Melanie Simms

University of Glasgow | UofG · Adam Smith Business School

This chapter reviews links between trade unions and debates about job quality. It argues that job quality should be understood as a dynamic outcome of give and take within the employment relationship. The chapter starts with a review of how job quality is measured, focusing on the centrality of worker voice and emphasizing the importance of institu...

This Handbook offers an interdisciplinary and international benchmark text for anyone wanting to understand job quality. Job quality matters and has long done so. Debate about the future of work today centres on the impact of the new digital technologies, compounding existing concerns about the restructuring of employment and, importantly, prolifer...

This case discusses the acute presentation of a patient with mucous membrane pemphigoid to an emergency dental department. Mucous membrane pemphigoid is a rare condition, but its presentation can be severe and concerning for both the patient and clinician. The case presents the manifestations of florid desquamative gingivitis and extensive mucosal...

The dental gingivae are a unique part of the oral anatomy and an integral part of the periodontal tissues. Although the vast majority of abnormalities affecting the gingival tissues are due to a simple inflammatory reaction directly related to the presence of dental plaque, a range of non-plaque-related conditions also occur due to either local or...

The dental gingivae are a unique part of the oral anatomy and an integral part of the periodontal tissues. Although the vast majority of abnormalities affecting the gingival tissues are due to a simple inflammatory reaction directly related to the presence of dental plaque, a range of non-plaque-related conditions also occur due to either local or...

Trade unions have been charged with neglecting labour market ‘outsiders’, while alternative actors have emerged to represent these. In response, unions have stepped up their claim to be representative of all workers, without distinction. We review the theoretical and policy debates on this issue, and argue that representation as such has been under...

This entry presents the core ideas and practices of community unionism, emphasizing the links between trade unions (labor unions) and community organizations. After explaining how the concept varies between national settings, the entry provides examples of community union campaigns. The theoretical links between community unionism, social movement...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to reflect on how the UK’s Trade Union Congress, in the 150th year of its formation, has been responding to the significant changes in the labour market, working practices and union decline. The paper considers Trades Union Congress (TUC) initiatives to recruit and organise new groups of workers as it struggles...

Since the publication of Rethinking Industrial Relations in 1998, John Kelly’s mobilization theory has been used by many scholars attempting to understand union organizing – often using specific campaigns to unpack and analyse various elements of the theory that help to explain the success or failure of collective mobilization. In this article the...

Under what conditions do young precarious workers join unions? Based on case studies from France, Germany, the United Kingdom, and the United States, the authors identify targeted campaigns, coalition building, membership activism, and training activities as innovative organizing approaches. In addition to traditional issues such as wages and train...

This articles re-examines evidence that trade unions in the UK have struggled to renew themselves despite considerable investment of time and effort. It argues that financialisation in the realms of capital accumulation, organisational decision making and everyday life has introduced new barriers to building the solidarities within and between grou...

Youth unemployment has long been a challenge for industrialised countries and has become a policy focus since the 1980s (Bell and Blanchflower 2011). While the rate of youth unemployment in many countries eased in the early part of this century, this progress was erased by the onset of the global financial crisis in 2007 (Arpaia and Curci 2010). Yo...

This article applies van Gestel and Nyberg's framework to analyse employers' decisions about whether to engage in policies to help young people into work. The article identifies two main logics underpinning organisational decision making: an HR logic and a corporate social responsibility (CSR) logic. It is argued that engaged employers see a clear...

No abstract is available for this article.

This article presents a counterpoint to a structuralist view of job quality and argues that it can be understood as an outcome of contested power dynamics of interest representation within institutions of labor market regulation. The article presents studies of unions in two sectors in the UK (health care and industrial cleaning) where bad jobs are...

This paper presents a framework for evaluating and accounting for the outcomes of ‘greenfield’ union organizing campaigns. It argues that previous studies have tended to focus too much on the establishment of collective bargaining and negotiation of first contract as a campaign outcome. Instead, the effectiveness and representativeness of new union...

This article examines two cases of successful efforts by UK trade unions to mobilise contingent workers. The evidence strongly illustrates the explanatory potential of Kelly’s mobilisation theory and deepens understanding of how mobilisation processes work within unions. The findings emphasise the importance of officers and activists in framing col...

This article examines the roles of activists as they develop during campaigns to establish a workplace union presence. Evidence shows that there is surprising variation within and between campaigns, which is explained by (i) management decision making; (ii) union policies and structures; and (iii) the skills of the activists themselves. This sugges...

In Union Voices, the result of a thirteen-year research project, three industrial relations scholars evaluate how labor unions fared in the political and institutional context created by Great Britain's New Labour government, which was in power from 1997 to 2010. Drawing on extensive empirical evidence, Melanie Simms, Jane Holgate, and Edmund Heery...

This chapter analyzes the consequences of organizing activity across the union movement. It is clear that there is more organizing activity taking place within British unions now than there was when the Organising Academy was launched in 1998. It is also clear that, despite problems gaining reliable financial data, unions are investing more in this...

This chapter introduces the work of organizers, who they are, and what they do. As specialist actors in the process of organizing, their training and work experiences inform a great deal about how organizing is managed and focused in British unions. Organizers are at the sharp end of the difficulties and tensions inherent in trying to manage a cult...

