This paper examines the past, present and future trajectory of unions and the union movement in Britain to analyse whether collectively they remain on the margins of in-fluence in the economy and society or whether, given and because of the crisis of neo-liberalism, they may be on the cusp of a...

This research note examines the frequency, nature and context of employers seeking legal injunctions in collective industrial disputes between 1995 and 2005. The number of actual and threatened applications continues to be relatively frequent compared with much of the period from 1980 to 1995,...

Britain has been regarded as traditionally having had a ‘problem’ in its industrial relations by virtue of the presence of sectionalism and multi-unionism. This article suggests that this analysis of sectionalism and multi-unionism being a ‘problem’ is very much bound up with employer...

The case of the postal workers in Britain is examined in order to develop our knowledge of intra-union oppositional groupings. Such groupings within the postal workers are shown to have influence as the result of the 'strategy' of a small number of activists within largely conducive...

The militant and unofficial grassroots-led engineering construction strikes of 2009 starkly indicated that the industrial relations of the engineering construction industry in Britain can be characterized and termed as old-fashioned, adversarial and robust. This article takes these strikes as...

The article considers the relationship between the trade union movement and the African National Congress in the post‐apartheid period. Following their close historical relationship in the struggle to defeat apartheid, the trade union movement could reasonably have expected a large and...

Since the 1970s, the spread of neo-liberalism across the world has radically reconfigured the relationship between unions, employers and the state. The contributors highlight that this is the major cause and effect of union decline and if there is to be any union revitalisation and return to...

Since the 1970s, the spread of neo-liberalism across the world has radically reconfigured the relationship between unions, employers and the state. The contributors highlight that this is the major cause and effect of union decline and if there is to be any union revitalisation and return to...