Miguel Martinez Lucio
Biographic Data
| ID | 246316 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Miguel Martinez Lucio |
| GIVEN NAMES | Miguel Martinez |
| FAMILY NAME | Lucio |
| SIGNATURE | LUCIO M M |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Manchester |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-7090-9007 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 51 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 228 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 51 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1991 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 10 |
From worker representation to the representation of work: Mobilisation, contestation and struggle over employee contribution during the pandemic in the United Kingdom
This paper aims to stimulate debate within the employment involvement participation, and worker representation, discussions. We use the work of cleaning in the UK as our main example. This work was perceived as ‘essential’ during the Covid19 pandemic, and ‘valued’ in the social perception and the nationalist discourse of solidarity and sacrifice. Yet there was a particular set of political interventions that contested the need for rewarding such …
Burning Down the House? On the ‘New-wave’ Literature on Worker Representation, and the Case for the Space Between
A growing and significant ‘new-wave’ of literature maintains that studies on equality and inclusion in labour representation would benefit from a stronger focus on collective action led by (migrant) precarious workers, both within but especially beyond established unions. The debate also incorporates and overlaps with the growing recognition of intersectional approaches to industrial relations and the need to think more inclusively about identiti…
Trade Unions and Sociotechnical Change: Examining Legal Mobilisation in the Retail Sector in Chile
This article examines how trade unions in Chile adopted legal mobilisation to address a sociotechnical transformation agenda that triggered wage decline and work intensification. The proposed change involved the implementation of a Functional Flexibility Plan by a multinational retailer, facilitated by in‐store logistics and supermarket front‐end sales technologies. Connecting a Sociotechnical Approach with Employment Relations studies, and using…
We are the backbone of the community’: Precarious multiple employment and the complex dynamics of dignity in, out and between work
This article critically examines the complex dynamics related to dignity at work (DAW) in contemporary precarious employment in the United Kingdom. It argues that current DAW frameworks are typically focused on workers with one job, but what about the experiences of those who need to work in multiple jobs to make ends meet? To consider this, the article focuses on the complex experiences related to dignity when navigating between and participatin…
Trade unions and the foundational economy: Understanding shifting boundaries, politics and functions of economic participation and social action within industrial relations
This article focuses on the changing role of trade unions in relation to ‘the foundational economy’ – the infrastructures and services that provide the basis for everyday life. While such initiatives have sometimes been considered as falling beyond the traditional remit of union action, examples of trade union engagement in and for the foundational economy are historically and currently evident across countries. The article argues that these are …
The obscure object of desire: The role of political reflections, strategic calculations and informal networks in the development of national social dialogue across time in Spain over five decades
This article provides an in-depth analysis of the dynamics of social dialogue in Spain and highlights that to understand the relations between organised labour and the state a greater degree of historical sensibility in the way risks and calculations are developed in terms of exchanges and expectations is required. It goes beyond traditional institutionalist analysis to further understand how social dialogue at the state level occurs across diffe…
Rebuilding Tripartism and Labor Standards From Below? Legitimation Politics and Risks Around Local Employment Standards
Establishing voluntary labor standards depends on securing the voluntary engagement of multiple actors with potentially diverging interests. This paper examines the legitimation politics and processes surrounding attempts to develop local labor standards through an empirical study of local employment charters in England. These forms of soft regulation, promoted by local state actors, ask employers to commit to flexible ‘good’ work principles. We …
Introduction to the Organisational Misbehaviour Debate
The first edition of ‘Organisational Misbehaviour’ by Stephen Ackroyd and Paul Thompson, published in 1999, is a landmark book as it engages with debates around managerial control, the labour process and how workers find the space to misbehave via humour, satire, recalcitrance and more. The second edition has recently been published (2022), which is fully revised and updated, with new chapters on managerial regimes, social media, developments in …
The “Managerialising” of the European Union
Radical research perspectives, network and collective: 20 Years of CLS
