Monograph on historical trends in the trade union movement in the UK during the period from 1900 to 1940 with particular reference to the role of trades councils - covers trade union structure, workers representation, working class organization, political participation, the role of the labour political party and national level trade union federation (tuc), social implications of labour disputes (incl. The general strike of 1926), etc., and includes statistical tables on the membership of trades councils. Bibliography pp. 239 to 254 and references.

This book offers a new perspective on the relationship between trade unions and the state in the period 1910-21. Using a range of primary sources it explores the constraints placed by industrial conflict on both state and trade union action. It aims to contribute to and clarify some of the main issues raised by the Rank and Filist debate through an analysis of the sources from which state industrial relations policy derived for the whole of this period.

This is a pathbreaking book, essential reading for students of interwar political and social history. Previous histories of the period have underestimated the crucial role which Communists played in trade union organisation from top to bottom. Despite its relatively small size the Communist Party occupied a strategic place in the trade union movement: the leaders of the movement, notably Ernest Bevin, refused to acknowledge this at the time. Thanks to her extensive research and numerous interviews, and to the ’opening of the books’ of the Communist Part, Nina Fishman has been able to uncover a fascinating story, one which official Communist historians have never told, and which other historians could only recount in fragments. The main protagonists are the Communist Party General Seretary, Harry Pollitt, and the Editor of the Daily Worker, Johnny Campbell. The book brings to vivid life the work of activists on the shop floor and in the coalmines during the Depression and the Second World War. The book includes the first comprehensive analysis of Communist activity in key sectors of the British economy, notably in engineering shop stewards’ movements and among London busmen. It concludes with an authoritative review of Communists' part in the British war economy and a vigorous challenge to the conventional wisdom about the effect of Communist Party changes of line on the war on activists’ abilities to incite and lead strikes.

Thoroughly updated, this essential reference source introduces scholars to the study of organized labor on the international as well as national level. Contains 400 entries describing the labor movements in countries around the world, and the important people, organizations, ideas, and political parties involved in organized labor. Includes a summary list of past and present international labor leaders, lists of global union federations and the affiliated organizations of major national labor federations, and analytical lists of the membership of the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions.

Study of trade union decision making in Sweden - discusses the theoretical and historical background, trade union structure, geographic distribution, affiliation with political partys, internal conflicts between leadership and membership, attitudes on wage policies, governance types, authority and problems of democracy within the movement, successes and failures, etc.; attempts to develop an interactive democratic model of collective participation. Graphs, illustrations, map and references.

Workers and Communists in France analyzes the relationship between the Parti Communiste Français (PCF) and Confédération Générale du Travail (CGT), France’s largest and most influential trade union organization. All trade union movements in advanced capitalist societies have had to develop mechanisms to achieve their goals within the labor market and the political realm. The nature of such mechanisms varies dramatically from society to society. George Ross examines a trade union movement whose philosophy and actions are derived from the political and organizational perspectives of the Communist Third International tradition. Workers and Communists in France submits the modern history of the relationship between the PCF and the CGT to the complex test of a cost-benefit analysis. How well has the linkage between party and trade union worked for French Communism, for French workers, for the French left, and for French society? Since World War II, the ties between the PDF and the CGT have enabled them to promote and perpetuate sharp notions of class and class conflict among French workers and French society in general. The CGT has been the central agency through which French Communism has shaped debate about the nature of French society, a debate with profound effects on the structure of French politics and intellectual life. On the other hand, the basic contradiction between the Communist Party’s desire to use the CGT for partisan purposes and the CGT’s need to generate mass support has never been resolved. This failure may have followed from the very structure of the relationship between the PCF and the CGT, as well as from consistently inappropriate strategic calculations by the PCF. Ross concludes that the Communist Third International's concept of the link between party and trade union is becoming obsolete. The future of Communism in France may well depend, therefore, on a reappraisal of the party’s relationship with organized labor. This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1982.

The 1921 founding congress in Moscow of the Red International of Labour Unions was a historic event. That gathering set out to create an international revolutionary trade-union organisation embracing millions of workers, and it brought together a wide variety of forces within the world labour movement. Lively and at times acrimonious debates occurred at the congress with syndicalist and other currents over the purpose and tasks of trade unions, the nature of class-struggle unionism, and union strategy and tactics. The congress proceedings, published here in a richly annotated edition, are part of a multi-volume series on the Communist International in Lenin’s time.