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The article reviews the book, "Les identités au travail: analyses et controverses," edited by Jean-Yves Causer, Jean-Pierre Durand and William Gasparini.

La crisis de representación sindical es uno de los hechos vinculados al mundo del trabajo más relevantes de los últimos treinta años. Los estudios sobre representación sindical han tomado habitualmente como medida de su nivel a la tasa de afiliación. No obstante, se puede profundizar el análisis, incorporando otros elementos que permitan explicar la participación de los trabajadores en el marco de los sindicatos, como medida del nivel de representación. En este contexto, el objetivo del presente artículo es doble. Por un lado, profundizar sobre los aspectos vinculados con la participación sindical de los trabajadores, más allá de la afiliación, incorporando otros elementos que permitan caracterizarla a partir de niveles de participación. Vinculado a ello, por otro lado, se pretende establecer la influencia que tienen los factores asociados a las características del trabajador, de la empresa y sociolaborales en la participación sindical de los trabajadores argentinos. Para identificar los distintos niveles de participación se realizó un análisis factorial de correspondencias múltiples y de cluster que posibilitó determinar la existencia de tres grupos: los trabajadores ‘desvinculados’ del sindicato, los ‘periféricos’ y los ‘integrados’ al sindicato. Por su parte, la importancia de distintos factores relacionados con características de los trabajadores, de la empresa y sociolaborales en la definición de estos grupos se evaluó a través de un modelo de regresión logística multinomial. El resultado del análisis llevado adelante muestra que los factores vinculados a la empresa no inciden en la posición en que se encuentra el trabajador con respecto al sindicato. A su vez, la probabilidad de pasar de una situación periférica a una desvinculada se encuentra fuertemente relacionada con las características del trabajador, mientras que el cambio hacia un nivel de integración mayor se halla condicionado por los rasgos sociolaborales, tales como la presencia sindical y la antigüedad. // The crisis in union representation is one of the most relevant labour-related issues of the last thirty years. Studies about union representation usually consider unionization to be central to the evaluation of this crisis. However, this analysis can be deepened by incorporating other elements that explain workers' union participation as a measure of representation levels. In this context, this paper has two objectives. First, to analyze the factors that influence worker participation in unions considering, besides membership, other elements that characterize labor participation. Second, but in connection with the first objective, it aims to establish how this participation is influenced by factors related to worker, firm, and socio-occupational characteristics. To identify different levels of employee involvement we carry out a multiple correspondence analysis and a cluster analysis, both of which enable us to build three groups of employees along a continuum from the least to the most committed to the union. A multinomial logistic regression model is applied to establish the relative importance of different factors associated with worker, firm, and socio-occupational characteristics on the definition of these groups. The results show that firm-related factors do not affect worker participation in unions. In turn, the probability of moving to a non-participative situation is strongly related to worker characteristics, while the shift to a higher level of commitment is conditioned by socio-occupational characteristics, such as the presence of unions and seniority.

The article reviews and comments on the books "The Problem of the Future World: W.E.B. Du Bois and the Race Concept at Midcentury" by Eric Porter and "Wrestling With the Left: The Making of Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man," by Barbara Foley.

Editorial introduction to the issue.

Against the background of liberalization, privatization and financial crisis, unions face a declining number of core members. In emerging economies, the informal economy represents a large and growing proportion of the workforce. In many countries, unions have sought to engage these workers through "community unionism." This article draws on in-depth research to investigate how community unionism has been employed in Mozambique, an emerging economy in Africa. In doing so, it asks whether trade union engagement with community organizations is characterized by a strategic or piecemeal approach, the degree to which there are mutual benefits, and whether the relationship is sustainable in the longer term. Analysis of findings suggests that community unionism is vibrant within Mozambique, but that questions arise regarding its longer-term viability.

Comment évoluent depuis la fin 1970 les statut et pratiques de négociation collective ? Quelles transformations sont repérables dans le comportement des acteurs ? Les six pays retenus dans cet article – Allemagne, Espagne, France, Grande-Bretagne, Italie, Suède – disposent de systèmes de relations professionnelles originaux. Les bouleversements économiques et sociaux poussent à des transformations, parallèlement à l’enjeu de l’Europe en construction. Les difficultés nées de la longue crise économique ne déstructurent pas ces systèmes, ni ne nivellent leur diversité. Les acteurs se montrent adaptables et jouent sur une acceptation sociale historiquement acquise pour maintenir leur influence. Ils investissent de nouveaux thèmes (emploi) et de nouveaux espaces d’échange (comités d’entreprise européens, pactes sociaux). Réponse apparemment rationnelle et efficace dans la crise, la négociation collective voit plutôt renforcée son statut, son cahier des charges densifié – dans les pays du continent européen. La Grande-Bretagne fait exception ; la mise en cause frontale du système de négociation collective et du pouvoir syndical souligne par contraste la tendance commune aux autres pays.Progressivement la négociation collective est perçue comme le pivot des systèmes de relations professionnelles ; les acteurs collectifs tendent à s’identifier à leur fonction de négociateurs. La dissolution des anciennes alliances entre syndicats et partis inaugure un mouvement peu commenté de dépolitisation du projet syndical, avec recentrage sur l’espace des relations professionnelles. Avec le 21e siècle, des contradictions apparaissent. Les acteurs, patronaux et syndicaux, perdent en représentativité et en capacité d’intégration de bases hétérogènes. Les systèmes de négociation perdent en rendement ; les États les contournent ainsi que leurs acteurs pour piloter des transformations sociales. Plus qu’à une crise des systèmes, on a affaire à une crise des acteurs. Pour les syndicats, elle soulève la question de la revitalisation de leurs liens avec leurs mandants, comme celle des nouvelles alliances à construire.

