What Unions No Longer Do, by Jake Rosenfeld. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, 2014, 288 pp., ISBN: 978 0 674725 119, £29.95, hardback.

Date01 December 2014
Published date01 December 2014
DOIhttp://doi.org/10.1111/bjir.12091
AuthorRichard Hurd
Ellem seem to suggest in chapter 7 based on their reading of the Australian expe-
rience, but rather the development of multi-unionism (as described in several chap-
ters) that allows employers to circumvent established union power. Moreover, in
chapter 6, Gall demonstrates that anti-unionism in the UK has been at its most
virulent where unions have mobilized around an oppositional agenda. This suggests
strongly that anti-unionism is more useful than non-unionism as a concept, as it
grasps the diversity of union identities that display varying degrees of incompat-
ibility with management power. The historical and contemporary experiences of
Colombia (chapter 10), South Korea (chapter 11) and Indonesia (chapter 12) indi-
cate that attempts to curtail militantly oppositional forms of trade unionism
through highly repressive anti-unionism can have unintended consequences, not
least of which is the renewal of radical forms of trade unionism. This underlines the
point established in the case study chapters that the field of contention between
employers and management and trade unions is contradictory and contingent, and
produces complex outcomes.
The book’s global focus produces a wide-ranging empirical set of materials
that not only captures this complexity, but also provides a solid basis for model
building. This task has already been accomplished partially by Rowley and Sik
Bae, who by identifying four types of anti-unionism in South Korea (political-
ideological, cultural-attitudinal, organizational-institutional and physical) help
to organize conceptually the diverse repertoire of action deployed by a variety
of social actors. Globally, this repertoire encompasses widespread killings in
Colombia, more subtle containment strategies in Indonesia such as media cam-
paigns to stigmatize unions as obstacles to investment and thereby economic
growth, and mundane harassment such as obstructing elections to works councils in
Germany.
This model could have been developed in a discussion chapter, but this is conspicu-
ous by its absence. A discussion chapter, moreover, could also have explained the key
themes that form the subtitle of the book. The nature, dynamics, trajectories and
outcomes of anti-unionism are neither defined in the introduction nor explained by
drawing upon the empirical material presented in the substantive case study chapters.
This lack of a discussion chapter will be most sorely missed by students and practi-
tioners who may find it harder than established academics to grasp the lines of
analysis and the consequences for practice that arise from distinguishing anti-
unionism from non-unionism.
ANDREW MATHERS
University of the West of England
What Unions No Longer Do, by Jake Rosenfeld. Harvard University Press, Cam-
bridge, MA, 2014, 288 pp., ISBN: 978 0 674725 119, £29.95, hardback.
In What Unions No Longer Do, Jake Rosenfeld traces the declining influence of unions
in the USA, with particular attention to implications for society at large. Thirty years
after the publication of Freeman’s and Medolf’s What Do Unions Do?, Rosenfeld
offers a thought-provoking update with an appropriate shift in emphasis. Rather than
concentrating on what unions do for workers on the job, he looks at labour’s lost
ability to promote income equality and to direct political attention to the needs of the
disadvantaged.
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Book Review 821
© 2014 John Wiley & Sons Ltd/London School of Economics.

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