The turn to transnational labor history and the study of global trade unionism

Abstract

The transnational turn in the humanities and social sciences has had slender impact on the study of trade unionism in Britain. In industrial relations and labor history, the fields where most research into trade unions has been conducted, approaches have remained insular. This article reaffirms that national unions are building blocks in a global movement. Despite manifest failings, past and present, that movement remains potentially important in counteracting neoliberal globalisation. This paper examines the transnational paradigm adumbrated by labor historians and its relative lack of resonance among British academics. It demonstrates that there is an existing corpus of literature developed by specialists outside established fields. This work incompletely reflects recent theorizing about transnational historiography. Nonetheless, it provides a basis for developing studies of global trade unionism which use a plurality of approaches – rather than one-route recipes.

Notes

^1. Bonner, Hyslop, and Van der Watt, “Workers’ Movements,” 1121.

^2. Hanagan, “Agenda for Transnational Labor History,” 455, 456.

^3. See, for example, the publications of researchers at the Fernand Braudel Center at Binghampton University, notably Silver, Forces of Labor.

^4.Carr, What is History?, 146–52.

^5.Van der Linden, Workers of the World; Van Der Linden, “Promise and Challenges,” 57–76; Hanagan, “Agenda for Transnational Labor History,” 455–74; Clavin, “Defining Transnationalism,” 421–39; and Iriye, “Transnational History,” 211–22. And see now, Iriye, Global and Transnational History.

^6. This ecumenical approach characterized participants in the “AHR Conversation: On Transnational History,” 1441–64.

^7.Lucassen, Global Labour History; Van der Linden, Workers of the World; and Van der Linden, “Labour History Beyond Borders,” 353–83.

^8.Van der Linden, “Promise and Challenges,” 62.

^9. Ibid., 61; Van der Linden, Transnational History Explorations.

^10.Winn, “Global Labor History?,” 85–91.

^11. Van der Linden, “Labour History Beyond Borders”; Van der Linden, “Promise and Challenges,” 57–76; and Heerma van Voss, “Whither Labour History?,” 97–106.

^12.Greene, “Historians of the World,” 12–17; McIlroy, “Organized Labour History in Britain,” 50, 51; and McIlroy and Campbell, “Reply to Paul Pickering.”

^13. Van Der Linden, “Labour History Beyond Borders,” 364.

^14.Kirk, Comrades and Cousins and Van der Linden, Workers of the World.

^15. Gall, Wilkinson, and Hurd, International Handbook of Labour Unions.

^16. Croucher and Cotton, Global Unions.

^17. The stricture applies to ourselves as well as to colleagues.

^18. For background, see Ackers and Wilkinson, “Introduction” 1–30; Kaufman, “Paradigms in Industrial Relations,” 314–39; and Kelly, Ethical Socialism and the Trade Unions, particularly 146–52.

^19.Upchurch, “Some Conclusions from a Survey,” 77–83. The CIPD, the professional body for HRM specialists and the successor to the Institute of Personnel Management, is committed to improve company performance and influence state policy in that direction.

^20. See, for example, Voskeritsian, Intellectual and Institutional Development of BUIRA, 29, 30.

^21.Funnell, “Contemporary Trade Unionism,” 169–75.

^22.Kelly, Rethinking Industrial Relations.

^23.Darlington and Dobson, “Objective but not Detached,” 285–97.

^24.McIlroy and Croucher, “British Trade Unions and the Academics,” 263–84.

^25.Colling and Terry, Industrial Relations;Kessler and Bayliss, Contemporary British Industrial Relations; and Williams and Adam-Smith, Contemporary Employment Relations.

^26. Compare Flanders, Trade Unions, 70–4 and Coates and Topham, Trade Unions in Britain, 364–98 with McIlroy, Trade Unions, 345–6.

^27. Nicholson, TUC Overseas; Taylor, TUC; Weiler, “Forming Responsible Unions,” 367–92; Weiler, British Labour and the Cold War; and Press and Thomson, Solidarity for Survival, 32–47.

^28. See, for example, Frege and Kelly, Varieties of Unionism;Phelan, Trade Union Revitalization; and Gall Wilkinson, and Hurd, International Handbook of Labour Unions.

^29. Bronfenbrenner, “Conclusion.”

^30. We surveyed the British Journal of Industrial Relations (BJIR) between 2008 and 2013 (from vol. 36, no. 3 to vol. 51, no. 3) and the Industrial Relations Journal (IRJ) 2008–2013 (from vol. 39, no. 1 to vol. 44, no. 4). 177 and 160 articles were published in the two journals, respectively. Of these, 94 or 53% of BJIR and 123 or 77% of IRJ articles were on trade unionism, collective bargaining and strikes while 11 or 12% of BJIR and 8 or 7% of all IRJ articles were on comparative trade unionism, collective bargaining and strikes. The BJIR produced a special edition, vol. 53, no. 3 on ‘the global challenges facing workers and employment research’. Apart from that, the journal published only one article (by Rebecca Gumbrell-McCormick on the ITUC) on trade unionism at the global level.