Critical Labour Studies (CLS) was established in 2004 as a collective to provide a platform for co-operative and radical research and education. Within the academy the network spans the social sciences in the field of work and employment, but this is only one of its characteristic features. It also includes a range of activists well beyond the academy in both traditional and alternative social and labour movements. The meetings also bring togethe…
Sustaining Solidarity through Social Media? Employee Social-Media Groups as an Emerging Platform for Collectivism in Pakistan
Forging solidarity among seemingly privileged white-collar professionals has been seen as a challenging process. However, many banking employees in Pakistan feel marginalized and lack formal collective mechanisms to voice their concerns, leading some to participate in social-media groups. Drawing on various discussions linked to labour process perspectives, we examine how these banking employees use social media as a means to create broader and d…
Swimming against the tide? Street-level bureaucrats and the limits to inclusive active labour market programmes in the UK
Through a dynamic analysis of the interplay between structure and agency, this article explores the factors shaping an inclusive approach to labour market activation for clients who experience multiple barriers to work. While previous studies argue that ‘street-level bureaucrats’ (SLBs), such as advisers and job coaches, have minimal agency to shape the services they deliver, the pilot programme that is the focus of this article allowed SLBs grea…
Policy Concertation and Social Partnership in Western Europe: Lessons for the Twenty-first Century
Policy concertation - the determination of public policy by means of agreements struck between governments, employers and trade unions - continues to thrive in Western Europe despite the impact of liberalizing trends that were expected to lead to its demise. This volume brings together a team of 23 experts with the aim to undertake paired historical and political studies of policy concertation in ten West European countries, which were then subje…
City regions and decent work: Politics, pluralism and policy making in Greater Manchester
Despite a growing body of literature examining the politics of city-regionalism, the question of how local actors engage with, and challenge each other in the subnational regulatory space requires greater attention if we are to develop a more comprehensive understanding of supposedly pluralist approaches to policy making. This paper critically evaluates policy innovations in Greater Manchester (GM) that seek to steer the behaviour of economic act…
Beyond work intensification: The contradictions and ironies of the changing nature of 'unskilled' work in a context of austerity and organisational change
This article argues, through a study of cleaning workers, a need to reconsider the changing nature of unskilled work. In particular, how it has, ironically, become more complex and challenging in some cases due to economic and political developments. For example, in relation to questions of dirty work, stigma and issues of dignity, aspects of this literature recognise the difficulty of the work and its 'distribution'. However, we argue a need to …
The evolving nature of labour inspection, enforcement of employment rights and the regulatory reach of the state in Britain
The role of the state in directly regulating employment through enforcement mechanisms is increasingly significant and politically contentious in a context of weakened unions and the increasingly fragmented and precarious nature of the labour market. This article focuses on qualitative research on labour market regulatory actors in Britain, including the Health and Safety Executive, the Gangmasters and Labour Abuse Authority, as well as referenci…
Justice for Janitors' goes Dutch: The Limits and Possibilities of Unions' Adoption of Organizing in a Context of Regulated Social Partnership
Organizing has been adopted as a strategy for union renewal in the Netherlands, where the dominant repertoire has been consensus-based social dialogue. Certain Dutch unions have developed strategies inspired by the US 'organizing model' and have been relatively successful in recruiting and mobilizing under-represented workers. Despite some tensions emerging, the introduction of organizing resulted in the greater representation of workers in secto…
Continuity and change in joint regulation in Europe: Structural reforms and collective bargaining in manufacturing
This article introduces seven national studies which examine the impact of austerity measures on collective bargaining in manufacturing in the European Union (EU) countries most affected by the crisis. We explore the changing dynamics in the relationships between domestic actors in the period leading up to the crisis and the influence of supranational actors thereafter. Austerity measures have undermined the structure, process, content and outcom…
Workers and labour in a globalised capitalism: Contemporary theories and theoretical issues
El discurso del despido libre en España: Una reflexión sobre el papel de los mitos y los prejuicios en las políticas de empleo españolas
This contribution is intended to try to understand the complex issues that underlie this debate on the free dismissal that has become very important in this context of economic crisis. It focuses on the way the debate is shaped and how it frames discussion about industrial relations, the labour market and even the economy within the context of Spain. Regardless of differences that exist on the substantive issues of flexibility and dismissal, the …
