BOOK REVIEWS
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8543.1982.tb00104.x |
| Date | 01 July 1982 |
| Published date | 01 July 1982 |
BOOK
REVIEWS
Unions and Change Since
1945
by Chris Baker and Peter Caldwell, 192pp.
Getting Organised by Alan Campbell and John Mcllroy. 208pp.
Women at Work by Chris Aldred. 173pp.
Health arid Safety at Work by Dave Eva and Ron Oswald, 188p.
Democracy at Work by Patrick Burns and Me1 Doyle. 164pp.
All published by Pan,
1981.
Pan Trade Union Studies in co-operation with the Workers’
Educational Association.
fl.75
each.
THE
nineteen seventies saw a dramatic increase
in
the provision of courses by public educational
bodies for shop stewards and union safety representatives. This expansion of trade union
education was accompanied by the publication of a growing number
of
books and pamphlets
aimed specifically at trade union students. The Arrow Trade Union Industrial Studies series. the
workers’ handbooks under the Pluto imprint and Studies for Trade Unionists series
of
the
Workers’ Educational Association are examples of this genre which spring immediately
to
mind.
These five titles under review are a part
of
this distinctive body
of
industrial relations literature.
whose best general characteristics tend to include the adoption
of
an explicit trade union
perspective; an attempt to relate the subject under consideration to the reader’s experience;
a
demystification and fresh presentation
of
conventional academic industrial relations writing and
research (whatever its ideological hue!) in order
to
make it more accessible
to
a non academic
readership; and finally, texts conceived as teaching and
learning
tools
with often though not
always a conscious attempt
to
link education and potential action.
If
it
is
against these standards that these books should be judged. one acknowledges successful
fusion
of
all the five elements suggested above is
no
easy task. The desire
to
avoid those aspects
of
much mainstream academic industrial relations literature which are likely to deter the trade
union student, for example the unnecessary use
of
jargon, the parading
of
voluminous references
and footnotes designed to impress one’s professional peers rather than genuinely support
or
advance the subject under discussion. may lead
to
oversimplification and a self-conscious effort
not to be tarred with the academic brush. Such an over-reaction does a disservice
to
the trade
union student
if
for example he
or
she is unable to follow up references, check statistics and assess
the use to which quotations are put. After all,
if
as trade union tutors we hope to impart a healthy
distrust
of
‘experts’, books written by
us
should always give the reader the means
of
evaluating
the interpretations placed on source materials, should he
or
she
so
wish. Again, the forging of a
link between education and action, the positive aspect of which is
to
demonstrate that academic
research can be mobilised in the practical interests
of
the labour movement. has its dangers. The
temptation to preach, propagandise and oversimplify has to be resisted. Sometimes trade union
studies books in their anxiety to assist the steward acquire thc ‘necessary’ role skills. give scant
attention to the historical, social, economic and political context
in
which he
or
she operates. In
fact. an appreciation that an attempt to understand such processes can lead
to
a deeper awareness
of
trade union problems and purposes is surely as essential an element
in
trade union education as
the teaching
of
role skills. These then are some
of
the potential pitfalls facing those writing in the
trade union studies area and it is not unfair
to
say that
to
date a majority
of
this literature has
displayed to a greater or lesser degree some of the weaknesses identified above.
The authors
of
these books are all eminently qualified to produce such texts, since all have
experience (in some cases substantial)
of
working for the WEA and/or University Adult
Education Departments as practising tutors
of
trade union students. Conceived as a series these
titles inevitably invite comparison with Arrow set
of
books published during the middle
to
late
seventies. (Five
of
these were reviewed in this journal in March
1977).
Such a comparison can
only be done on a broad basis, since the Arrow series consisted
of
thirteen titles-ten texts and
three resource books, whereas the Pan series,
so
far at any rate, consists
of
five texts.
Unions and Change since
1945
has the difficult task
of
expounding post-war trade union
developments. Baker and Caldwell acknowledge that in an introductory work
of
this length their
choice
of
themes and issues is bound to be selective. Their aims are refreshingly sensible: they
point
out
‘the emphasis is on asking questions rather than supplying answers’ (page
12).
An
268
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