Purpose – This paper aims to study the impact of new types of market‐based management systems in Western European public sector industrial relations. Design/methodology/approach – It reviews the main literature on the topic and relevant policy texts. Findings – It points to the different...

Purpose – The article aims to look at the development of the internet in terms of its implications for the labour movement and its international activities. Design/methodology/approach – The paper brings together conclusions and findings based on the previous work of the two individual...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine innovative union use of the internet in the 2000s and to see whether the major union innovations in the USA and UK mark the advent of “open source” union structures. Design/methodology/approach – Reviews two important innovations,...

Purpose – This paper aims to examine the significance of information communication technology (ICT) for Balkan labour. Drawing on the heuristic of “distributed discourse”, this paper aims to explore virtual forms of communication and interaction. The paper aims to examine the privileged...

Purpose – Aims to review British labour union leaders’ views on the use and importance of information and communications technology (ICT) within their unions. Design/methodology/approach – An open‐ended e‐mail survey and personal interviews conducted in 2000‐2001 with union leaders...

Purpose – The paper aims to present a historical overview of the use of information communications technology (ICT) tools and platforms, particularly e‐mail and the internet, as tools of cyber‐activism by the labour movement in South Africa. The paper also aims to give some consideration...

Purpose – Capital, through its practices and narratives of global competition, is able to play unions in different locations off against one another through the construction and exploitation of difference. Trade unions and their activists have responded through formal institutional responses...

Purpose – This paper aims to illustrate how innovative trade union strategies are emerging around the learning agenda and how these are being used to extend union strategies within the workplace and the community. However, it also shows how such strategies can be confronted with difficulties...

Purpose – Much is being claimed in terms of new forms of trade union networking and co‐ordination at the international level during the past two decades. However, there is a need to ground these views in terms of the reality and contexts of trade union activity. This article seeks to argue...