The colonisation of employment regulation and industrial relations? Dynamics and developments over five decades of change
The concept of regulation is central to industrial relations. Deregulation, re-regulation and the transfer of regulatory responsibilities have characterised five decades of reform projects. The concepts of negotiated' change and colonisation' are engaged as ways of understanding key moments of regulatory change in UK industrial relations since the 1960s. The stigmatising and undermining of trade unionism has been a key theme in modern British ind…
Rollerball and the spirit of capitalism: Competitive dynamics within the global context, the challenge to labour transnationalism, and the emergence of ironic outcomes
Purpose: Capital, through its practices and narratives of global competition, is able to play unions in different locations off against one another through the construction and exploitation of difference. Trade unions and their activists have responded through formal institutional responses and with new forms of network-based cooperation which is, at best, limited to action supported by the interests of union actors involved at a given juncture. …
The Internet, employment and Polish migrant workers: Communication, activism and competition in the new organisational spaces
This article discusses the content of Polish community–administered websites and trade union engagement. It is based on three sources of data, firstly, semi‐structured interviews with Polish web administrators and trade union officers in the north of England. Secondly, audits of the location of Polish administered UK websites undertaken in April 2007 and 2008. Lastly, an in‐depth thematic questionnaire was undertaken of websites in November 2008.…
Trade Union Learning Strategies and Migrant Workers: Policies and Practice in a New-liberal Environment
This paper examines trade union networking and community-oriented activity through the recent development of learning strategies in relation to migrant workers. The paper locates the discussion on learning in relation to union attempts to develop a broader urban and community-based view of the union as an organisation. It assesses the innovative ways trade unions deploy their learning strategies given the challenges associated with a liberal mark…
Transformation and Continuities in Urban Struggles: Urban Politics, Trade Unions and Migration in Spain
Spain was one of the countries at the heart of the work of Manuel Castells due to its history of urban struggles and labour–urban based alliances. It formed one of the key examples of city movements and the democratisation of urban spaces. The 1960s and 1970s were seen to throw up a range of new types of urban mobilisation and engagement—in part based on issues of internal migration and its urban and employment impact. With the changes in Spain d…
Unstable boundaries?' Evaluating the 'new regulation' within employment relations
The ’emergence’ of the ’market’ as the basis of economic and political decision-making has become a main focus of debate within the social sciences since the late 1970s. Even while those opposing the growing centrality of neo-classical economics and market-oriented political discourses remain a significant academic constituency, within their ranks there has been a growing realization that regulatory mechanisms, and in particular the role of the s…
Meanings and dilemmas in community unionism: Trade union community initiatives and black and minority ethnic groups in the UK
The article shows that community initiatives take different forms and are the outcome of a broader interplay of factors between workers' interests, representation, and the strategies of unions and broader coalitions that are mobilized in specific communities. Drawing from three case studies on black and minority ethnic (BME) workers and trade unions in the UK the article looks at how the rhetoric of community unionism has been adopted in an uneve…
The Internet, employment and Polish migrant workers: Communication, activism and competition in the new organisational spaces
This article discusses the content of Polish community–administered websites and trade union engagement. It is based on three sources of data, firstly, semi‐structured interviews with Polish web administrators and trade union officers in the north of England. Secondly, audits of the location of Polish administered UK websites undertaken in April 2007 and 2008. Lastly, an in‐depth thematic questionnaire was undertaken of websites in November 2008.…
Dimensions of collectivism: Occupation, Community and the Increasing Role of Memory and Personal Dynamics in the Debate
This essay argues that the notion of there being a decline in collectivism does not adequately engage with a whole new set of initiatives within labour process theory on collectivism in its various forms. These debates demonstrate how diverse social influences and experiences, and the memory of previous experiences and collective endeavours, are essential features that must be acknowledged in terms of their implications. There are series of inter…
The Realities of Regulatory Change: Beyond the Fetish of Deregulation