The paper investigates the impact of flexitime programs in Britain using a linked dataset of employers and employees. Organizations adopt this practice for a variety of reasons, ranging from the concern for widening the scope for employee choice to the need to comply with public regulations. Recent public regulations are based on the premise that a rigid working hours culture exists in society that results in low levels of job satisfaction and ill and stressed employees. The results from the British Workplace Employment Relations Survey data show a weak relationship between flexitime and measures of job control used and, more importantly, the relationship is negative between flexitime and job security. There is also no evidence of the establishments with flexitime arrangements having less stressed employees.

The economic crisis has revealed the extent to which sustaining the key tenets of the ‘Common Sense Revolution’, implemented by the Conservative government of Premier Mike Harris, have eroded the fiscal capacity of Ontario. The proposal to freeze public sector wages and the ensuing consultation with public sector unions and employers in the spring/summer of 2010 signal Ontario is about to return to the rollback neoliberalism that dominated the 1990s. The difference between now and then is the more defensive posture of organized labour and the limited capacities that exist to resist such an assault.

The article reviews the book, "The Axe and the Oath: Ordinary Life in the Middle Ages," by Robert Fossier, translated by Lydia G. Cochrane.

Economics for Everyone: A Short Guide to the Economics of Capitalism, by Jim Stanford, is reviewed.

Regulating Flexibility: The Political Economy of Employment Standards, by Mark P. Thomas, is reviewed.

We analyze the Black-White earnings gap among Canadian workers using 2006 census data. The earnings gap is estimated using conventional earnings regressions, Oaxaca-Blinder decompositions and an empirical technique developed by Brown, Moon and Zoloth that allows an occupation attainment model to be incorporated into a standard earnings decomposition specification. Results from this latter method suggest that wage discrimination and occupational segregation account for the majority of the earnings gap, while endowment differences account for a fairly small portion. In light of the estimated impacts of wage discrimination and occupational segregation on full-time, full-year Black workers, we suggest various policy initiatives and further research aimed at reducing these earnings discrepancies.

Worker centres have emerged to address issues that low wage, largely immigrant workers, face at the workplace. They are attempting to fill a void left by the decline of labour unions, local political parties and other groups. Centres have had some significant organizing and public policy successes and have placed labour standards enforcement on the public policy agenda at the state and national levels. During their formative years, these organizations displayed important strengths but also exhibited weaknesses that appeared to limit their ability to get to scale. Over the last five years, they have moved into a new phase of development. Centres have shown institutional resilience. There is also a growing trend both toward federation and formation of institutional partnerships with unions and government. Finally, centres and their national networks are playing strategic roles in broader movement building around immigrant rights, global justice and the right to organize.

The article reviews and comments on the books "Killing for Coal: America’s Deadliest Labor War," by Thomas G. Andrews, "The Politics of Identity and Civil Society in Britain and Germany: Miners in the Ruhr and South Wales, 1890-1926," by Leighton S. James, and "Welsh Americans: A History of Assimilation in the Coalfields," by Ronald L. Lewis.

The article reviews the book, "The Crisis of the Twelfth Century: Power, Lordship, and the Origins of European Government," by Thomas N. Bisson.

The article reviews the book, "Power in Coalition: Strategies for Strong Unions and Social Change," by Amanda Tattersall.

This paper reports on research into the attitudes of mainstream New Zealand employers to collective bargaining, and its union agents, in New Zealand. Despite a legislative environment supportive of collective bargaining the process has been in substantial decline in New Zealand for 20 years, notably in the private sector. A series of national surveys found that employers indicated a strong preference for individual and workplace based bargaining consistent with a shift toward more Unitarist perspectives established post-1990. Furthermore, employers consistently argued that collective bargaining and its union agents, offered little real benefit to workplaces or employment relationships. This was the case even where those employers were actively engaged in, and had a long history of, collective bargaining with unions. Overall, these results suggest that improvements in private sector collective bargaining density are unlikely.

This case study explores a union organizing drive that revolved in large part around a group of temporary foreign workers. The impact of this group of workers on the union’s organizing strategy and the implications of the workers’ limited residence and labour rights are examined. This article also considers the factors that appeared to make the Justice for Janitors organizing model effective in this case as well as the potential risks associated with this approach.

The long view of New Brunswick history over the past century shows us glimpses of a vigorous tradition of social reform, much of it driven by the activism of organized labour. The New Brunswick Federation of Labour, established in 1913, was a major force in this history. The Federation played a leading part in the achievement of labour standards such as workmen’s compensation (1918) and subsequently in the enactment of laws to protect the right to union membership and collective bargaining. In pursuing these and other objectives, the province’s labour organizations have contributed to traditions of social democracy that are too easily overlooked in contemporary debates in New Brunswick. This essay sheds light on that important history, and why organized labour still matters in the province.