Malcolm Rimmer

Book Reviews : THE SYSTEM OF INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS IN GREAT BRITAIN By H. A. Clegg (Blackwell, Oxford, 1972), pp. xi + 500. Price £4(stg)

THIS IS the second edition of Professor Clegg’s encyclopaedic textbook upon British industrial relations, and the changes that have been necessitated by the passage of two years indicate the difficulty of writing any textbook upon the operation of unions, management, and the role of the State in industrial relations. Quite simply, it is difficult to keep such a work up to date. One dominant perspective of the book is historical, in the sense that developments in, for instance, incomes policy, the T.U.C. or employers’ associations

Book Reviews : Theories of Trade Unionism: a Sociology of Industrial Relations: By Michael Poole. Routledge & Kegan Paul, London, 1981, xi + 265 pp., £12.50 (hardback)

To an economist reviewer, the excitement of this book comes through the contribution of the political scientist with its hint that it may be possible to spell out forms of interaction between the market sector and the political coalition processes that more fully rationalise the phenomena summarised above, including the rich and variegated patterns across industrial societies. Such an approach, which is not developed in the volume, might be somewhat akin to J. Buchanan’s work on public choice or G. Stigler’s on the Theory of Regulation. A central point would seem to be that, for example, those disadvantaged by industrial development, such as the unemployed, may optimise their subsequent behaviour in the market sector but in some interdependent manner with the cementing of their membership in a coalition whose very existence serves to constrain, or influence the programmes advanced by governments. The book is well worth reading, especially as a starting point for further analysis rather than for any additions to the range, or content, of that already available.

Book Reviews : Tuc: the Growth of a Pressure Group 1868-1976:

By Ross M. Martin. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1980, xii + 394 pp.,

Book Reviews : INDUSTRIAL ACTION Edifed by Stephen J. Frenkel. George Allen & Unwin, Sydney, 1980, 176 pp.,

53 (hardback) Since the history of the British Trades Union Congress (TUC) has been recounted elsewhere, the value of Martin’s history must lie in the interpretation he brings to the subject. Perhaps the quality of this work can be conveyed in the admission that this reviewer found his study both entertaining and informative. Old facts-and some, new ones-have been given a distinctive twist to tell a new story. -

8.95 (paperback),

INDUSTRIAL ACTION Edifed by Stephen J. Frenkel. George Allen & Unwin, Sydney, 1980, 176 pp.,

17.50 (hard)

8.95 (paperback),

Book Reviews : THE SOCIAL ORGANISATION OF STRIKES By Eric Batstone, Ian Boraston and Stephen Frenkel (Basil Blackwell, Oxford, 1978), 236 pp. Price £10.00

17.50 (hard). This books falls into two parts. The first is composed of case studies of industrial conflict in four different industries. Frenkel and Coolican analyse the pattern of industrial action in the New South Wales construction industry. Taylor provides a concise study of shipbuilding and ship repair. Turkington offers a very brief analysis of the strike pattern upon the New Zealand waterfront. Finally, Muller examines industrial disputes in the Queensland district of Telecom Australia. The second part of the book consists of a theoretical introduction and conclusion written by the editor, to draw common perspectives and arguments out of the four industry studies. Although presented as an integrated work, this study does fall between two stools. It manages to be more than a series of disconnected essays without achieving full success in combining the work of the different authors. As a result the work may be assessed in two ways. First, like any edited work, it can be tested upon the merits of the different contributions. Second, it may be treated as an integrated study in which all the evidence should sustain central arguments or themes.