The article argues that any discussion of regulatory change should be sensitive to the manner in which regulation was originally constructed and developed. Any change can only be understood by a mapping of the complex interrelation of spaces, spheres and actors of regulation. The act of regulatory change requires shifts and re-alignments across a wide range of fronts. This is because regulation involves alliances and linkages across a range of sp…
Introduction: The Contract State and the Future of Public Management
This Special Issue looks at some of the radical changes which have taken place in the management and organisation of the UK public sector, focusing in particular on the separation of purchaser and provider roles and on the extensive use of contract and market relations. Most of the articles in this issue originate from the 1994 Employment Research Unit conference 'The Contract State? The Future of Public Management'. Specialist contributors addre…
Collective narratives and politics in the contemporary study of work: The New Management Practices Debate
In this article we explore the question of how as sociologists of work we might research those who constitute the substance of our labour process. We approach this question through an examination of the new management practices debate, principally in the labour movement where a distinctive and critical view of NMP developed in the late 1980s. Second, we argue that there is a link between this debate and the wider politics of labour process discus…
Making networks and (re)making trade union bureaucracy: A European‐wide case study of trade union engagement with the Internet and networking
The Internet increasingly forms part of formal trade union responses to changing economic and political challenges but in quite complex ways, due to the manner in which different constituents harness and mediate its development. The paper shows how networking is the object of competing meanings and interventions, and the subject of a range of issues in terms of organisational hierarchies, competing communities of practice and competing understand…
Swimming against the tide? Street-level bureaucrats and the limits to inclusive active labour market programmes in the UK
Through a dynamic analysis of the interplay between structure and agency, this article explores the factors shaping an inclusive approach to labour market activation for clients who experience multiple barriers to work. While previous studies argue that ‘street-level bureaucrats’ (SLBs), such as advisers and job coaches, have minimal agency to shape the services they deliver, the pilot programme that is the focus of this article allowed SLBs grea…
Constructing the post‐fordist state? The politics of labour market flexibility in Spain
This article addresses several issues surrounding the politics of flexibility in Spain. First, it argues that the strategic role of trade unions develop and condition public policies on labour market reform by couching their strategies in terms of the post‐war labour market strategies and structures of the state, especially as governments attempt to move away from established forms of fordist regulation. Hence, second, a broader political and his…
Justice for Janitors' goes Dutch: The Limits and Possibilities of Unions' Adoption of Organizing in a Context of Regulated Social Partnership
Organizing has been adopted as a strategy for union renewal in the Netherlands, where the dominant repertoire has been consensus-based social dialogue. Certain Dutch unions have developed strategies inspired by the US 'organizing model' and have been relatively successful in recruiting and mobilizing under-represented workers. Despite some tensions emerging, the introduction of organizing resulted in the greater representation of workers in secto…
Partnership' and new industrial relations in a risk society: An Age of Shotgun Weddings and Marriages of Convenience
The article argues that the concept of risk should be at the heart of any discussion on partnership-based approaches to employment relations. It draws attention to two sets of organizational-related risk - distributive risks, related to material and environmental factors and exchanges, and political risks, related to organizational practices and legitimacy. These risks are shown to emerge from both exogenous and endogenous forces, and to have bec…
Change and Continuities Within the Public Sector: Contrasts Between Public and Private Sector Managers in Britain and the Effects of The‘thatcher Years’
Trade Unions and Relations with Black and Minority-Ethnic Community Groups in the United Kingdom: The Development of New Alliances
The paper argues that the role of voluntary sector bodies in black and minority-ethnic (BME) communities is a missing factor in much of mainstream industrial relations and race and ethnicity debates. There are gaps between trade unions and organised community groups within BME communities. These are significant issues, which question some of the more optimistic analyses of the subject of union renewal in terms of community unionism. The space of …
Return to Gender: An Analysis of Women’s Disadvantage in Postal Work
The workplace is a crucial locale for understanding three important issues in contemporary debates on gender and organizations; the processes by which work becomes gendered, the origins and nature of gender segregation and the role of trade unions in delivering gender equality. This article presents data from a study of workplace transformations in Royal Mail, and demonstrates the dynamic interplay of factors over time, which have sustained posta…
