The Meaning of Militancy? : Postal Workers and Industrial Relations

This title was first published in 2003.This book examines key issues in trade union research such as: militancy and moderation; ''trade union bureaucracy''; workplace unionism; factionalism and political consciousness; and theories of social partnership. These themes are examined by considering the effectiveness of union militancy in resisting increased commercialisation within the public sector. The book compares the response of postal workers (which has been comparatively militant) to that of other workers facing similar situations and provides an explanation of why postal workers have been partially successful in fending off new management techniques and privatisation. Further insights are provided by an extension of the analysis to postal workers in six other major industrial countries.

This title was  first published in 2003.This book explores many of the major issues of concern to researchers studying trade unionism. It offers: a definition, elaboration and contextualisation of militancy (industrial, union and worker); an examination of the relationship between workplace unionism and the wider body of the union; a study of factionalism and industrial and political consciousness: and an analysis of the construction and mobilisation of conflict and cooperation (social partnership). These themes are considered through examining the relatively militant response of British postal workers to increased commercialisation of their industry. By comparing this response to that of postal workers in nine other major industrial countries, the study provides an explanation of why UK postal workers have been relatively successful in resisting new management techniques and privatisation through militancy and oppositionalism. One aspect given particular attention is the uneasy relationship within the postal workers'' union between shop floor militancy and the social partnership approach followed by the union''s leadership.