l'IRES, 2003
An Emerging Agenda for Trade Unions? Discussion Papers, International Labour Organization, 1999
Trade Unions and Transnational Industrial Relations. Discussion Papers, International Labour Organization, 1999
Trade union membership 1993-2003
Key Websites
Trade Unions
Committee on workers' capital
Global Union Federation framework agreements with multinational enterprises, ICFTU, Nov 04
International Trade Union Globalisation Resources, ICFTU
Online conference on Organized Labour in the 21st Century, co-organised by the ILO's Institute for Labour Studies and the ICFTU, April 1999
Others
Cornell Global Labor Institute
CRIMT (Interuniversity Research Centre on Globalization and Work)
European Industrial Relations Observatory On-line: Conference debates on union renewal and links with labour
Global Labour Institute
Unions 21
Key Journals
Special issues on union renewal
Just Labour: A Canadian Journal of Work and Society. Volume 6 & 7, Autumn 2005
Title of the issue: Union Renewal: Assessing Innovations For Union Power In A Globalized Era
Transfer. Number 4, 2005
Title of the issue: Innovations for union renewal.
Studies in Political Economy. Number 74, Autumn 2004
See the special section: "Forum: Reorganizing Unions".
Sociologie et sociétés. Volume 30, Number 2, Autumn 1998
Title of the issue (in French) : Un syndicalisme en crise d'identité
Key journals on industrial relations and unionism (abstracts available on-line)
Berkeley journal of employment and labor law
British Journal of Industrial Relations
Economic & Industrial Democracy
European Industrial Relations Review
European Journal of Industrial Relations
Industrial and Labor Relations Review
Industrial Relations: A Journal of Economy and Society
Industrial Relations Journal
Labor History Review
Labor Studies Journal
New Zealand Journal of Industrial Relations
Relations industrielles/Industrial Relations
The Journal of Industrial Relations
Work, Employment & Society
Last update: 20 March 2007
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Global Union Research Network - GURN