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"The Way We Build: Restoring Dignity to Construction Work" by Mark Erlich examines the construction industry and its impact on workers, firms, governments, and markets. The book explores the rise of the non-union sector and its negative effects on workers' wages and benefits. Erlich also discusses the historical role of building trades unions and their collaboration with contractors. The book addresses issues such as labor standards enforcement, the exploitation of undocumented workers, and the industry's resistance to technological advancements. Erlich concludes with a call to action, proposing a high-road model of building trades unionism that prioritizes craft pride, training, diversity, and activism. [Extracted from the article]

"Democracy at Work: Contract, Status and Post-Industrial Justice" by Ruth Dukes and Wolfgang Streeck explores changing regulatory conditions and proposes transforming precarious work structures into more stable and participatory arrangements. The authors combine political economy, labor law, and sociology to analyze the interaction between contract and status in understanding adverse labor market trends. They argue for the restoration of universal contracts that support fairness at work and workers' voice through strengthening occupational communities and implementing progressive labor law. The book provides a stimulating integration of disciplinary perspectives and offers valuable insights into overcoming insecurity and disempowerment at work. [Extracted from the article]

The book "Labour revolt in Britain 1910-1914" by Ralph Darlington provides a thorough study of the strike waves that occurred during this period. The author highlights the violence and suffering experienced by the strikers and their families, challenging the notion that the last Liberal governments were successful in resolving industrial relations crises. The book also examines the roles of Prime Minister Henry Asquith and David Lloyd George in handling industrial disputes, with Lloyd George being praised for his negotiation skills. The author emphasizes the significance of the 1912 mining legislation, which broke with the belief in setting wages through free market forces and voluntary collective bargaining. Overall, the book offers a comprehensive analysis of the labor revolt during this time period. [Extracted from the article]

Sven Lindqvist's book, "Dig Where You Stand: How to Research a Job," has been translated into English and offers a unique perspective on the hidden histories of work. The book focuses on Lindqvist's grandfather's job as a cement factory worker and serves as a self-help guide for working class activists. It explores how working class individuals can research their own history and gain more power in their workplace. While the book may not fully encompass contemporary workers' identities, it provides a blueprint for researchers and serves as a thought-provoking resource for those engaged in working class politics and social change. Lindqvist argues that workers should reclaim the work hidden in capital and emphasizes the importance of researching historical strikes and industrial conflicts. Overall, the book aims to inspire a movement of historical research and self-education within working-class communities. [Extracted from the article]

"The UAW's Southern Gamble: Organizing Workers at Foreign-Owned Vehicle Plants" by Stephen J. Silvia explores the decline of unionized labor in the American automotive industry. Silvia examines the United Automobile Workers' (UAW) attempts to organize workers at foreign-owned plants in the southern United States. The book highlights the challenges faced by the UAW, including opposition from powerful forces and the use of anti-union tactics by companies like Nissan and Volkswagen. Silvia's research reveals the impact of political pressures and subsidies on labor relations, ultimately demonstrating the decline of workers' rights in the industry. [Extracted from the article]

This book examines civil regulation and the real living wage (RLW) in the UK. It compares the voluntary living wage promoted by Citizens UK and the Living Wage Foundation (LWF) with the statutory National Living Wage established by the Low Pay Commission. The authors draw upon their research project, which includes data from employers in the LWF, surveys of living wage employers, and interviews with trade union officers and living wage campaigners. The book explores the impact of the RLW on employers, trade unions, and the public sector, and concludes that voluntary civil regulation has had a modest positive impact on pay and the lives of low-income individuals and families. [Extracted from the article]

This article summarizes a review of the book The Supervisor's Guidebook: Evidence‐Based Strategies for Promoting Work Quality and Enjoyment Among Human Service Staff (2nd edition) by Reid, Parsons, and Green. We describe the book's organization and content. In addition, strengths and areas for improvement are noted. The book provides rich, relevant content to guide supervisory practices within a participative, evidence‐based approach that could be applied in various human service settings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The book "Critical Essays on Labour Codes, Labour Institutions and Labour Market Governance in the Post-Covid-19 Times in India" by K.R. Shyam Sundar is divided into four parts, each focusing on different aspects of labor in India. The author criticizes the government for issues such as incomplete enumeration of unorganized and migrant workers, non-implementation of labor codes, and lack of progress for unorganized workers. The book also critiques trade unions for their focus on labor code withdrawal rather than other important matters like occupational safety and health. The author analyzes various labor codes and highlights how they favor employers and fail to address issues like contract labor and occupational safety. Overall, the book suggests a grim future for labor, industry, and society in India. [Extracted from the article]

