Martin Upchurch
Biographic Data
| ID | 266642 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Martin Upchurch |
| GIVEN NAMES | Martin |
| FAMILY NAME | Upchurch |
| SIGNATURE | UPCHURCH M |
| AFFILIATIONS | Middlesex University |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-9143-993X |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 28 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 89 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 27 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 1 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1997 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2018 |
| H-INDEX | 5 |
Humans and Machines at Work
Striking with social media
In this article, we review the workplace battleground and explore the potential of social media for mobilizing social movements in labour conflicts and beyond. By conducting a case study with empirical accounts obtained from the 2010–2011 British Airways cabin crew dispute in the United Kingdom, along with secondary sources, we discern social media in the workplace as a contested field. Inquiring into the unfolding dynamic of social media and wor…
The transformation of work and industrial relations in the post-Soviet bloc
The uprisings of 1989 in the Soviet sphere were momentous in their political impact. Examination of this prolonged transformation is timely. We progress from case study analysis of the workplace - important in the early stages of transformation - to reflective overviews which consider the accumulated experience of a quarter of a century of post-communism. Our overview studies highlight, for example, aspects of gender difference within the frame o…
Spectrum, trajectory and the role of the state in workers' self-management
This article examines self-management in the wider context of political economy and the role of the state. Most literature focuses either on labour process analysis or on social movement aspects of the phenomenon. Most importantly, there appears less emphasis on understanding the role of the state in shaping or reshaping practice, or the state is even eschewed as an inevitably conservative and bureaucratic independent agent. In developing our und…
Trade union responses to ageing workforces in the UK and Germany
Ageing workforces are placing conflicting pressures on European trade unions in order to, on the one hand, protect pensions and early retirement routes, and, on the other, promote human resource management (HRM) policies geared towards enabling their older members to extend working life. Using interviews from German and United Kingdom (UK) trade unions, we discuss how unions are both constrained and enabled by pre-existing institutional structure…
Political congruence
The authors introduce the concept of political congruence and apply it to the Amalgamated Engineering Union (AEU), during rearmament and war. Political congruence requires the alignment of union leaders, activists and members with a common political project. This is likely to bring strategic renewal, as was the case in the AEU. A platform of left reform developed as the influence of Communists on the shop floor and among activists developed. The …
Beyond ‘political economism
This article engages critically with Richard Hyman’s work on union identity and European integration. It includes a sympathetic review of Hyman’s contribution to the debate on these topics over the past two decades, alongside a critique of Hyman’s approach that highlights certain weaknesses and contradictions resulting from his uncritical use of a range of categories and concepts taken from regulation theory. The authors question Hyman’s argument…
A reappraisal of the rank-and-file versus bureaucracy debate
This paper celebrates some of the considerable strengths of Hyman's 1970s/early 1980s analysis of unions in general and bureaucracy specifically, and reapplies it to more recent developments within British unions, while at the same time providing a critique of Hyman's refutation of the 'rank-and-file' versus 'union bureaucracy' conception of intra-union relations. It argues that the wider set of implications Hyman drew from the accentuated pressu…
Political Congruence and Trade Union Renewal
The concept of political congruence is introduced as predictor or explanatory factor of trade union renewal. Strategic change is more likely to succeed when political congruence exists between the values, expectations and intended outcomes of the three sub-sets of leaders, activists and members in a union. Political congruence (P/c) is defined as convergence of shared political values and vision. For P/c to occur a particular chemistry of indepen…
Neoliberal Globalization and Trade Unionism
This article revisits the question of changing forms of trade unionism within the context of neoliberal globalization. While broadly accepting the argument that globalization might encourage the development of more radical forms of unionism as survival strategies, it argues that such radicalism cannot be understood satisfactorily by the term social movement unionism (SMU). This is due to over-reliance on theories of the new social movements (NSMs…
Wild capitalism, privatisation and employment relations in Serbia
Purpose This paper aims to examine the phenomenom of wild capitalism under post Communist transformation. Many commentators on post Communist transformation focus their attention on dysfunctional corporate governance and the deleterious consequences of liberalisation on business ethics. Poor business ethics and bad corporate governance may be a consequence of labour exploitation for comparative advantage, and the abandonment of party authority. T…