^31.McIlroy and Campbell, “Still Setting the Pace,” 174–99.

^32. Hugh Clegg, Alan Fox and Bert Turner wrote history and were active in the SSLH in the early 1960s but not thereafter. Despite an attempt by Royden Harrison in the early 1980s to draft Clegg as Chair of the Society, his contribution to the three-volume history of trade unionism became a project relatively insulated from his other work. Richard Hyman related his research in industrial relations in the 1970s and 1980s to an interest in labor history which still infuses more recent work: see, for example, Hyman, Understanding European Trade Unionism. Historical Studies in Industrial Relations attracted insufficient support as a journal and continues as an annual publication.

^33. The survey referred to in note 30 showed that of the 177 articles published in the BJIR 2008–2013, only 19 (12%) can be broadly designated historical. Moreover, a special issue on a century of minimum wage legislation contained 8 of these articles while a further 2 articles dealt with the history of industrial relations as an academic field. The remainder can be classified as ‘contemporary history’, or longitudinal social science, covering with one exception the years since 1970 and generally documenting statistical trends. Only 9 of 160 articles (6%) published in the IRJ were broadly historical and three of these appeared in one special commemorative issue.

^34.Lyddon, “History and Industrial Relations,” 104–8.

^35.McIlroy, “Waving or Drowning?,” 91–119.

^36.Berger, “Round Table Discussion,” 91.

^37.Kirk, MacRaild, and Nolan, “Introduction,” 221. A total of 123 full-length papers were published in 1996–2007. Comparative and international labor history represented 11% of that total: McIlroy et al., “Introduction: Fifty Years On,” 7.

^38.Werner and Zimmerman, “Beyond Comparison,” 30–50; Haupt and Kocka, Comparative and Transnational History; and Hanagan, “Shall I Compare Thee…,” 133–46.

^39.Kirk, Labour and Society; Kirk, Comrades and Cousins; and see Berger, British Labour Party.

^40. Linebaugh and Rediker, Many-Headed Hydra;Rediker, Slave Ship; Azuma, Between Two Empires; and McGuinness, Path of Empire.

^41.Iriye and Saunier, Palgrave Dictionary.

^42.Bonner, Hyslop, and Van der Watt, “Worker's Movements.”

^43.Fink, Workers Across the Americas.

^44.Pelling, History of British Trade Unionism, 137, 219, 220; Reid, United We Stand; and Fraser, History of British Trade Unionism is similarly silent.

^45. McIlroy and Campbell, “Still Setting the Pace?” The criticism has some merit as only 11% of articles published in Labour History Review 1996–2007 were dedicated to the history of unions and friendly societies: McIlroy et al., “Introduction: Fifty Years On,” 7.

^46.Labour History Review, 74, no. 3 and 75, no. 1.

^47. Quoted in Nolan, MacRaild, and Kirk, “Introduction,” 8.

^48. Since 2010, there have been ‘Special Issues’ on wartime bombing in Western Europe and Chartism, the latter included some coverage of France. Otherwise only articles on Mazzini's influence on British cooperators and gender analysis in Britain, Canada and America leaven the British emphasis.

^49. For outlines, see Croucher and Cotton, Global Unions, 23–36 and Bonner, Hyslop, and Van der Watt, “Workers' Movements,” 1121–28.

^50.Van Goethem, Amsterdam International; Carew et al., International Confederation; Gumbrell-McCormick, “International Trade Union Federation”; Hodkinson, “Is There a New Trade Union Internationalism?,” 37–65; Bourque and Hennenbert, “Transformation of International Trade Unionism.” For the continuation WFTU, see Gallin, “WFTU: Hydrophonic Stalinism.”

^51.Hyman, “International Labour Movement.”

^52. Ross Tieman “Group Face Rising Concerns on Safety” Financial Times June, 12, 2013.

^53. Croucher and Cotton, Global Unions, 56–94; Carew et al., International Confederation, passim. This article does not discuss the pertinent but often overlooked issue of the kind of trade unionism which should be implanted in global companies, and whether its mission is adversarial or collaborationist, confronting or conciliating capital. For a wider discussion, see Hyman, Understanding European Trade Unionism. passim.

^54.Fajana, “Development of Industrial Relations,” 153–5.

^55. Carew et al., International Confederation and Van Goethem, Amsterdam International. For earlier work, see Windmuller, Labor Internationals;Windmuller, International Trade Union Movement.

^56.Gumbrell-McCormick, International Confederation and Lewis, International Transport Workers Federation.

^57.Pasture, Histoire du Syndicalisme Chrétien International and Tosstorff, Die rote Gerwerkschaftsinternationale.

^58.Gottfurcht, Die internationale Gewerkschaftsbewegung im Welgeschehen; idem, Die internationale Gewerkschaftsbewegung von der Anfänge; Mielke, Internationales Gewerkschaftshandbuch; Koch-Baumgarten, Gewerkschaftsinternationalismus; and Platzer and Müller, Die globalen und europäischen Gewerschaftsverbände. A rigorous history of the WFTU remains to be written but see, Silverman, Internationalism.

