Economic-union Books

Raj Chari is Director of the Centre for European Studies in Trinity College Dublin and Sylvia Kritzinger is Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Vienna. They have written a very useful account of how the EU operates.

They note the EU's increasing powers to make policy over many different areas. They allege that it has focused on broadly economic issues - the single market, competition policy, Economic and Monetary Union, and the Common Agricultural Policy, but has treated other areas - social, immigration and foreign policies - as less important.

The authors show how the single market, competition policy, and Economic and Monetary Union all enforced capital's demands for free movement of goods, services, people and capital. They were driven both by the EU's capitalists, organised in the European Round Table of Industrialists, and by the EU's own supranational bodies, especially the European Commission and the European Court of Justice, not by national governments, the European Parliament, Europe's peoples or trade unions.

When it comes to social policy, the EU is superb at redistributing wealth, an average £210,000 every year for example, to each of Britain's 224 richest landowners through the Common Agricultural Policy. But redistributing from the rich to the poor? Forget it: EU social policies for high employment, better working and living conditions, equal pay for men and women have never been priorities. They are non-binding, just cute declarations to fool the unwary. The Social Charter, as the authors write, "was simply a means to help make the single market more acceptable to the public."

The EU is by capitalists, for capitalists. As the authors conclude, "unelected and unaccountable economic elites [capitalists, for short] drive public policies that affect every European citizen's life."

But the authors are quite wrong to write of `the apparent demise of the European Constitution'. The EU's leaders are about to agree the Constitution, now miscalled a Treaty. As Chancellor Merkel explained, the Treaty uses `different terminology without changing the legal substance'. Blair's little red lies, sorry, lines, mean nothing. The EU's leaders aim to give the EU a legal personality, a corporate existence overriding the sovereignties of its member states. All areas of policy would come under EU control, actually or potentially, as in any other state.

The EU was always about merger not cooperation. As its founder Jean Monnet said long ago, "Cooperation is all very well, but what we require is a fusion of states."

The EU's leaders are now on the verge of creating an EU state, without popular mandate, consent or support. They are about to seize state power over us all, by a coup against the peoples of Europe. We must demand a referendum so that we can say NO.

The starting point of the book is that trade unions operate in a triangular environment with vertices of markets, class, and society: they all contend with economic forces or markets, represent workers as a collectivity distinct from employers or as a class, and are necessarily a part of the larger society. However, according to the author, unions tend to gravitate to functioning between two of the vertices. He draws his examples from European trade unionism. Thus British trade unionism is depicted as operating between the dictates of markets and class considerations; German trade unionism exemplifies the tradeoffs between markets and society; Italian trade unionism represents a compromise between class and social considerations.

To act both as a market bargaining agent and as a class actor has contradictions. It is widely held that most workers desire a union to be a body that focuses on and stabilizes their particular employment and wages - not those of an entire class. And resulting bargaining agreements tacitly assume that unions will exert control over workforces. It is a position that essentially leaves unchallenged the rights of capital to control workplaces and the economy, but it has proven to be quite vulnerable, as economic pressures have increased in the last of the 20th century. Early 20th century Italian factory councils or the more recent British shop steward system gained some degree of worker control on a location-specific basis though largely outside the purview of bureaucratic unions. But no trade union body has ever consolidated working class interests sufficiently to be able to cause a transformation of capitalism in favor of working class interests.

Political power or standing permeates the entire discussion. Repeatedly it is the ability of working class interests to be a part of the political process that is key to their relative standing in both the larger society and in workplaces. The social integration or corporatism that is found throughout continental Europe includes trade union central bodies in peak-level macroeconomic discussions as well as other working class considerations, such as the establishment of works councils in workplaces. Trade unions are, in essence, social partners in this climate. They are also class actors in their ability to aggregate working class political power. A purely collective bargaining approach seems to be indicative of minimal political power and, in this era, of minimal effectiveness.

There is no doubt that the book is thought provoking. Do the poles of market, class, and society provide an adequate framework for understanding trade unionism? For this reviewer, class and society would be subsumed under political power with that power countering and influencing economic power. The discussions of the three particular trade union movements are quite tedious and sometimes provide confusion as well as clarity as to how those movements fit in the author's general framework. The more theoretical parts of the book are also a little difficult to follow with the qualifiers and exceptions sometimes diluting the central argument. But I think the book should be read by anyone wanting to take a new look at understanding trade union orientation.

I enjoyed reading this book.

The author went to great pains to cover this period in Minnesota's history. He disseminated the Minneapolis Citizens Alliance (CA) not so much in a chronological manner (he did that too) but in a way that allowed the reader to see the CA's multi-faceted and generational offensive against organized labor in Minneapolis.