Employer identity and the politics of the labour market in Spain
The Confederation of Spanish Business Organisations (CEOE) has rarely been systematically analysed in terms of its role in the political and economic development of Spain. It is argued that the CEOE has indeed been influential in economic policy‐making and the formation of pro‐free market policies in Spain, albeit in a way not usually understood within many of the highly formalistic and institutionalist understandings of the relations between sta…
The colonisation of employment regulation and industrial relations? Dynamics and developments over five decades of change
The concept of regulation is central to industrial relations. Deregulation, re-regulation and the transfer of regulatory responsibilities have characterised five decades of reform projects. The concepts of negotiated' change and colonisation' are engaged as ways of understanding key moments of regulatory change in UK industrial relations since the 1960s. The stigmatising and undermining of trade unionism has been a key theme in modern British ind…
Trade Union Learning Strategies and Migrant Workers: Policies and Practice in a New-liberal Environment
This paper examines trade union networking and community-oriented activity through the recent development of learning strategies in relation to migrant workers. The paper locates the discussion on learning in relation to union attempts to develop a broader urban and community-based view of the union as an organisation. It assesses the innovative ways trade unions deploy their learning strategies given the challenges associated with a liberal mark…
The Paradox of Contemporary Labour Process Theory: The Rediscovery of Labour and the Disappearance of Collectivism
Recent commentators on the Labour Process Debate have addressed the relationship between individualism, collectivism and broader changes in management strategies through a focus upon the absence of labour and the demise of collectivism. In this critical response the authors argue that almost invariably, while labour in some guise is rediscovered, this occurs at the expense of collectivism
Beyond work intensification: The contradictions and ironies of the changing nature of 'unskilled' work in a context of austerity and organisational change
This article argues, through a study of cleaning workers, a need to reconsider the changing nature of unskilled work. In particular, how it has, ironically, become more complex and challenging in some cases due to economic and political developments. For example, in relation to questions of dirty work, stigma and issues of dignity, aspects of this literature recognise the difficulty of the work and its 'distribution'. However, we argue a need to …
Transformation and Continuities in Urban Struggles: Urban Politics, Trade Unions and Migration in Spain
Spain was one of the countries at the heart of the work of Manuel Castells due to its history of urban struggles and labour–urban based alliances. It formed one of the key examples of city movements and the democratisation of urban spaces. The 1960s and 1970s were seen to throw up a range of new types of urban mobilisation and engagement—in part based on issues of internal migration and its urban and employment impact. With the changes in Spain d…
Union politics, purpose and democracy: To be or not to be? Optimism, pessimism and the continuing importance of Richard Hyman's early contributions
Richard Hyman's work presents us with a rich portrayal of questions of solidarity and its meaning, the re-imagining of union roles, and the complex identity of unions, located in a concern with emancipation and worker representation. Hyman's early work of the 1970s acts as a vital precursor for such concerns and offers a rich set of concepts explaining the dilemma of labour representation, its inherent instability, and the importance of the role …
Employment Relations in a Changing Society: Assessing the Post-Fordist Paradigm
Change and Conflict in the New Economy evaluates three decades of change in employment and social regulation, questioning the paradigm of Post-Fordism as a stable development within contemporary capitalism. Bringing together leading commentators in the United Kingdom and Spain, it critiques the assumption that there is a new stable, de-centralized regime of employment that is post-bureaucratic and flexible. It focuses on four key areas: the exten…
Constructing the Market: Commercialization and Privatization in the Royal Mail
The public sector in the UK has become the object of constant reform and change as part of the government’s project to increase the remit of the private sector and the role of markets. There is much debate about the effect such a move to market relations has on public services. There is increasing concern with the way market–based reforms are linked to a new pattern of organizational structure and strategy that negates and/or opposes the traditio…
Sustaining Solidarity through Social Media? Employee Social-Media Groups as an Emerging Platform for Collectivism in Pakistan
Forging solidarity among seemingly privileged white-collar professionals has been seen as a challenging process. However, many banking employees in Pakistan feel marginalized and lack formal collective mechanisms to voice their concerns, leading some to participate in social-media groups. Drawing on various discussions linked to labour process perspectives, we examine how these banking employees use social media as a means to create broader and d…