Beyond the chains that bind
The dynamics of neo-liberal restructuring have generated serious tensions in the institutional alignments between social democratic political parties and labor unions in Western Europe. This article explores the origins, development and consequences of the resulting political crisis through a detailed analysis of the institutional alignment of parties and unions in Sweden, Germany, UK and France. The authors reject the argument that the changing …
The ideal of non-coherence in the World Bank’s social capital reforms
This paper presents an analysis of a World Bank document representing a version of the new “Social Capital” approach of International Financial Institutions (IFIs). This stance involves a rhetorical reorientation away from a much criticized unilateral approach to the poor indebted countries and to a more bi-lateral and participatory attitude. Analysis suggests that this “post-ideological” posture is reflected in the text in the form of a copious …
The IFIs and Labour Reform in Post Communist Economies
Since 1999 the International Financial Institutions (IFIs) have sought to revise their policy approach to encourage participation, facilitation and dialogue with civil society organisations and trade unions. This Post Washington Consensus has been applied in transformation economies, where the IFIs have established labour market reform as a pre-condition for loans and grants. Such labour reforms have been deleterious to the interests of collectiv…
The Crisis of “Social Democratic” Unionism
This article defines and explores the crisis of social democratic trade unionism in three countries in western Europe. The authors contend that a particularized form of postwar trade union orientation was socially constructed in Britain, Germany, and France in which a party union nexus gave special privileges to unions in return for compliance with state policies in the national interest. This arrangement has broken down in recent years under the…
International Financial Institutions and Post-communist Labour Reform
Since 1999 the international financial institutions (IFI) such as the World Bank and IMF have reformed their approach to loan and grant conditionality. As part of the reforms recipient states are encouraged to consult widely with civil society organisations on the internal policy programmes promoted by the IFIs. Individual recipient countries are then assumed to take ownership of policy \nchange without recourse to IFI sanctions. However, many of…
Partnership, high performance work systems and quality of working life
The paper measures the effects of workplace partnership and selected high performance work practices on four different dimensions of employee experience. Whilst the partnership– high performance work systems nexus seems to have little impact on employees’ job satisfaction or sense of attachment, it does, however, have a negative impact on both workplace stress and employee evaluations of union performance. The analysis thus questions common assum…
Capital Mobility, Job Loss, and Union Strategy
Drawing on case study data, this article analyzes contrasting workplace union responses to organizational restructuring in the United Kingdom's aerospace industry. It critically evaluates two distinct union strategies that resonate with contemporary debates governing the future role of trade unions in the British workplace. The first response is based on “partnership” with management while the second reflects traditional “oppositionalism” via the…
State, labour and market in post-revolution Serbia
Workers played a key role in the October 2000 revolution in Serbia that overthrew Milošević and his Socialist Party regime. Since then, the trade union movement has begun to consolidate itself into three separate union federations, each with its own distinct orientation. Serbia's economic problems have persisted, leading to heavy dependence on privatisation, foreign direct investment and loans and grants from international financial institutions.…
High performance work systems and workplace partnership
This article provides case study analysis of the impact of high performance work practices and workplace partnership on skilled workers in the UK's aerospace industry. In contrast to assumptions that such practices increase empowerment and participation we find evidence of a democratic deficit in workplace decision‐making and deterioration in the quality of working life
Globalization and its Effects on Labour
The Global Economy, National States, and the Regulation of Labour
New unionism', organising and partnership
The TUC's 'New Unionism' project contains contradictory tendencies in its promotion of both partnership relationships with employers and the adoption of more aggressive organising techniques. This paper investigates the impact of partnership-organising tensions on union activity at the workplace level in local government and the NHS. We explore these tensions by considering three dimensions of workplace union organisation: management-union relati…
Trade Union Strategy and Renewal
