Trade Unions and Networking in the Context of Change: Evaluating the Outcomes of Decentralization in Industrial Relations
- 1 May 1995
- journal article
- research article
- Published by SAGE Publications in Economic and Industrial Democracy
- Vol. 16 (2), 233-251
- https://doi.org/10.1177/0143831x95162004
Abstract
This article addresses the fatalistic approach to trade unions in an era of supposedly decentralized production methods and in the context of the new wave of managerial practices in the workplace. An alternative thesis is presented, portraying the responses trade unions are making with regard to these developments in the form of networking. The authors argue that the evolution of these formal and informal networks within the labour movement, and in particular the political orientations of the actors involved in such networks, will ultimately condition managerial initiatives and the eventual outcomes of contemporary developments in the structure of production. The article points to the need to study such points of cooperation in such a way that their organizational dynamics, their political context and their contradictory developments are appreciated.Keywords
This publication has 12 references indexed in Scilit:
- New management practices in a multinational corporation: the restructuring of worker representation and rights?Industrial Relations Journal, 1994
- The emergence of the Euro‐company: towards a European industrial relations?Industrial Relations Journal, 1993
- Industrial relations in Europe in the 1990sThe International Journal of Human Resource Management, 1992
- THE POLITICS AND COMPLEXITY OF TRADE UNION RESPONSES TO NEW MANAGEMENT PRACTICESHuman Resource Management Journal, 1992
- The Europeanization of manufacturing and the decentralization of bargaining: multinational management strategies in the European automobile industryThe International Journal of Human Resource Management, 1992
- The Demise of the National Union in Italy: Lessons for Comparative Industrial Relations TheoryILR Review, 1992
- European Unions: Towards 2000Work, Employment & Society, 1991
- Trade unions and HRMIndustrial Relations Journal, 1991
- ErratumInternational Journal of Manpower, 1991
- Combine Committees: Developments of the 1970sBritish Journal of Industrial Relations, 1985