Employer identity and the politics of the labour market in Spain
The Confederation of Spanish Business Organisations (CEOE) has rarely been systematically analysed in terms of its role in the political and economic development of Spain. It is argued that the CEOE has indeed been influential in economic policy‐making and the formation of pro‐free market policies in Spain, albeit in a way not usually understood within many of the highly formalistic and institutionalist understandings of the relations between sta…
Britain's Managers’ Views on the Role of Government in the Economy and in Industrial Activity: A Longitudinal Analysis
Change and Continuities Within the Public Sector: Contrasts Between Public and Private Sector Managers in Britain and the Effects of The‘thatcher Years’
Constructing the post‐fordist state? The politics of labour market flexibility in Spain
This article addresses several issues surrounding the politics of flexibility in Spain. First, it argues that the strategic role of trade unions develop and condition public policies on labour market reform by couching their strategies in terms of the post‐war labour market strategies and structures of the state, especially as governments attempt to move away from established forms of fordist regulation. Hence, second, a broader political and his…
Introduction: The Contract State and the Future of Public Management
This Special Issue looks at some of the radical changes which have taken place in the management and organisation of the UK public sector, focusing in particular on the separation of purchaser and provider roles and on the extensive use of contract and market relations. Most of the articles in this issue originate from the 1994 Employment Research Unit conference 'The Contract State? The Future of Public Management'. Specialist contributors addre…
European integration and the dilemmas of national public policy: The question of Spain's membership in the European Union
Constructing the Market: Commercialization and Privatization in the Royal Mail
The public sector in the UK has become the object of constant reform and change as part of the government’s project to increase the remit of the private sector and the role of markets. There is much debate about the effect such a move to market relations has on public services. There is increasing concern with the way market–based reforms are linked to a new pattern of organizational structure and strategy that negates and/or opposes the traditio…
The Paradox of Contemporary Labour Process Theory: The Rediscovery of Labour and the Disappearance of Collectivism
Recent commentators on the Labour Process Debate have addressed the relationship between individualism, collectivism and broader changes in management strategies through a focus upon the absence of labour and the demise of collectivism. In this critical response the authors argue that almost invariably, while labour in some guise is rediscovered, this occurs at the expense of collectivism
Return to Gender: An Analysis of Women’s Disadvantage in Postal Work
The workplace is a crucial locale for understanding three important issues in contemporary debates on gender and organizations; the processes by which work becomes gendered, the origins and nature of gender segregation and the role of trade unions in delivering gender equality. This article presents data from a study of workplace transformations in Royal Mail, and demonstrates the dynamic interplay of factors over time, which have sustained posta…
Unstable boundaries?' Evaluating the 'new regulation' within employment relations
The ’emergence’ of the ’market’ as the basis of economic and political decision-making has become a main focus of debate within the social sciences since the late 1970s. Even while those opposing the growing centrality of neo-classical economics and market-oriented political discourses remain a significant academic constituency, within their ranks there has been a growing realization that regulatory mechanisms, and in particular the role of the s…
The networked union? The internet as a challenge to trade union identity and roles
Purpose The article aims to look at the development of the internet in terms of its implications for the labour movement and its international activities. Design/methodology/approach The paper brings together conclusions and findings based on the previous work of the two individual authors who have studied the role of the internet from a national and international perspective, using a range of methodologies. Findings The impact of the internet in…
The globalisation of labour: Counter-coordination and unionism on the internet
The globalisation of labour: Counter-coordination and unionism on the internet
Partnership' and new industrial relations in a risk society: An Age of Shotgun Weddings and Marriages of Convenience
The article argues that the concept of risk should be at the heart of any discussion on partnership-based approaches to employment relations. It draws attention to two sets of organizational-related risk - distributive risks, related to material and environmental factors and exchanges, and political risks, related to organizational practices and legitimacy. These risks are shown to emerge from both exogenous and endogenous forces, and to have bec…
