Changing Prospects for Trade Unionism: Comparisons between Six Countries edited by Peter Fairbrother and Gerard Griffin, London, New York: Continuum, 2002, 263 pp., ISBN: 0-8264-5811-4.

This collection of essays on six English-speaking countries, Australia, Britain, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand, and the USA, provides perceptive views of the labour movements in these countries as they are struggling to survive in a time of “profound change.” As the editors say, the book outlines and analyzes “how trade unions have responded to the problems confronting them” in very challenging times. Overall, the conclusions of both the chapter authors and the editors are quite pessimistic as to the future of these labour movements. The method of this book is to have one or two experts on each country analyze that country’s experience along a set of common general dimensions. There is no express agreed-upon theoretical framework, but only a set of general topics to which each chapter speaks. This has the advantage of permitting rich descriptions of the national realities, but the disadvantage of leaving one without any basis for generalizing beyond these countries. The concluding chapter written by the editors well summarizes the findings of the various chapters. On the crucial question of union membership, we see that there was a decline in union density in the 1980s and 1990s in all of these countries. The most dramatic drops were in those countries that had relied upon the state for their strength—Australia and New Zealand. While the picture remains gloomy in Australia, the election of a friendly government in New Zealand and its repeal of draconian neo-liberal labour laws give some grounds for hope. Although the decline in Britain and the U.S. is levelling out, the U.S. density, below 14 per cent, “remains abysmal.” Canada and Ireland have done better than their fellows. Membership in all six countries has come to be concentrated in the public sector and in fewer unions, and the proportion of women has increased. Across all of these countries, individual unions have pursued growth by two means – union mergers and organizing. The recruitment of new members has assumed a new prominence in the core values of unions, as labour movements in other countries have followed the U.S. lead in moving toward becoming “organizing organizations” instead of service organizations. This involves the more active involvement of the rank-and-file in the life of the union. As to their relation to the state, labour movements in most of these countries (with the exception of Ireland and New Zealand) have learned a hard lesson. This is that the election of labour-friendly governments does not necessarily lead to significant changes within the law in their favour. The “third way” centre-left politicians are not inclined to give vigorous support to their union constituents. Even they are captives of neo-liberal ideas, however poorly these ideas seem to be working out in practice in the world economy. Strategies that are currently being pursued in the various countries include, in addition to the creation of organizing organizations, offering a wide range of non-work related services and forming alliances with other groups interested in social change. The editors are, I believe, too dismissive of these strategies, particularly those having to do with working cooperatively with environmental, civil rights, and anti-globalization organizations. In their conclusions, the editors raise the crucial question of whether unions are “powerless to control their own destiny.” The editors recognize that the labour movements in all of these countries have been highly proactive in experimenting with new strategies. They believe that among those strategies, organizing new members is the most promising. However, they believe that the prospects in the short and medium-term are rather bleak, but perhaps brighter in the long-term. Each of the chapters consists of an interesting and …