Moreover, Lin and Neely maintain that this breaking of the agreement was not inevitable - it was the product of deliberate decisions and political pressure applied from those with an interest in financial markets. Lin and Neely define financialization as " I the wide-ranging reversal of the role of finance from a secondary, supportive activity to a principal driver of the economy i " (10, emphasis original). Lin and Neely think that finance has far outgrown its value, distorting the market along the way. [Extracted from the article]

Information technology's ubiquitous presence in American life has spurred academics and journalists alike to fill a gaping void in a critical understanding of how technology is being developed and deployed, and with what impacts. In particular it highlights the critical role that information plays in the labor market decisions of workers and the stickiness of the investments that workers need to make. In accounts of the churning of workers through gig work, the nakedness of the power exercised over workers figures prominently, particularly the brutality of the algorithm that governs the online interface. Even the opportunity to understand the grounds for dismissal is often denied, and the opportunities for workers to explain poor customer ratings or indications from the machines that the worker is underperforming and deserving of termination, may be dramatically reduced. [Extracted from the article]

Scholars still debate on whether a genuine partnership organization can exist without the representative function of unions - thus, it remains to be seen how this type of collaboration can apply to entire healthcare organizations or even specific departments or units that do not have a union presence. Book Review: From the Ground Up: How Frontline Staff Can Save America's Healthcare, by Peter Lazes and Marie Rudden From the Ground Up: How Frontline Staff Can Save America's Healthcare. [Extracted from the article]

Hatton uses interviews with prison workers, science-based PhD students, college athletes, and workfare workers to produce an analytical comparison that adds to our understanding of coercion. For workfare workers, being perceived as a good worker ensures continued access to welfare assistance. For workfare workers, Hatton argues, they are cured of their irresponsibility through work; similarly, for prison workers, work cures their immorality. [Extracted from the article]

I Contemporary Issues in Work and Organisations: Actors and Institutions i is formally divided into four parts, with its first three parts introduced by one of the editors, Russell D. Lansbury, Anya Johnson, and Diane van den Broek. Here, the changing patterns of work and its regulation are tackled from a traditional labor and employment relations perspective. Chris F. Wright and Russell D. Lansbury set the tone in Chapter 1, which offers what they describe as a dynamic framework for analyzing high-level changes in work and labor markets. [Extracted from the article]

Despite being a tenured professor at the University of Iowa, Ranney left his academic career behind (temporarily as it turned out) and became a manufacturing worker because he believed that a more just society could only be legitimately formed by a "mass organization at the workplace" (Preface). These jobs were not, as Ranney astutely notes, "middle class" (the average salary of a steelworker in the late 1970s was $24,772.80), but they did provide a living wage. Upon reflection, Ranney sees deindustrialization as planned: "The decline in manufacturing jobs was a deliberate strategy on the part of corporations around the world" (p. 120). [Extracted from the article]

At first, these issues divided employees at Smithfield, but ultimately workers united and achieved victory through a lengthy struggle against employer intimidation. With a large influx of Latino immigrants over the course of the organizing campaigns at Smithfield, the racial hierarchy between white managers and workers of color became even more pronounced. Waltz's account provides a compelling narrative that illustrates the struggles of Smithfield workers to unionize despite employer intimidation. [Extracted from the article]

Book Review: Industrial Relations in Emerging Economies: The Quest for Inclusive Development. I Industrial Relations in Emerging Economies i is a timely International Labour Organization (ILO) publication that seeks to explore historical (dis-) continuities in the industrial relations (IR) systems of the BRICS (with Turkey substituted for Russia), their contribution to inclusive development, and the implications of the rise of nontraditional IR actors. IR institutions in post-Maoist China were left largely intact, facing gradual internal transformation, and in Brazil they survived the transition in and out of dictatorship but faced an onslaught under the democratically elected Michel Temer government. [Extracted from the article]

