Union Voices: Tactics and Tensions in UK Organizing

In Union Voices, the result of a thirteen-year research project, three industrial relations scholars evaluate how labor unions fared in the political and institutional context created by Great Britain's New Labour government, which was in power from 1997 to 2010. Drawing on extensive empirical evidence, Melanie Simms, Jane Holgate, and Edmund Heery present a multilevel analysis of what organizing means in the UK, how it emerged, and what its impact has been. Although the supportive legislation of the New Labour government led to considerable optimism in the late 1990s about the prospects for renewal, Simms, Holgate, and Heery argue that despite considerable evidence of investment, new practices, and innovation, UK unions have largely failed to see any significant change in their membership and influence. The authors argue that this is because of the wider context within which organizing activity takes place and also reflects the fundamental tensions within these initiatives. Even without evidence of any significant growth in labor influence across UK society more broadly, organizing campaigns have given many of the participants an opportunity to grow and flourish. The book presents their experiences and uses them to show how their personal commitment to organizing and trade unionism can sometimes be undermined by the tensions and tactics used during campaigns.

Table of Contents:
Introduction 1. From Managing Decline to Organizing for the Future 2. The TUC Approach to Developing a New Organizing Culture 3. The Spread of Organizing Activity to Individual Unions 4. Union Organizers and Their Stories 5. Organizing Campaigns 6. Evaluating Organizing Bibliography Index

About the Author :
Melanie Simms is Associate Professor of Industrial Relations at the University of Warwick. Jane Holgate is Senior Lecturer in Work and Employment Relations at Leeds University. Edmund Heery is Professor of Employment Relations at Cardiff Business School. He is the coauthor of Working for the Union and Management Control and Union Power and coeditor of several books.

Review :
"The book contains well over a decade of intensive research on union organizing strategy, campaigns, and activist development that is simply unparalleled. ... The primary strength of this book is its exhaustive examination of organizing within the confines of UK union renewal. Here, the book situates itself among leading labour renewal research in the UK, US, Canada, and Australia."-Steven Tufts, Labour/Le Travail (Fall 2013) "Through their enormous wealth of longitudinal data, the authors provide a nuanced analysis and a more complex evaluation of union organizing than has any previous work. Offering the reader 'thick' descriptions, this comprehensive study is accessible to academics and practitioners alike. ... [T]he authors do a remarkable job of explaining the intricacies in an accessible way and disentangling the complexities for a broader audience. ... Union Voices should be on the shelf of every academic and practitioner interested in understanding the opportunities and challenges of union organizing or in the future of the British labor movement more broadly."-Maite Tapia, ILRReview (January 2014) "Union Voices is the definitive account of the emergence and spread of union organizing strategies in the UK in the decade following the founding of the TUC Organising Academy in 1998. Sustained efforts both more and less successful to revitalize a demoralized, beaten-down labor movement make for a remarkable chapter in the long history of British trade unions. Based on hundreds of interviews and hours of participant observation, this book sets a high bar for the rich qualitative research and analysis of contemporary workplace, economic, political and social issues at a critical moment in history."-Lowell Turner, Cornell University "Union Voices is a compelling and significant contribution to the comparative literature on the organizing potential of labor unions. A well-designed examination of labor unions organizing in a highly difficult time, it provides both historical depth and contemporary relevance."-Immanuel Ness, Brooklyn College Graduate Center for Worker Education, City University of New York "Melanie Simms, Jane Holgate, and Edmund Heery make a strong and convincing case that organizing activity became a central axis of union strategy for reversing or slowing down the stark decline in union membership and influence. This book is the culmination of a research project on organizing that lasted more than a decade; one of its major strengths is the range of evidence it brings to bear on its subject matter."-Chris Howell, Oberlin College "Organizing has become a central tenet of trade union renewal in countries as diverse as the United States, the Netherlands, and the UK. This book is the most systematic effort to date to evaluate and explain the experience in the case of the UK and is written by leading experts in the field of labor relations. It contributes by pointing to how such developments need to be located within a new democratic and social imagination if they are to seriously locate trade unions at the center of worker experience and employment regulation."-Miguel Martinez Lucio, University of Manchester