Books in the Routledge Studies in Employment and Work Relations in Context series

First Published in 2002. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Although the world is undergoing enormous changes involving politics, the economy and society, the position and place of the state, and the significance of state policy in this process, is heavily contested.

This book examines countries that have tried, with varying degrees of success, to use legislative strategies to encourage and support collective bargaining, including Australiäs Fair Work Act. It is the first major study of the operation and impact of the new collective bargaining framework introduced under the Fair Work Act, combining theoretical and practical perspectives. In addition, a number of comparative pieces provide rich insights into the Australian legislation¿s adaptation of concepts from overseas collective bargaining systems ¿ including good faith bargaining, and majority employee support as the basis for establishing bargaining rights. Contributors to this volume are all leading labor law, industrial relations, and human resource management scholars from Australia, and from Britain, Canada, New Zealand and the United States.

This book illustrates the ways in which liberalization has contributed to increasing private and foreign ownership of public services, the decentralization of labor relations has amplified pressure on wages, and decreasing employment numbers and increasing workloads have improved productivity partly at the cost of service quality. Examining diverse public-service sectors including network industries, public transportation, and hospitals, and using international case studies, Privatization of Public Services covers a wide range of aspects of service provision, with particular emphasis on companies and workers.

Unfree labor has not disappeared from advanced capitalist economies. It is in the context of this rapidly changing landscape that this book consolidates and expands on research designed to understand new institutions for work in the global era. This edited collection provides a theoretical and empirical exploration of the links between unfree labor, intermediation, and modes of regulation, with particular focus on the evolving institutional forms and political-economic contexts that have been implicated in, and shaped by, the ascendency of temp agencies. What is distinctive about this collection is this bi-focal lens: it makes a substantial theoretical contribution by linking disparate literatures on, and debates about, the co-evolution of contingent work and unfree labor, new forms of labor intermediation, and different regulatory approaches; but it further lays the foundation for this theory in a series of empirically rich and geographically diverse case studies. This integrative approach is grounded in a cross-national comparative framework, using this approach as the basis for assessing how, and to what extent, temporary agency work can be considered unfree wage labor.

An appraisal of current offshore industrial relations, and safety regulations instituted after the 1988 Alpha disaster in the North Sea. This text discusses the oil industry's attempts to contain subsequent, unwelcome regulatory interference, and assesses trade unionism in the offshore industry.

In this work leading scholars take stock of the evidence and implications of the new workplace, drawing on examples from a variety of contexts, they seek to characterize the nature of contemporary workplace change, and assess its implications.

Regional trade agreements have expanded over the years, and have become a significant, if controversial, factor in the expanse of economic globalization. This book attempts to take an interdisciplinary approach to address labour regulation. It argues that there is a dynamic interplay between institutions and actors of social regulation.

Why is vocational training seen to be an "old" institution? This book seeks to respond to this question. It offers a comparative analysis of the vocational training systems in ten different countries.

Trade union movements in many countries face uncertain futures. After three decades of economic restructuring at both national and international levels, the way forward for unions is unclear. This title expores the background, current roles and prospects of trade unions in six countries.

Presenting a survey of continuity and change in trade unions of the USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the UK, this contemporary text provides a firm basis for informed discussion about the place of trade unions in modern economies.