The study of Labor and trade unions has not been fashionable in academic circles over the past three decades. The reasons for this are myriad and range from the fall of communism to the decline in the power of labor unions since the 1980s. This has been unfortunate because it has deprived us of an understanding of the changes in one of the crucial social sectors in modern day society. Luckily for us Craig Phelan’s contribution comes to fill a void and proposes a new, more complex and again more global, way to study labor.

Phelan has edited a two volume collection of articles on trade unionism since 1945. The basic premise behind the volumes is that “the first step towards a world history is recognition that trade unions are the products of national systems of interlocking political and economic institutions” (p. XIV, Vol. 1). Thus, each labor movement is the product of a specific national process, and yet it is also an actor on the world historical scene. To achieve this Phelan has selected 26 articles, each one analyzing a specific national labor movement over the past 65 years. The different articles presented here belong to authors trained in widely different fields, from Industrial Relations and Political Science to History and Sociology. The result is a fascinating survey of labor histories, with a wealth of information, as well as an engaging and thought provoking work that suggests all sorts of questions derived from comparing them. If the measure of a good book is that it does not leave you indifferent, then Phelan’s two volumes are a significant contribution to socio-historical analysis.

According to Phelan “trade unionism is in crisis” […] and “the intent of this book is to illuminate trade union problems and assess future possibilities” (p. IX, vol. 2). As such the different authors all seem to agree that the period 1945 to 1980 was the “golden age” of labor, derived from its “embeddedness” with the State. This “golden age” came to an end when changes in structure and “environment” led to declines in union density and influence (See Vol. 2, p. X-XII.). Most of the national case study articles seem to agree with this assessment, especially those dealing with labor in developed countries. Clear exceptions to this are the pieces dealing with labor in Zimbabwe and in South Africa, out-and-out two of the most interesting and suggestive in the collection. In these cases, it seems, that a successful adaptability of unions to a changing reality, halting or reversing decline, is linked to heightened levels of confrontation with the State. This is even more revealing when we contrast this to the Spanish and French cases, were cooperation with State policies or with governments has not only been fruitless, but has accelerated the decline of organized labor. This is suggestive and should make us rethink some of our interpretative premises. Instead of labor’s golden age being a derivative of a harmonious relationship with the State there is another interpretation possible. In years after the Depression and World War II, labor was the antagonist of a predominant State power. For the two decades after 1945 labor retained some of the momentum of its earlier militancy. In the case of the United States, for example, it topped the OECD’s table in strikes per worker in 1954, 1955, 1959, 1960, 1967 and 1970. At the same time, in the period 1949-1973, labor’s real income steadily rose. The same can be said of Argentine labor, as Atzeni and Ghigliani aptly demonstrate in volume 2. This seems to suggest that harmony in labor relations is contrary to improving labor’s lot. In other words, we should consider the possibility that “business unionism” and collaboration with the State undermined labor’s strength sufficiently so that when neoliberal economic “shock and awe” reforms came into being, unions were unable to resist.

All of the above begs two crucial questions. One is how “golden” was this age we are referring to? And also, how representative of labor as a whole are unions? Most of the articles collected here seem to agree that a trade union is a good in and of itself. In addition, it is assumed that the existence of unions benefits (and perhaps even represents?) workers as a whole. The first issue is truly problematic, especially since most of the authors seem unaware of the discussions of labor bureaucracy from Weber to Wright Mills. Thus they imply that union density is indicative of strength. However, three examples show that this is not necessarily a good measure. As Martínez Lucio and Hamann in their contribution show, Spanish unions have 18 percent of workers organized, and yet 80 percent of all workers are covered by collective agreements. The conclusion is obvious, in Spain you do not have to be in a union to benefit from it. In the Argentine case, the estimated union density has been set at 35 percent (though unions themselves claim it was closer to 80 percent) in 1975, and yet support for strikes (be they general strikes or industry wide) tend to be twice that. On the other hand, French union density was never higher than 22 percent among State employees, and much lower in the private sector, and yet Guy Groux has no doubt but to consider this positive. If 78 percent of the workers are unorganized, how significant was the French density during the “golden age”? In fact, as Gordon, Edwards and Reich 1, have amply demonstrated for the United States, labor structure is much more significant than density, and segmentation seems to be a crucial development of the “golden age”. Clearly, union membership does not equal labor influence. What is more, in an issue not addressed by most of these authors (again a notable exception is the pieces dealing with Africa) is the question of the linkages between union leaders and labor rank and file. Perhaps this is a result of the approach some of the authors have undertaken. Since they assume that unions are a good in and of itself, then they approach their analysis from “the top down”, that is from the unions towards society; as opposed from “the bottom up”, from workers towards institutions and the State. Again the exception to this is the essays on Africa and Latin America as well as the piece by Laybourn on Great Britain who seems to be the only one to consider the implications of labor’s decline at a workplace level.

All authors seem to consider that labor is “battered but not beaten”, as Silvia expresses on German trade unionism. Perhaps so, but one of the possible conclusions to these challenging two volumes is that labor unions, as we knew them, are bankrupt and workers need to develop new forms of organization and struggle to defend their interests. After all, as Kim Moody has pointed out, the decline of labor has been more the decline of labor unions, not of the overall number of industrial workers.2

Notes:
1 David Gordon / Richard Edwards / Michael Reich, Segmented Work, Divided Workers. The Historical Transformation of Labor in the United States, New York 1982.
2 Kim Moody, Workers in A Lean World. Unions In The International Economy, London 1997, p. 186.