The adoption of new management strategies and flexible working practices in the manufacturing industry has caused a fragmentation of the traditional collective base of British trade unions. Such changes have led some commentators to argue that, in order to survive, manufacturing unions must reject oppositional stances and instead offer support for company objectives, work reforms and partnership relations with management at the workplace level. T…
[Industrial restructuring, ‘globalisation], and the trade union response
This article examines the trade union response to industrial restructuring in two sectors highly exposed to international market competition in the south west of England. The authors have conducted interviews of MSF representatives in the insurance and aerospace industries and supplemented this qualitative data with data collected from a wide questionnaire distribution
A reappraisal of the rank-and-file versus bureaucracy debate
This paper celebrates some of the considerable strengths of Hyman's 1970s/early 1980s analysis of unions in general and bureaucracy specifically, and reapplies it to more recent developments within British unions, while at the same time providing a critique of Hyman's refutation of the 'rank-and-file' versus 'union bureaucracy' conception of intra-union relations. It argues that the wider set of implications Hyman drew from the accentuated pressu…
Neoliberal Globalization and Trade Unionism
This article revisits the question of changing forms of trade unionism within the context of neoliberal globalization. While broadly accepting the argument that globalization might encourage the development of more radical forms of unionism as survival strategies, it argues that such radicalism cannot be understood satisfactorily by the term social movement unionism (SMU). This is due to over-reliance on theories of the new social movements (NSMs…
The Crisis of “Social Democratic” Unionism
This article defines and explores the crisis of social democratic trade unionism in three countries in western Europe. The authors contend that a particularized form of postwar trade union orientation was socially constructed in Britain, Germany, and France in which a party union nexus gave special privileges to unions in return for compliance with state policies in the national interest. This arrangement has broken down in recent years under the…
Partnership, high performance work systems and quality of working life
The paper measures the effects of workplace partnership and selected high performance work practices on four different dimensions of employee experience. Whilst the partnership– high performance work systems nexus seems to have little impact on employees’ job satisfaction or sense of attachment, it does, however, have a negative impact on both workplace stress and employee evaluations of union performance. The analysis thus questions common assum…
New unionism', organising and partnership
The TUC's 'New Unionism' project contains contradictory tendencies in its promotion of both partnership relationships with employers and the adoption of more aggressive organising techniques. This paper investigates the impact of partnership-organising tensions on union activity at the workplace level in local government and the NHS. We explore these tensions by considering three dimensions of workplace union organisation: management-union relati…
Trade union responses to ageing workforces in the UK and Germany
Ageing workforces are placing conflicting pressures on European trade unions in order to, on the one hand, protect pensions and early retirement routes, and, on the other, promote human resource management (HRM) policies geared towards enabling their older members to extend working life. Using interviews from German and United Kingdom (UK) trade unions, we discuss how unions are both constrained and enabled by pre-existing institutional structure…
Trade Union Strategy and Renewal
The adoption of new management strategies and flexible working practices in the manufacturing industry has caused a fragmentation of the traditional collective base of British trade unions. Such changes have led some commentators to argue that, in order to survive, manufacturing unions must reject oppositional stances and instead offer support for company objectives, work reforms and partnership relations with management at the workplace level. T…
The transformation of work and industrial relations in the post-Soviet bloc
The uprisings of 1989 in the Soviet sphere were momentous in their political impact. Examination of this prolonged transformation is timely. We progress from case study analysis of the workplace - important in the early stages of transformation - to reflective overviews which consider the accumulated experience of a quarter of a century of post-communism. Our overview studies highlight, for example, aspects of gender difference within the frame o…
Political Congruence and Trade Union Renewal
The concept of political congruence is introduced as predictor or explanatory factor of trade union renewal. Strategic change is more likely to succeed when political congruence exists between the values, expectations and intended outcomes of the three sub-sets of leaders, activists and members in a union. Political congruence (P/c) is defined as convergence of shared political values and vision. For P/c to occur a particular chemistry of indepen…
High performance work systems and workplace partnership
This article provides case study analysis of the impact of high performance work practices and workplace partnership on skilled workers in the UK's aerospace industry. In contrast to assumptions that such practices increase empowerment and participation we find evidence of a democratic deficit in workplace decision‐making and deterioration in the quality of working life
