Ralph Darlington

Shop stewards' leadership, left-wing activism and collective workplace union organisation:

Providing an account of the dynamic interrelationship between shop steward leadership and membership interaction, Ralph Darlington focuses particular attention on the much-neglected crucial role that left-wing political activists can play in shaping the nature of collective workplace relations.

Leadership and union militancy: The case of the RMT:

The National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers (RMT), which represents the majority of mainline railway and London Underground workers, is currently one of the most militant and left-wing trade unions in Britain. Drawing on the study of leadership provided by mobilisation theory, this article explores the extent to which union leadership, dominated by left-wing activists at every level of the union, has been an important contributory catalyst, symptom and beneficiary of union militancy relative to other influencing factors such as the impact of privatisation, managerial belligerence, and immediate grievances over pay and conditions.

Union militancy and left‐wing leadership on London Underground

The article provides evidence from case study research into trade union organisation and activity on the London Under-ground during the 1990s. It explores the extent to which left-wing political leadership influenced the collectivisation and mobilisation of workers in an adversarial direction, and whether or not this militant trade unionism was self-defeating compared with a more moderate approach.

Workplace Union Resilience in the Merseyside Fire Brigade

Here the author provides evidence from empirical case study research into the changing nature of workplace industrial relations and trade union organisation within the Merseyside Fire Brigade over the last 10–15 years. He documents the main processes of development within an historical context assessing workplace unionism during the 1980s, the recent challenge posed by managerial restructuring in the early 1990s, and the wider implications for debates about the ‘state’ of workplace unionism in Britain today.

Radical political unionism in France and Britain : a comparative study of SUD-Rail and the RMT

Many recent pessimistic academic assessments of the prospects for the revival of European trade unionism fail adequately to capture evidence of continuing union resilience and combativity in certain areas of employment. An example is the distinctive and relatively successful form of highly militant and politicized trade unionism which has emerged in both the French and British railway sectors over the last 10 years. This has involved the repeated mobilization of members through strike action, combined with vigorous left-wing ideological opposition to both employers and government, as the pathway both to both advancing workers’ interests and to revitalizing union organization. This article provides a comparative analysis of SUD-Rail and the RMT, documenting the dynamics, causes, effectiveness, limits and potential of such ‘radical political unionism’ and considers its implications for debates about union renewal.

The state of workplace union reps’ organization in Britain today

This article provides a brief evaluation of the state of workplace union reps’ organization in Britain as we approach the second decade of the 2000s. It documents the severe weakening of workplace union organization over the last 25 years, which is reflected in the declining number of reps, reduced bargaining power and the problem of bureaucratization. But it also provides evidence of the continuing resilience, and even combativity in certain areas of employment, of workplace union reps organization, and considers the future potential for a revival of fortunes.

Agitator ‘Theory’ of Strikes Re-evaluated

This article re-evaluates the so-called ‘agitator theory’ of strikes, the popular (often media-induced) notion that industrial militancy is the work of a few hard-core militant shop stewards and/or left-wing political ‘agitators.’ It suggests that while many industrial relations academics have traditionally refused to accept such a one-dimensional explanation for strikes, for example in relation to the Communist Party in the post-war years, many have generally gone too far and fallen into the alternative trap of neglecting the influence of politically influenced activists and shop stewards. Re-evaluating the agitator ‘theory’ by an equally critical consideration of six of the counter-arguments levelled in the past by its academic industrial relations opponents, the article provides evidence to suggest that, despite exaggeration and distortion, there is clearly an important element of truth in the thesis; agency in collective workplace mobilization, in particular the role of leadership by union militants and left-wing activists, can be an important (although by no means exclusive) variable in an understanding of the dynamics of workplace industrial action in both contemporary and historical settings.

The Challenge to Workplace Unionism in the Royal Mail

While remaining in the public sector, the British Post Office has undergone massive changes in terms of its general orientation and structure over the last decade, with major implications for workplace management‐labour relations and shopfloor trade union organization. The most recent phase of restructuring within the core Royal Mail section of the Post Office has been accompanied by an assertive managerial strategy aimed at tackling the strong workplace union levels of control and autonomy that have developed in many city‐based sorting offices. Provides evidence from empirical case study research into one of the largest and most union‐militant Royal Mail sorting offices in the country based in central Liverpool. After outlining the strengths and weaknesses of workplace unionism during the mid‐1980s to the late 1980s, focuses on how the Liverpool UCW leadership have attempted to respond to Royal Mail′s 1992 restructuring initiative and HRM practices. Suggests that, notwithstanding new and complex dilemmas...

A reappraisal of the rank-and-file versus bureaucracy debate

This paper celebrates some of the considerable strengths of Hyman’s 1970s/early 1980s analysis of unions in general and bureaucracy specifically, and reapplies it to more recent developments within British unions, while at the same time providing a critique of Hyman’s refutation of the ‘rank-and-file’ versus ‘union bureaucracy’ conception of intra-union relations. It argues that the wider set of implications Hyman drew from the accentuated pressures towards the bureaucratisation of workplace unionism that he identified ‘bent the stick’ too far in the opposite direction. In attempting to defend and refine the classical revolutionary Marxist analytical framework, the paper maintains that the conflict of interest that exists between full-time officials and rank-and-file members is a meaningful generalisation of a real contradiction within trade unionism, notwithstanding the variations and complexities involved. It examines the nature and social dynamics of full-time union officialdom, shop stewards and workplace unionism, and the relationship between the two. In the process, the limits and potential of both Hyman’s ‘earlier’ and ‘later’ writings are highlighted and some broader generalisations are drawn with relevance to current dilemmas for trade unionism.

Organising, Militancy and Revitalisation: The Case of the RMT Union

Given that the decline of British unions over the last two decades has barely been arrested or reversed — with recent membership growth limited and overall union density still falling slightly — serious questions have been raised about the adequacy of present union organising strategies and the need for alternative approaches (Carter 2006: 415). Yet much of the academic industrial relations debate hitherto has been somewhat simplistically reduced to a dichotomy between ‘partnership’ and ‘organising’. The partnership approach — avoiding strike action herever possible and trying to rebuild membership and influence through collaborative relationships with employers — has been subject to critique for providing managers with the opportunity to take advantage of union moderation to restructure employment at the expense of workers’ terms and conditions of employment (Fairbrother and Stewart 2005; Kelly 1996, 2001, 2004). However, the limitations of the more robust and widely-viewed more credible organising approach have also been highlighted, including the principal concern with merely short-term membership recruitment and retention, the ‘top-down’ approach to union building, and the failure to link organising to a more fundamental attempt to revitalise and renew trade unionism (Carter 2000, 2006; Gall 2005; Heery et al. 2000a).