Book review: Workers, Collectivism and the Law. Grappling with Democracy
| Published date | 01 December 2019 |
| DOI | 10.1177/1388262719890705 |
| Author | Marco Biasi |
| Date | 01 December 2019 |
| Subject Matter | Book reviews |
Book reviews
Book reviews
Laura Carlson, Workers, Collectivism and the Law. Grappling with Democracy, Edward Elgar:
Cheltenham, 2018, 311 pages, ISBN 9781788112444
Reviewed by: Marco Biasi, University of Milan, Italy
DOI: 10.1177/1388262719890705
In Workers, Collectivism and the Law. Grappling with Democracy, Laura Carlson addresses
the topic of employee collective voice in the workplace from a comparative perspective, providing
an account of the experiences of industrial democracy in Britain, Germany, Sweden and the United
States.
After a short introduction, where the author sets out the theoretical framework of her analysis,
the book comprises 12 chapters and is structured into two main parts. In the first part, Carlson
describes the shift from guilds to modern labour unions in the four selected countries. In the second
part of the book, she identifies the main institutions of collective worker voice in each of the four
countries, narrowing the comparison down to the specific topic of employee grievances.
The ultimate goal of the book is to identify, from a procedural democracy perspective,
new ways to strengthen employee voice in the workplace, in furtherance of the idea that unions,
and, more broadly, industrial relations, are a fundamental instrument to promote voice, access
and equality in times of rising nationalism and rugged globalisation.
The historical chapters
In the first part of the book, Laura Carlson focuses on guilds, which she identifies as the historical
prototype for worker collectivism in the western world.
In Chapter 1, ‘Guilds: brother[sister]hood, friendship, and mutual aid’, Carlson revisits
the origins of guilds. She considers that they had their roots in prehistory (Mesopotamia)
and in the ancient Greek and Roman collegia, but they found their perfect shape in medieval times
as ‘pockets of democracy offering stability and support for their members in times of great social
change’ (p. 41).
Chapter 2, ‘The golden age of the English guilds’, focuses on the experience of the British
guilds. The author notes that their golden age beganintheearly14thcenturyandwith
the Reformation, which turned profit from immoral to desirable. In the same period, the Crown
started to invade the space of freedom of guilds and, as a result, the internal balance between
masters, journeymen and apprentices started to erode long before industrialisation. In the wake
of the 1688 Glorious Revolution, the commodification of labour, that could now be sold
as a commodity, was the starting point for the creation of trade-union-like associations
European Journal of Social Security
2019, Vol. 21(4) 384–402
ªThe Author(s) 2019
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