Chapter 14 (A Network Of Spies) explained how the CA kept elaborate tabs on groups like the IWW, the Non-Partisan League and other radical elements AND shared this information with US military intelligence. Chapter 12 (Shaping The Hand Of Justice) showed how a well-financed CA helped elect, re-elect and influence judges sympathetic to labor injunctions and the open-shop stance. The author spent a great deal of time in explaining how the 1934 Teamsters Strike came about and how the effects of it led to the decline of the CA as a formidable organization.

With only a few exceptions where the author let his pro-labor sympathies slip out into the open, I found his research to be very well balanced, comprehensive and extensively documented. This was reassuring given the book's introduction was written by Peter Rachleff, a professor and left-wing labor activist.

If you're a fan of Minnesota (and Twin Cities) history or are a student of labor relations, I encourage you to read this book. You won't be disappointed.

This book is another in a spate of books produced by labor academics, activists, and officials, mostly spurred by changes at the top of the AFL-CIO in 1995, that attempts to deal with the precarious state of labor unions or the labor movement as they are inclined to say. It is the ability of transnational corporations (TNCs) to avoid labor unions by diversifying globally, especially in terms of production, and the changing ethnic composition of work forces in such locations as Miami and Los Angeles to which labor unions must adjust for their very survival according to these authors.

With the passage of NAFTA the pace of jobs being shifted to Mexico has accelerated. Transnationals, mostly in the automotive, textile/clothing, and electronic/electrical industries, have now established nearly 4000 factories in the maquiladora zone in Mexico with wages at about one tenth those in the U.S. Increasingly, labor unions in the U.S. have realized that global focus and actions are essential in dealing with global firms. The essays suggest and detail all sorts of cross-border alliances and contacts at both federation and union levels, as well as worker-to-worker interfacing, designed to pressure and support organizing efforts. Many readers would be familiar with the unfavorable publicity campaigns that some U.S. retailers have been subjected to as a result of cross-border collaboration. Another strategy described is the cross-border pressure that local unions of one transnational employer can apply in assisting one another.

It is fairly clear from the essays that organizing successes as a result of cross-border initiatives are few and fleeting. Though the problem is not totally ignored by the authors, widespread solidarity among workers with different languages and cultures and separated geographically is more of a pipedream than a real possibility. None of the essays even attempts to quantify overall levels of cross-border labor alliances and their impact. The authors do note that appeals to the labor laws of Mexico and the bureaucratic nightmare that describes the labor side agreements of NAFTA are of limited utility. It seems pretty evident that the taming of the forces of globalization will require far more than cross-border alliances between labor, or labor-like, organizations.

Two essays demonstrate that the family and community orientations of urban-based immigrants, if properly drawn upon, can be powerful forces in organizing unions, especially in lower-end service work. The essays show that flexible and progressive leadership that is sustained is key to immigrant organizing. But such an adjustment for craft-based unions, or any union that focuses mostly on contract administration, seems to be quite difficult despite any obvious decrease in members or loss of market power. The history of exclusion and privilege for a select group of workers is hard to overcome.

A recurrent theme in the essays is the necessity for the labor movement to become "social movement unionism (SMU)." It is a most nebulous concept, but one notion of SMU seems to require labor unions to become a part of community activities and concerns. One author claims that neo-liberal restructuring (NLR), which maquiladora zones are a part of, leads to SMU in contrast to business unionism. SMU advocates seem to be unwilling to squarely confront the fact of the scattering of specific workforces across vast metropolitan areas, a fact hardly conducive to SMU.

Along the same line of thought, but perhaps more interesting, is the notion that unionism should draw upon the themes of citizenship, which in a democracy implies participation. The author does not seem to know where to go with his concept, however, with a proposal that central labor federations provide coordination. Citizenship opens the door for much more. For example, those on the left in the labor movement eschew worker participation in managing corporations. But, it could be contended that any concept of participation in a democracy that does not provide for worker input into decisions that affect his economic destiny is pretty weak stuff. Surprisingly, the author does not touch upon the German legal mandate for works council and supervisory board participation.

This is not a big idea book. Cross-border initiatives are on the fringe as far as union participation or any significant yields for the labor movement. Organizing immigrants when and where possible is a no-brainer. The notion of citizenship for workers starts to get the picture right. It is fundamentally a political concept. It will be through substantial political power that workers' "voices" in workplaces will be guaranteed, union or no union. Furthermore, trade policy can begin to disallow imports built on the backs of those who have had to sacrifice their economic and physical health. The concept of "free trade" will be forced to take into account the real costs. But that is another book. The essays in the book are informative and useful, but for the most part the authors are tiptoeing around the fringes of large problems for the working class in the U.S. and their neighbors.

