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New trade union roles and contexts have encouraged the emergence of new representatives and provided the basis for a more diverse activism. This book asks whether trade union activity and ideologies allow for the expression and mobilisation of different social identities and whether, in a changed and changing economic and political context, these eclipse class. Based upon the voices of the activists themselves, this book restores the subject to the landscape of industrial relations. It reasserts the centrality of work and the workplace to social identity, but emphasizes the importance of gender, race and ethnicity to changing work relations and consequently to the production of collective identity and consciousness. Yet new activism may be articulated in rather abstract concepts of equality and fairness, distinct from earlier more assertive and politically focused collective mobilization of politically conscious identities which characterized the self-organisation of social movements, but also from the language and vocabulary of class consciousness - reflecting legacies of political defeat.

PurposeThe paper sets out to ask whether the existence of a statutory model of collective bargaining has influenced the scope and depth of bargaining following voluntary trade union recognition.Design/methodology/approachThe paper is largely based on a telephone survey of 101 employer representatives, commissioned by the Department of Trade and Industry (2000). The survey was based on a sample of 213 voluntary trade union recognition agreements concluded between 1998 and 2002. The paper also draws on a textual analysis of 213 voluntary recognition agreements and refers to nine in‐depth case studies.FindingsIn this paper the research found evidence of dynamic relationships following recognition and in the majority of cases there has been collective bargaining on the core issues of pay, hours and holiday. There was less likely to have been negotiation over the non‐core issues of pensions, equal opportunities and training. There are clear differences between employers' reports of the nature of discussions with the union and what was set out in the written recognition agreements. The fact that a proportion of voluntary agreements have been formally limited to the core issues suggests the influence of the law in shaping both the scope and depth of voluntary recognition (and subsequent practice).Research limitations/implicationsThe analysis in this paper is based on employer perceptions of the bargaining process; clearly bargaining also reflects union aspirations. Further case studies based on workplace bargaining would illustrate this dynamic process.Originality/valueThe paper offers the first analysis of bargaining following voluntary recognition and assessment of the impact of the Employment Relations Act 1999.

1. Locating the 2000 Statutory Recognition Procedure -- 2. A Legislative Prompt? The TUC Perspective on the 2000 Recognition Procedure -- 3. Third Time Lucky? -- The Operation and Outcomes of the Statutory Recognition Procedure -- 4. Challenging Recognition : The Legitimacy of Employer Behaviour -- 5. Organising for Recognition -- Union Strategies -- 6. Be Careful What You Wish For -- Unfair Practices and the Law -- 7. The Fragmentation of Representation : 'Contract-based Recognition' -- 8. The Future for Statutory Recognition

This article explores the inter-relationship of gender, sexuality, race and class among cabin crew, members of trade union BASSA, in the British Airways dispute of 2009–2011. It evaluates the utility of intersectional analysis in the context of industrial action, investigating the ways crew mobilised intersectional identities and class interests. In their narratives, crew evoked the 1984–1985 miners' strike, but rejected a version of class and militancy based on a perceived historical legacy of class as white, heterosexual and male. Engaging with debates in Sociology on class, the article restores work as the key site of class formation and identifies BASSA as providing the organisational and ideological resources to legitimate an inclusive worker interest that transcended sectional identities and generated a reimagined and reconfigured class identity.

This article examines two commonly adopted trade union strategies to increase the representation of under-represented groups – first, reserved seats on union decision-making bodies and second, self-organisation, involving separate structures. It does so through the case of the Fire Brigades Union (FBU), whose equality reforms were considered remarkable within the union movement and fire service due to the union's small size and highly male-dominated, white membership. However, reserved seats at senior levels were later removed following objection on the grounds of democratic legitimacy. The article examines this decision using original data comparing UK union rules for additional representation. It exposes the tensions for small, male-dominated unions of reconciling Young's theoretical principles of 'group-differentiated democracy' with the realities of perceived democratic legitimacy, and argues that progress on union equality is contingent on both the particular forms of democratic representation and the political and industrial context.

This article examines two commonly adopted trade union strategies to increase the representation of under-represented groups – first, reserved seats on union decision-making bodies and second, self-organisation, involving separate structures. It does so through the case of the Fire Brigades Union (FBU), whose equality reforms were considered remarkable within the union movement and fire service due to the union's small size and highly male-dominated, white membership. However, reserved seats at senior levels were later removed following objection on the grounds of democratic legitimacy. The article examines this decision using original data comparing UK union rules for additional representation. It exposes the tensions for small, male-dominated unions of reconciling Young's theoretical principles of 'group-differentiated democracy' with the realities of perceived democratic legitimacy, and argues that progress on union equality is contingent on both the particular forms of democratic representation and the political and industrial context.