The Realities of Regulatory Change: Beyond the Fetish of Deregulation
The article argues that any discussion of regulatory change should be sensitive to the manner in which regulation was originally constructed and developed. Any change can only be understood by a mapping of the complex interrelation of spaces, spheres and actors of regulation. The act of regulatory change requires shifts and re-alignments across a wide range of fronts. This is because regulation involves alliances and linkages across a range of sp…
Cycles of participation and historic optimism: Saluting Harvie Ramsey
Human Resource Management
Human resource management (HRM) has various definitions, but in the main there are two general approaches. The first descriptive approach states that HRM is the managing of employees and human assets at work and within the organization in an integrated and coherent manner. The second approach elaborates this further by stating that HRM is distinct to previous forms of personnel administration in being proactive and therefore strategic: it concern…
Employment Relations in a Changing Society: Assessing the Post-Fordist Paradigm
Change and Conflict in the New Economy evaluates three decades of change in employment and social regulation, questioning the paradigm of Post-Fordism as a stable development within contemporary capitalism. Bringing together leading commentators in the United Kingdom and Spain, it critiques the assumption that there is a new stable, de-centralized regime of employment that is post-bureaucratic and flexible. It focuses on four key areas: the exten…
Making networks and (re)making trade union bureaucracy: A European‐wide case study of trade union engagement with the Internet and networking
The Internet increasingly forms part of formal trade union responses to changing economic and political challenges but in quite complex ways, due to the manner in which different constituents harness and mediate its development. The paper shows how networking is the object of competing meanings and interventions, and the subject of a range of issues in terms of organisational hierarchies, competing communities of practice and competing understand…
Trade Unions and Relations with Black and Minority-Ethnic Community Groups in the United Kingdom: The Development of New Alliances
The paper argues that the role of voluntary sector bodies in black and minority-ethnic (BME) communities is a missing factor in much of mainstream industrial relations and race and ethnicity debates. There are gaps between trade unions and organised community groups within BME communities. These are significant issues, which question some of the more optimistic analyses of the subject of union renewal in terms of community unionism. The space of …
Meanings and dilemmas in community unionism: Trade union community initiatives and black and minority ethnic groups in the UK
The article shows that community initiatives take different forms and are the outcome of a broader interplay of factors between workers' interests, representation, and the strategies of unions and broader coalitions that are mobilized in specific communities. Drawing from three case studies on black and minority ethnic (BME) workers and trade unions in the UK the article looks at how the rhetoric of community unionism has been adopted in an uneve…
Labour Process and Marxist Perspectives on Employee Participation
This article aims to outline how an apparently positive feature of organizational life can also be considered a focus of concern. It starts with an outline of some of the variations in Marxist and Labour Process debates, along with discussion of those debates within political science that have had most impact on discussions in industrial relations, especially the debate on corporatism. The article then moves to a discussion of critical accounts o…
Ethnicity, Equality and Voice: The Ethics and Politics of Representation and Participation in Relation to Equality and Ethnicity
Dimensions of collectivism: Occupation, Community and the Increasing Role of Memory and Personal Dynamics in the Debate
This essay argues that the notion of there being a decline in collectivism does not adequately engage with a whole new set of initiatives within labour process theory on collectivism in its various forms. These debates demonstrate how diverse social influences and experiences, and the memory of previous experiences and collective endeavours, are essential features that must be acknowledged in terms of their implications. There are series of inter…
Collective narratives and politics in the contemporary study of work: The New Management Practices Debate
In this article we explore the question of how as sociologists of work we might research those who constitute the substance of our labour process. We approach this question through an examination of the new management practices debate, principally in the labour movement where a distinctive and critical view of NMP developed in the late 1980s. Second, we argue that there is a link between this debate and the wider politics of labour process discus…
Political science (44 works) · Sociology (38 works) · Labor Movements and Unions (37 works) · Economics (33 works) · Law (32 works) · Politics (26 works) · Political economy (23 works) · Law (21 works) · Employment and Welfare Studies (19 works) · Social Policy and Reform Studies (16 works)