Published in 1983,this study predicted that the Stalinist model of economic and political development would lead to doom for USSR if it held to its existing course.

This biography of one of our great labor leaders surprised me. It didn't go very much in-depth but I always doubt those biographies aimed at kids because they rarely present a balanced portrait. This one does just that, showing Walter's flaws alongside his greatness and his achievements. It might even be of interest to adults who know nothing of Reuther and want a simple book on the topic, enough to knock off in an afternoon and without sinking into the depths of political theory.

Besides leaving behind a freeway named after him, Reuther is a modern Father of the Radical Left, and has left behind a legacy of Union corruption, crooked party politics, and collective brainwashing. A fascinating book, a fascinating man, and a heck of a story, it's ideologically incorrect in that it exalts Reuther toward legacy status, and it appeases those that believe in the power of government, and the collective mentality of the masses. It's all good and well, says the author, because unions and government usurpation and regulation are all glorious. Horrible mentality, but good writing and research. Reach your own judgements.

It is a valiant effort by Dr. Tsoukalis to tackle the structural workings of the EU. The book reads more like a survey, identifying features and layers without delving in to them at much length. Of course, that would require a treatsie of encyclopaedic proportions - a caution the author fully embraces. But his overarching theme offers an engaging manner to absorb the intricacies of the EU, namely to politicize the otherwise technocratic and elitist activity by EU actors as the only viable means of making it work in the long run. Throny sovereignty issues and monetary measures have changed since the Marshall Plan - and Dr. Tsoukalis' assertion that Europe already shares a considerable amount of "federalism" from which it can build a more effective qualified federalism (with unimaginable difficult to orchestrate decentralized agencies opreating at regional and/or national levels and centralized supranational policies , ie. foreign, or "high politics", policies) for the next decades seems, if anything, an intriguing theoretical proposition. The book is not a pleasant read and requires constant pause for reflection. It will however reveal the otherwise pigeon-holed complexity of the European Union and how it might develop.

This collection of essays addresses an often overlooked aspect of American culture: class. The introduction makes a good case that class is really more about power than money, but the other essays do not always pick up on this theme. The essays do cover a lot of ground, so consider it an introduction to the topic. Except for the last powerful essay by Barbara Jensen the authors of the book seem to be addressing an academic audience, and perhaps college students will get the most out of it. Jensen's essay is both personal and practical. She tells us what it's like for a working class woman in college to feel both the positive and negative effects of class. She opened the eyes of this middle class reader to see, without guilt, how the world can be viewed differently under the lens of class. Everyone, regardless of their class, has something to learn from this book.

This book is a collection of essays by labor union leaders and their academic supporters that attempt to find and describe methods by which unions can reverse their downward trend of some forty years. The articles range from hopeful exhortations to descriptions of actual union programs. A widespread theme is the need for a transformation of unions from a servicing mode to an organizing mode. In addition, labor-community or cross-border labor-labor alliances are considered to be essential strategies for unions. But these initiatives do invite questions. For one, in some of these essays the concept of community is more wishful than realistic. As one of the essayists points out, there has been a devastating scattering of the American working class into the vast suburbs that surround US cities. No longer are there cohesive worker communities that are ready to agitate for their neighbors whose place of work is on the next block. But more practically, some of the authors conceive of communities as those workers who are employed in the same industry with a commonality of interests, such as the telecommunications industry. Other authors are willing to limit worker commuities to minority, inner-city neighborhoods. According to all of the authors the key to the renewal of organized labor is through rank-and-file activism or mobilization in an organizing model of unionism. But these articles show that the organizing model demands even greater numbers of union staffers and rather nebulous reliance on rank-and-filers. Several authors are concerned with the shallowness of mobilization and union contract campaigns. One fact is clear from the articles: labor unions are in a survival mode; they need millions of additional dues-paying members. To that end the articles show that the rhetoric of community and mobilization can help in recruitment. But no article attempts to assess the degree to which these union initiatives have influenced the thinking of the nine in ten private-sector workers who are not in unions. The subject of labor's drastic decline is only minimally touched upon in these articles. Large questions, such as whether the labor relations system in the US that organized labor is intent on preserving is viable for the 21st century, are not asked. But for those who have no voice in their places of work and are not likely to regardless of labor's efforts, such questions are highly relevant. These essays are worth reading for anyone interested in seeing where unions and their supporters believe they are, where they want to go, and what steps they propose to take or are taking to get there. **Note:** Disregard any earlier review from this reviewer.