After establishing his priors, the author takes us through an interesting discussion of the development of industrial relations policy in the postwar era. Instead of applying Habermas directly to IR, the author, after much discussion of "positively" vs. "negatively" evaluated IR systems, develops a ninefold classification scheme, based on Fox's work. I am now satisfied that Habermas's analysis probably does not have much to offer IR at this point in history, but I do encourage both the author and readers of this review to try to prove me wrong. [Extracted from the article]

This editorial from the European Journal of Industrial Relations is dedicated to the memory of Lorenzo Bordogna, a professor of sociology of work and a pioneer in the study of comparative public employment relations. The article highlights Lorenzo's contributions to the field, including his insights into the dynamics of industrial strife and unionization in the public sector. It also emphasizes his kind demeanor and generosity in mentoring students and advising young scholars. The special issue presented in the article serves as a tribute to Lorenzo's life and career, featuring articles that reflect his commitment to understanding and improving public sector industrial relations. [Extracted from the article]

These often involve third-party certification of supplier firms' factory premises, which allows lead firms plausible deniability, given their ability to play off competing supplier firms against each other (134). The supplier firms will go to great lengths to reconcile demands for better labor conditions with their need for lower labor costs, just as they do with the contradictory demands of quality assurance and flexibility forced upon them by the lead firms, often resulting in waste (127). By conducting extended interviews with the managers of these companies, she gains insights regarding the pressures placed upon such firms by their oligopsonistic customers, in addition to how their labor processes are managed and their workers super-exploited. The imperialist chain, or "supra-national GVC governance structure", works to ensure that supplier margins are as tight as practically possible, making such waste an unwelcome reminder of supplier firms' precarity. [Extracted from the article]

Her call is particularly focussed upon young workers at the bottom end of the labour market to get organised and move from being individualised competitors to collectively minded union collaborators - and to then rejuvenate unions and stop them from dying out as the more unionised, older workers retire. Holgate, Jane Arise: Power, Strategy and Union Resurgence, London: Pluto Press, 2021; 272 pp.: ISBN 074534402X, £16.99 Hardy, Jane Nothing to Lose but Our Chains: Work and Resistance in Twenty-First-Century Britain, London: Pluto Press, 2021; 272 pp.: 9780745341040, £19.99 Livingston, Eve Make Bosses Pay: Why We Need Unions, London: Pluto Press, 2021; 160 pp.: ISBN 0745341624, £9.99 With the cost-of-living crisis in full swing, it would not be illogical to foresee potential for unions to become resurgent again. [Extracted from the article]

This argumentation is thought-provoking when compared to debates in the West, where in contrast IR research highlighted unions' failures to organize migrants workers because of their blindness towards migrant intersectional forms of oppression ([1]). From Migrant to Worker: Global Unions and Temporary Labor Migration in Asia From Migrant to Worker: Global Unions and Temporary Labor Migration in Asia. [Extracted from the article]

Book Review: Re-Union: How Bold Labor Reforms Can Repair, Revitalize, and Reunite the United States, by David Madland Re-Union: How Bold Labor Reforms Can Repair, Revitalize, and Reunite the United States. In addition, he believes that working people's wages and working conditions can be improved by labor policies that strengthen workers' labor rights and provide Ghent-like incentives to unions. [Extracted from the article]

It also shows how state-supported industrial relations system, which at the minimum meant state mediation in collective bargaining, begins to unravel under economic liberalization. In the penultimate chapter, CCBM focus on the changing relationship between collective bargaining and the state and reveal that the state apparatus in West Bengal, despite its distinctive social democratic, pro-labor tradition, has also changed (Chapter 6). Second, they settle on the reality that it is labor-abundance or a growing reserve army of labor in West Bengal in the context of pre-mature deindustrialization that has eroded the influence of trade unions in the state. [Extracted from the article]