Book Reviews : WORK, RACE AND IMMIGRATION By Sheila Allen, Stuart Bentley and Joanna Bornat (University of Bradford, Bradford, West Yorkshire, 1977), vi + 415 pp. Price not stated (paper):

In recent years the academic study of strikes has tended to become increasingly trivialised. Once upon a time academics used to be interested in what caused strikes. The most common point of departure in these earlier studies was to examine strike statistics for evidence of trends or concentrations in industrial disputation. Commonly links were then drawn with economic or institutional causes. While this approach contained difficulties associated with statistical aggregation and reliability, and the ad hoc nature of the causes invoked, nevertheless many of the older studies held interest because they attempted to answer important questions. The conventional wisdom that strikes are a problem has caused a tangible shift of emphasis in strike studies. Building upon this article of faith, attention has been redirected to the cost of industrial conflict in terms of inflation, social security payments and the direct costs of lost production. Now we are confronted by the spectacle of academics developing esoteric ideas such as the &dquo;state subsidy theory of strikes&dquo;, affronted by econometricians misusing strike data in arid inflation models and bemused by vain attempts to assess the economic cost of strikes. In this flurry of intellectual activity both traditional and modern, we seem to have lost sight of those people who are at the core of industrial conflict-the strikers themselves. Very little work has ever been done upon how employees reach a decision to go on strike, how they justify this decision to themselves and others, what guides their actions during a dispute and how they try to make their actions effective.

Book Reviews : TRADE UNIONISM UNDER COLLECTIVE BARGAINING By Hugh Clegg (Basil Blackwell, Oxford, 1976), xi + 121 pp. Price £2.25 (paper)

Following a brief preface and some acknowledgements the’reader is greeted by a section entitled &dquo;Foreward&dquo;. Upon reading the rest of the book one is forced to reconsider any snap judgment that this is just a misprint of &dquo;Foreword&dquo;. It is indeed an order to charge. An unwary reader needs both discipline and momentum to have any prospect of struggling through to the final appendix of this indigestible book. Part of the difficulty is caused by cheap shoddy presentation. The University of Bradford Press has not tried to seduce the would-be reader with a coffee table showpiece. The forbidding combination of light mimeographed print, unjustified margins, obscure chapter headings and cheap paper can be blamed upon the publisher. The authors must carry full responsibility for confusing expression, poor grammar and unintelligible tables. Old fashioned pornography publishers of the 1950s would have been proud of the drab mustard cover. Setting aside these minor considerations, the reader has to absorb mounds of empirical material thrown together with impressive disregard for theoretical coherence and meaning. The study is a description of the employment situation of coloured immigrants in Bradford between 1966 and 1969. The researchers have shown great dedication in assembling an enormous volume of statistics and survey data upon the industrial and occupational structure of immigrant employment, employer attitudes to migrants, migrant attitudes to the work

The Origins of Australian Workshop Organisation, 1918 to 1950

By Hugh Clegg (Basil Blackwell, Oxford, 1976), xi + 121 pp. Price £2.25 (paper). The scope of this short book is enormous. In one hundred and twenty pages the author sets out to develop a theory of trade union behaviour based upon a systematic comparison of the trade union movements in Australia, France, Sweden, the United Kingdom, the United States of America and West Germany. The theory is, as the author recognizes, only a partial theory. He is concerned principally to explain union behaviour under collective bargaining, and does not attempt to describe or explain those union movements that rely upon political action to improve the conditions of their members’ working lives. The author recognizes the marginal position of French trade unions in his sample, due to the high priority they attach to political action. Australian readers may, however, feel uncomfortable about the inclusion of Australian trade unions, who depend principally upon compulsory arbitration and not collective bargaining, to regulate the conditions of employment, and supplement this heavily with political pressure. The author deals with the first problem by stressing, correctly, the extent to which arbitration is a system of joint regulation, and the close similarities between arbitration and collective bargaining, compared with unilateral job regulation and political action. Clearly the basis of this argument was developed before the introduction of wage indexation in 1975, for the gap between collective bargaining and arbitration in Australia has now. surely opened wide enough for observers to understand the fundamental differences between these processes. The author does not explicitly recognize the importance of political action to Australian trade unions, and as such fails to come to grips with them. Half a theory may be adequate in these countries where political action is a poor relation of collective bargaining. Australia is not one of these countries.