This chapter maintains that the Organising Academy's relevance stems not only from its success in training a body of organizers, but also because its establishment encourages a debate about the role of organizing within British unions. The chapter describes the training program while examining some of the ways in which its core ideas have spread th...

This chapter underlines the key themes that set up the evaluation of organizing policy and practice in British unions in order to make a clear statement about what has happened since the start of the Organising Academy—which coincides with the period of the New Labour government in the United Kingdom. The chapter begins by considering the national...

This book evaluates how labor unions fared in the political and institutional context created by Great Britain's New Labour government, which was in power from 1997 to 2010. The book presents a multilevel analysis of what organizing means in the UK, how it emerged, and what its impact has been. Although the supportive legislation of the New Labour...

This chapter details the growth of organizing ideas and analyzes how those ideas have changed, developed, and have been adapted to fit specific contexts. It seeks to locate the activity of workplace union campaigns within a broader analysis of the importance of sectoral pressures, union histories and ideologies, employer responses, and the like. Th...

This paper argues that the ‘turn to organising’ in British unions over the past decade has largely ignored the broader questions of the purpose of such activity. As a consequence, unions have mainly focused on building solidarities between workers in their individual workplaces rather than developing a wider view of workers’ interests and the objec...

Excerpt] This book tells the story of what is, in our view, probably the most significant development in British trade unionism of recent years: the increasing focus on organizing activity. We do this by reflecting on the impact of the UK's Trades Union Congress (TUC) Organising Academy (OA), the participants in the training program, and the organi...

Workplace trade union activists in UK service sector organising campaigns This paper examines the role of workplace representatives as unions organise workplaces for the first time. The evidence demonstrates the diversity of roles adopted by activists but notes that they largely focus on workplace level activities of recruitment and building union...

The Employment Relations Act 1999 seemingly presented UK unions with an opportunity to reverse their long-term decline in membership. This article examines union responses to this change and uses original survey evidence to investigate union organizing campaigns. It explores the targeting, resourcing, objectives, methods and employer responses to u...

Many unions that have adopted 'new' organising approaches have tended to see organising as a 'toolbox' of practices rather than as having an underpinning political philosophy or objective. Adopting such an approach has left out the fundamental question of what are we1 organising for'? Academics studying these developments have tended to evaluate or...

The year 2008 saw the 10th anniversary of the establishment of the British Trades Union Congress (TUC) Organizing Academy which was designed to train a new cadre of union officials. The aim was to develop a culture of organizing that could help to transform the decline in trade union membership by bringing in new members who had been trained to be...

This article presents original research on employer responses to trade union organising campaigns in the United Kingdom. The evidence indicates that there is no single response, with employers in some cases seeking to block and in others support union activity. These different patterns are strongly path dependent and reflect the prior degree of exp...

Despite increased investment by unions in organizing, across much of the developed world there is at best modest evidence of a recovery of union membership. This has led to a research interest in the barriers to successful union organizing and it is with this critical issue that the following article is concerned. It uses survey and interview data...

This article examines the processes by which unions come to express the interests of workers during organising campaigns. Evidence from five longitudinal cases shows the central importance of officials and organisers. Three key reasons for this are explored: the need for expert knowledge in organising campaigns, the fact that officials and organise...

Two union recognition campaigns are contrasted: one focusing on developing workplace activism but with little sectoral focus (a 'bottom-up' campaign), and the other with a sectoral strategy and less emphasis on workplace campaigning (a 'top-down' campaign). The outcomes indicate the need for approaches, which allow both a strong workplace activism...

British trade union renewal has focused on the twin strategies of organising and partnership. Drawing on experience from North America, and fledgling developments in Britain, this paper argues that reciprocal community unionism could provide another weapon in the union movement's armoury for reversing decline. The paper provides a brief historical...

As trade unions have continued to decline in membership and influence across the developed economies, so academic attention has turned to the prospects for renewal and a search for the conditions under which it might plausibly occur (Fairbrother, 2000; Martin & Ross, 1999; Turner, 1999). One leg of this search has been directed towards the changing...

In 1998 the British Trades Union Congress established an Organising Academy to train a new generation of paid union organisers. This article reviews the first two years of the Academy and offers an initial evaluation. It seeks to gauge whether the initiative has prompted innovation in organision policy in unions and led to successful organising out...

Analysis of the reasons for trade union decline in developed economies has pointed to their failure to invest in effective methods of recruitment as a contributory factor. This article presents survey and case research to examine the extent to which union failure in recruitment and organizing has been rectified in the United Kingdom. The evidence i...

The concept of an “organizing model” of trade unionism has shaped union strategies for revitalization in a number of countries in recent years. This article examines the transfer of “organizing unionism” to the UK in two ways. It presents findings from a survey of unions to identify the extent to which the organizing model is influencing national r...

Books reviewed: H. Gospel and S. Wood. Representing Workers: Union Recognition and Membership in Britain. Reviewed by Melanie Simms Paul N. Gooderham and Odd Nordhaug (eds). International Management. Cross-boundary Challenges. Reviewed by Richard Croucher