This article introduces the SMALL project, its key research questions and methodology. It places SMEs within the context of the wider European economy. It sets out the data on union membership in SMEs which suggest that across Europe union membership is lower than in larger organisations. It then looks at rights to representation in SMEs and how thresholds based upon the number of employees reduce the potential for representation. The article explores collective bargaining coverage in SMEs. It considers the relationship between centralised collective bargaining systems and union membership in SMEs and the extent to which such systems can protect the terms and conditions of workers, drawing upon the case study evidence to suggest that such systems do not always ensure collective representation and organisation at workplace level. The article concludes by considering the steps that unions may need to take to address this.

"Der Artikel stellt das SMALL-Projekt vor, seine wissenschaftlichen Kernfragen und die Methodik. Die KMU werden hier in den Kontext der breiteren europäischen Wirtschaft gestellt. Der Artikel befasst sich mit den Daten über die Gewerkschaftsmitgliedschaft in KMU, die zeigen, dass sie in ganz Europa unter der in größeren Unternehmen liegt. Anschließend betrachtet der Artikel die Vertretungsrechte in KMU und beschreibt, wie Schwellenwerte, die sich an der Zahl der Beschäftigten orientieren, das Potenzial der gewerkschaftlichen Vertretung schmälern. Der Artikel untersucht, wie weit KMU unter den Geltungsbereich von Tarifverhandlungen fallen und prüft die Beziehungen zwischen zentralisierten Tarifverhandlungssystemen und der Gewerkschaftsmitgliedschaft in KMU und dem Umfang, in dem solche Systeme die Arbeits- und Entgeltbedingungen von Arbeitnehmern schützen können. Nach den Fallstudiendaten zu urteilen, garantieren solche Systeme nicht immer eine kollektive Vertretung und Organisation auf Betriebsebene. Im Artikel werden abschließend Schritte aufgezeigt, die Gewerkschaften unternehmen müssten, um diese Situation zu ändern." (Autorenreferat, IAB-Doku)

Purpose– The purpose of this paper is to explore what has happened to the notion and reality of equal pay over the past 50 years, a period in which women have become the majority of trade union members in the UK. It does so in the context of record employment levels based upon women's increased labour market participation albeit reflecting their continued over-representation in part-time employment, locating the narrowed but persistent overall gender pay gap in the broader picture of pay inequality in the UK.Design/methodology/approach– The paper considers voluntary and legal responses to inequality and the move away from voluntary solutions in the changed environment for unions. Following others it discusses the potential for collective bargaining to be harnessed to equality in work, a potential only partially realised by unions in a period in which their capacity to sustain collective bargaining was weakened. It looks at the introduction of a statutory route to collective bargaining in 2000, the National Minimum Wage from 1999 and at the Equality Act 2010 as legislative solutions to inequality and in terms of radical and liberal models of equality.Findings– The paper suggests that fuller employment based upon women's increased labour market activity have not delivered an upward pressure on wages and has underpinned rather than closed pay gaps and social divisions. Legal measures have been limited in the extent to which they have secured equal pay and wider social equality, whilst state support for collective solutions to equality has waned. Its replacement by a statutory minimum wage initially closed pay gaps, but appears to have run out of steam as employers accommodate minimum hourly rates through the reorganisation of working time.Social implications– The paper suggests that statutory minima or even voluntary campaigns to lift hourly wage rates may cut across and even supersede wider existing collective bargaining agreements and as such they can reinforce the attack on collective bargaining structures, supporting arguments that this can reduce representation over pay, but also over a range of other issues at work (Ewing and Hendy, 2013), including equality.Originality/value– There are then limitations on a liberal model which is confined to promoting equality at an organisational level in a public sector subject to wider market forces. The fragmentation of bargaining and representation that has resulted will continue if the proposed dismantling of public services goes ahead and its impact upon equality is already suggested in the widening of the gender pay gap in the public sector in 2015.

This article explores the barriers to union membership and organisation at workplace level in SMEs across Europe. It shows that the nature of social relations in SMEs makes the articulation of grievances a high risk strategy for workers and militates against the identification of collective interests as a basis for organisation. However, SMEs are dynamic organisations and organisational change can alter the conditions for representation. The article highlights the key importance of 'pro-voice' workers, with a collective frame of reference, for unionisation at workplace level. The general absence of such workers in SMEs compounds the problems faced by unions in addressing union renewal in the growth areas of the EU economy