Institutional Transference and Changing Workplace Relations in Post Unification East Germany
German Unification in 1990 was processed by the imposition of the `western' institutional framework on the former east. Legal, administrative and fiscal systems were transferred as part of the Unification Treaty together with the West German industrial relations machinery of co-determination in collective bargaining and participation at the level of the workplace. However the fact that the two Germanies had grown in different economic, social and…
Spectrum, trajectory and the role of the state in workers' self-management
This article examines self-management in the wider context of political economy and the role of the state. Most literature focuses either on labour process analysis or on social movement aspects of the phenomenon. Most importantly, there appears less emphasis on understanding the role of the state in shaping or reshaping practice, or the state is even eschewed as an inevitably conservative and bureaucratic independent agent. In developing our und…
[Industrial restructuring, ‘globalisation], and the trade union response
This article examines the trade union response to industrial restructuring in two sectors highly exposed to international market competition in the south west of England. The authors have conducted interviews of MSF representatives in the insurance and aerospace industries and supplemented this qualitative data with data collected from a wide questionnaire distribution
The Crisis of Labour Relations in Germany
The article traces the historical development and peculiarities of (West) German capitalism and the place of consensus within the ideological superstructure. New state and employer offensives against labour are recorded and analysed and the resultant crisis of labour relations is discussed. The author argues that employers are, as yet, unwilling to launch a full frontal attack on co-determination
Beyond ‘political economism
This article engages critically with Richard Hyman’s work on union identity and European integration. It includes a sympathetic review of Hyman’s contribution to the debate on these topics over the past two decades, alongside a critique of Hyman’s approach that highlights certain weaknesses and contradictions resulting from his uncritical use of a range of categories and concepts taken from regulation theory. The authors question Hyman’s argument…
The ideal of non-coherence in the World Bank’s social capital reforms
This paper presents an analysis of a World Bank document representing a version of the new “Social Capital” approach of International Financial Institutions (IFIs). This stance involves a rhetorical reorientation away from a much criticized unilateral approach to the poor indebted countries and to a more bi-lateral and participatory attitude. Analysis suggests that this “post-ideological” posture is reflected in the text in the form of a copious …
The IFIs and Labour Reform in Post Communist Economies
Since 1999 the International Financial Institutions (IFIs) have sought to revise their policy approach to encourage participation, facilitation and dialogue with civil society organisations and trade unions. This Post Washington Consensus has been applied in transformation economies, where the IFIs have established labour market reform as a pre-condition for loans and grants. Such labour reforms have been deleterious to the interests of collectiv…
International Financial Institutions and Post-communist Labour Reform
Since 1999 the international financial institutions (IFI) such as the World Bank and IMF have reformed their approach to loan and grant conditionality. As part of the reforms recipient states are encouraged to consult widely with civil society organisations on the internal policy programmes promoted by the IFIs. Individual recipient countries are then assumed to take ownership of policy \nchange without recourse to IFI sanctions. However, many of…
Capital Mobility, Job Loss, and Union Strategy
Drawing on case study data, this article analyzes contrasting workplace union responses to organizational restructuring in the United Kingdom's aerospace industry. It critically evaluates two distinct union strategies that resonate with contemporary debates governing the future role of trade unions in the British workplace. The first response is based on “partnership” with management while the second reflects traditional “oppositionalism” via the…
Globalization and its Effects on Labour
Social Partnerships', the Market and Trade-Union Involvement in Training
Interest has arisen in the contribution of vo cational education and training (VET) to national competitiveness as part of more gen eral debates on 'national economic models'. In particular the 'dual system' of the German `model' has been put forward as a more com petitive example than the deregulated and market-based system in Britain. Over the last decade and a half, training has been consider ably overhauled in Britain with the aim of rais ing…
Institutional Transference and Changing Workplace Relations in Post Unification East Germany