Mark Reiff's book In the Name of Liberty: The Argument for Universal Unionization successfully delivers the promise contained in the title—the case for a version of liberal capitalism where every worker would belong to a union. The argument, based on the greater freedom unions bring to workers, clearly seeks an overlapping consensus, for virtually all major contemporary political philosophies defend freedom. The book especially tries to be appealing to right-libertarians. This review will argue, however, that Reiff takes the 'liberty' in 'libertarianism' way too seriously. Right-libertarians do not defend liberty; they defend property rights. Reiff's argument will certainly be convincing to anyone who believes liberty is the main currency of justice. The problem is precisely that not everyone believes that. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Max Ogden's book I A long view from the left i emerged from the suggestion that Max write his memoir, a great idea given Max's wealth of knowledge and experience. Also, Max had sympathy and understanding for the plight of women within the union movement - an understanding that was out of step with the wider union movement at this time (see chapter four). Overall, Max's book provides an account of the Australian union movement's positioning in the fight for equality and social justice, and the movement's struggles to remain relevant in the face of hostile governments. [Extracted from the article]

But this approach borders on the circular: on the one hand Camic insists that Veblen was an insider; on the other he only looks at the works he did in the period he was an insider and which look like inside jobs. Camic, Charles Veblen: The Making of an Economist Who Unmade Economics, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2020. And they are important to Camic too, but his focus is on The I Theory of the Leisure Class i ([11]) and his review essays up to 1909, which are used largely to demonstrate that Veblen was an insider engaged with the major economic topics of the day in an insiderish way and with the approval of insiders, and to a small extent I The Theory of Business Enterprise i ([12]). Camic's Veblen is chatty, attuned to the hierarchy of American economics, friendly, and wired, with a high end pedigree including many of the big names in American elite academia - quite unlike the somewhat aloof and awkward figure, contemptuous of academic hierarchy, we have come to know through dozens of contemporary sources. [Extracted from the article]

This handbook extends the types of multinationals whose strategy-making processes are examined to include new ventures, so-called "micromultinationals", family- and state-owned firms, and emerging-market multinationals. Much of the traditional IB strategy literature was developed based on the internationalization experience of firms from relatively well-developed home countries, particularly the United States, which enjoyed a narrow range of classic ownership advantages such as proprietary technology, sophisticated products, and brand-building know-how. Part III considers how different ownership and governance structures, such as family or state ownership, firm size and home-country characteristics, shape the strategies of different MNEs. [Extracted from the article]

The book is a lesson in trade union history as well as current employment relations, and it takes on an intersectionally sensitive lens, putting forward heroic stories of women and minoritized workers that are often hidden, erased, or not covered in traditional industrial relations studies. Book Review: Arise: Power, Strategy, and Union Resurgence, by Jane Holgate Holgate ends the book by highlighting important examples in which unions have been able to exert power and gain better working conditions. [Extracted from the article]

Lansbury's initial research in Sweden focused on a topic rarely studied today by industrial relations scholars: leisure activities. In the case of Lansbury's contribution, I Crossing Boundaries i , we are introduced to a half-century of thought leaders in Australian industrial relations, along with global leaders, but we have to read closely to find Russell as the leader that he is. Crossing Boundaries: Work and Industrial Relations in Perspective. [Extracted from the article]

Where and how can we determine that class struggle has resulted in a provisional "armistice" in favour of labour, if the latter has been achieved through a re-composition of capital - via new legal arrangements and acceptance of a profit oriented labour process - and, thus, is still forced to sell its labour power at its value if it wants to reproduce itself in the "world market"? Ovetz, Robert Workers' Inquiry and Global Class Struggle, London: Pluto Press, 2020; 288 pp.: ISBN: 9780745340869, £19.99 Unruly, zealous and creative are the class struggles presented in this recalcitrant book. It is through and only through class struggle that capital and labour transform and "consolidate nodes of class power" while, and in falling short from social revolution, their inherent antagonism prevails. [Extracted from the article]

Capitalism Contested: The New Deal and Its Legacies Two contributors, K. Sabeel Rahman and Jason Scott Smith, show their debt to U.S. historiography's liberal traditions by championing the words and actions of Progressive Era and New Deal reformers. "Corporate reformers of the New Deal era", Lichtenstein maintains, "wanted a labor movement, first to serve as a Keynesian mechanism whereby aggregate demand might be enhanced without an even greater dependence on government spending and pubic employment projects" (p. 185). [Extracted from the article]