^59.Busch, Political Role and Logue, Theory of Trade Union Internationalism. See also Windmuller, Labor Internationals.

^60. For example, Wills, “Bargaining for the Space to Organise,” 675–700; Stevis and Boswell, “International Framework Agreements,” 174–94; Gallin, “International Framework Agreements,” 15–42; Hennebert, “Cross-Border Union Alliances,” 18–33; Hennebert and Bourque, “Mondialisation et Négotiations Sociales dans les Entreprises Multinationals,” 5–20; Bendt, Worldwide Solidarity; and Papadakis, Shaping Global Industrial Relations.

^61. For example, Ananaba, Trade Union Movement in Africa, 141–149; Khaliy, Effects of Foreign-Funded Trade Union;Croucher, “Impact of Trade Union Education”; and Croucher and Cotton, Global Unions, 80–94.

^62. Hyman, International Labour Movement; Essaidi, “Industrial Relations,” 137–46; and Croucher and Cotton, Global Unions, Chapter 9.

^63. For example, Bendiner, International Labour Affairs; Saunders, Across Frontiers; Lavalette and Kennedy, Solidarity on the Waterfront; Koch-Baumgarten, “Trade Union Regime Formation,” 369–402; Southall, Imperialism or Solidarity?; Turnbull, “Dockers versus Directives,” 117–36; and Hathaway, Allies Across the Border.

^64. For example, Scipes, AFL-CIO's Secret War;Burgoon and Jacoby, “Patch-work Solidarity,” 849–79; Goddens, “Transnational Scope,” 60–75; Whitall, Knudsen, and Huigen, Towards a European Labour Identity;Fetzer, Paradoxes of Internationalism; and Pizzolato, Challenging Global Capitalism.

^65. Denis MacShane quoted in Waterman, Globalization, Social Movements, 114.

^66.Barratt Brown, “Working Class Internationalism,” 70–82 and Coates and Topham, Trade Unions in Britain, 388–98.

^67.Thomson and Larson, Where Were You Brother? and Press and Thomson, Solidarity for Survival.

^68. For example, Munck, New International Labour Studies; Waterman, Globalisation, Social Movements;Munck and Waterman, Labour Worldwide; Munck, “Unions, Globalization and Internationalism,” 291–310; and Waterman, Trade Union Internationalism.

^69.Waterman, “Trade Union Internationalism,” 10.

^70. Ibid., 10, 11.

^71.De Sousa Santos, Rise of the Global Left.

^72. See Mason, Why It's Kicking Off Everywhere.

^73. For a critique, see Von Holdt, “Social Movement Unionism,” 283–304.

^74.Burawoy, “From Polanyi to Pollyanna,” 301–6.

^75. See the brief responses to Burawoy from Donna Casperz, Dan Clawson, Rob Lambert and Edward Webster in Global Labour Journal 1, no. 3 (2010): 384–400.

^76.Evans, “Is it Labour's Turn to Globalize?,” 366, 367.

^77.Brecher, Costello, and Smith, “International Labor Solidarity,” 17.

^78. Bourque and Hennebert, “Transformation of International Trade Unionism,” 1–17.

^79.Bronfenbrenner, “Conclusion,” 217.

^80. Cf. ‘Politically informed trade unionism in one country is no longer an option, if it ever was’: Hyman and Gumbrell-McCormick, “Trade Unions, Politics and Parties,” 316–31.

^81. Bronfenbrenner, “Conclusion,” 225.

^82.Van der Linden, “Labour History Beyond Borders,” 364.

^83. Ibid., 364, 365.

^84. Research measurement has led to ranking of journals in ‘Business and Management’, the category in which industrial relations/employment relations research is rated and high-ranked journals often constitute superior currency to books. History departments still hold the line.

^85.Hanagan, “‘Shall I Compare Thee…’,” 135.

^86.Van der Linden, “Promise and Challenges,” 62.

^87. McIlroy and Campbell, “Reply to Paul Pickering”.

^88.Hobsbawm, “Second Volume of Essays,” 67, 68 and Hobsbawm, “From Social History,” 71–93. Future historians will record that ‘social history’ did not evolve into a new paradigmatic ‘the history of society’. It continued to be a niche subject which since the 1990s has experienced decline.

^89.McIlroy, “Organised Labour History in Britain,” 50.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

John McIlroy

John McIlroy is a Professor of Employment Relations at Middlesex University Business School, London. He is the author of Trade Unions in Britain Today (2nd ed., 1995) and co-edited Trade Unions in A Neoliberal World (2009) and Histories of Labour: National and International Perspectives (2010).

Richard Croucher

Richard Croucher is a Professor of Comparative Employment Relations and the Director of Research at Middlesex University Business School, London. He is the author of Engineers at War (1982), We Refuse to Starve in Silence (1989) and with Elizabeth Cotton, Global Unions Global Business (2nd ed., 2011).