German Unification in 1990 was processed by the imposition of the `western' institutional framework on the former east. Legal, administrative and fiscal systems were transferred as part of the Unification Treaty together with the West German industrial relations machinery of co-determination in collective bargaining and participation at the level of the workplace. However the fact that the two Germanies had grown in different economic, social and…
The Crisis of Labour Relations in Germany
The article traces the historical development and peculiarities of (West) German capitalism and the place of consensus within the ideological superstructure. New state and employer offensives against labour are recorded and analysed and the resultant crisis of labour relations is discussed. The author argues that employers are, as yet, unwilling to launch a full frontal attack on co-determination
[Industrial restructuring, ‘globalisation], and the trade union response
This article examines the trade union response to industrial restructuring in two sectors highly exposed to international market competition in the south west of England. The authors have conducted interviews of MSF representatives in the insurance and aerospace industries and supplemented this qualitative data with data collected from a wide questionnaire distribution
The Global Economy, National States, and the Regulation of Labour
New unionism', organising and partnership
The TUC's 'New Unionism' project contains contradictory tendencies in its promotion of both partnership relationships with employers and the adoption of more aggressive organising techniques. This paper investigates the impact of partnership-organising tensions on union activity at the workplace level in local government and the NHS. We explore these tensions by considering three dimensions of workplace union organisation: management-union relati…
Trade Union Strategy and Renewal
The adoption of new management strategies and flexible working practices in the manufacturing industry has caused a fragmentation of the traditional collective base of British trade unions. Such changes have led some commentators to argue that, in order to survive, manufacturing unions must reject oppositional stances and instead offer support for company objectives, work reforms and partnership relations with management at the workplace level. T…
High performance work systems and workplace partnership
This article provides case study analysis of the impact of high performance work practices and workplace partnership on skilled workers in the UK's aerospace industry. In contrast to assumptions that such practices increase empowerment and participation we find evidence of a democratic deficit in workplace decision‐making and deterioration in the quality of working life
Globalization and its Effects on Labour
State, labour and market in post-revolution Serbia
Workers played a key role in the October 2000 revolution in Serbia that overthrew Milošević and his Socialist Party regime. Since then, the trade union movement has begun to consolidate itself into three separate union federations, each with its own distinct orientation. Serbia's economic problems have persisted, leading to heavy dependence on privatisation, foreign direct investment and loans and grants from international financial institutions.…
Capital Mobility, Job Loss, and Union Strategy
Drawing on case study data, this article analyzes contrasting workplace union responses to organizational restructuring in the United Kingdom's aerospace industry. It critically evaluates two distinct union strategies that resonate with contemporary debates governing the future role of trade unions in the British workplace. The first response is based on “partnership” with management while the second reflects traditional “oppositionalism” via the…
International Financial Institutions and Post-communist Labour Reform
Since 1999 the international financial institutions (IFI) such as the World Bank and IMF have reformed their approach to loan and grant conditionality. As part of the reforms recipient states are encouraged to consult widely with civil society organisations on the internal policy programmes promoted by the IFIs. Individual recipient countries are then assumed to take ownership of policy \nchange without recourse to IFI sanctions. However, many of…
Partnership, high performance work systems and quality of working life
The paper measures the effects of workplace partnership and selected high performance work practices on four different dimensions of employee experience. Whilst the partnership– high performance work systems nexus seems to have little impact on employees’ job satisfaction or sense of attachment, it does, however, have a negative impact on both workplace stress and employee evaluations of union performance. The analysis thus questions common assum…
The IFIs and Labour Reform in Post Communist Economies
Since 1999 the International Financial Institutions (IFIs) have sought to revise their policy approach to encourage participation, facilitation and dialogue with civil society organisations and trade unions. This Post Washington Consensus has been applied in transformation economies, where the IFIs have established labour market reform as a pre-condition for loans and grants. Such labour reforms have been deleterious to the interests of collectiv…
The Crisis of “Social Democratic” Unionism
This article defines and explores the crisis of social democratic trade unionism in three countries in western Europe. The authors contend that a particularized form of postwar trade union orientation was socially constructed in Britain, Germany, and France in which a party union nexus gave special privileges to unions in return for compliance with state policies in the national interest. This arrangement has broken down in recent years under the…
The ideal of non-coherence in the World Bank’s social capital reforms
This paper presents an analysis of a World Bank document representing a version of the new “Social Capital” approach of International Financial Institutions (IFIs). This stance involves a rhetorical reorientation away from a much criticized unilateral approach to the poor indebted countries and to a more bi-lateral and participatory attitude. Analysis suggests that this “post-ideological” posture is reflected in the text in the form of a copious …
Wild capitalism, privatisation and employment relations in Serbia
Purpose This paper aims to examine the phenomenom of wild capitalism under post Communist transformation. Many commentators on post Communist transformation focus their attention on dysfunctional corporate governance and the deleterious consequences of liberalisation on business ethics. Poor business ethics and bad corporate governance may be a consequence of labour exploitation for comparative advantage, and the abandonment of party authority. T…
Beyond the chains that bind
The dynamics of neo-liberal restructuring have generated serious tensions in the institutional alignments between social democratic political parties and labor unions in Western Europe. This article explores the origins, development and consequences of the resulting political crisis through a detailed analysis of the institutional alignment of parties and unions in Sweden, Germany, UK and France. The authors reject the argument that the changing …
Political congruence
The authors introduce the concept of political congruence and apply it to the Amalgamated Engineering Union (AEU), during rearmament and war. Political congruence requires the alignment of union leaders, activists and members with a common political project. This is likely to bring strategic renewal, as was the case in the AEU. A platform of left reform developed as the influence of Communists on the shop floor and among activists developed. The …
Beyond ‘political economism
This article engages critically with Richard Hyman’s work on union identity and European integration. It includes a sympathetic review of Hyman’s contribution to the debate on these topics over the past two decades, alongside a critique of Hyman’s approach that highlights certain weaknesses and contradictions resulting from his uncritical use of a range of categories and concepts taken from regulation theory. The authors question Hyman’s argument…
A reappraisal of the rank-and-file versus bureaucracy debate
This paper celebrates some of the considerable strengths of Hyman's 1970s/early 1980s analysis of unions in general and bureaucracy specifically, and reapplies it to more recent developments within British unions, while at the same time providing a critique of Hyman's refutation of the 'rank-and-file' versus 'union bureaucracy' conception of intra-union relations. It argues that the wider set of implications Hyman drew from the accentuated pressu…
Political Congruence and Trade Union Renewal
The concept of political congruence is introduced as predictor or explanatory factor of trade union renewal. Strategic change is more likely to succeed when political congruence exists between the values, expectations and intended outcomes of the three sub-sets of leaders, activists and members in a union. Political congruence (P/c) is defined as convergence of shared political values and vision. For P/c to occur a particular chemistry of indepen…
Neoliberal Globalization and Trade Unionism
This article revisits the question of changing forms of trade unionism within the context of neoliberal globalization. While broadly accepting the argument that globalization might encourage the development of more radical forms of unionism as survival strategies, it argues that such radicalism cannot be understood satisfactorily by the term social movement unionism (SMU). This is due to over-reliance on theories of the new social movements (NSMs…
Trade union responses to ageing workforces in the UK and Germany
Ageing workforces are placing conflicting pressures on European trade unions in order to, on the one hand, protect pensions and early retirement routes, and, on the other, promote human resource management (HRM) policies geared towards enabling their older members to extend working life. Using interviews from German and United Kingdom (UK) trade unions, we discuss how unions are both constrained and enabled by pre-existing institutional structure…
Spectrum, trajectory and the role of the state in workers' self-management
This article examines self-management in the wider context of political economy and the role of the state. Most literature focuses either on labour process analysis or on social movement aspects of the phenomenon. Most importantly, there appears less emphasis on understanding the role of the state in shaping or reshaping practice, or the state is even eschewed as an inevitably conservative and bureaucratic independent agent. In developing our und…
Political science (25 works) · Labor Movements and Unions (24 works) · Economics (22 works) · Law (20 works) · Politics (18 works) · Social Policy and Reform Studies (18 works) · Political economy (17 works) · Sociology (14 works) · Law (13 works) · Trade union (12 works)