This edited collection is the latest addition to the Routledge Research in Employment Relations book series and is welcome because it holds gender perspectives as a central theme. In addition, the editors have managed to meet the now ubiquitous demand from publishers for books to have an international angle. Drawing on research from ten countries, the self‐proclaimed aims (p. 2) of the collection are: to develop an international perspective on the reshaping of trade union democracy; to offer space for the voicing of gendered and diversified trade union activism; and to identify common themes and issues and explore difference and similarities.
The volume is distinctive in the field of comparative trade union analysis, in explicitly emphasising a gender perspective. I am not alone amongst a growing group of (mainly female academics) criticising the gender‐blind nature of mainstream industrial relations research. In addition, there have also been criticisms that the field is ethnocentric, with research primarily based in the UK, North America and Australia. While as the editors point out in the preface, this collection still suffers from domination by these countries (constituting seven of the 13 “empirical” chapters), it is refreshing to note that there are also contributions detailing research from other European models including Germany, Sweden and Italy; as well as chapters involving research in Malaysia, India and South Africa.
Looking at the content of the chapters, the collection stands as a valuable resource of international statistics and examples of gender and diversity related initiatives within trade unions. The chapters strike a good balance between macro and micro level analysis, providing useful countrywide statistics and information about institutional and legal frameworks, whilst also giving insight into specific practices and experiences of individual activists. While most of the chapters are country cases, there are also some cross‐cutting thematic chapters, which look at some of the more emergent arenas of diversity action within trade unions, including Healy and Kirton (Ch. 9) on professional and white collar unionism, Williams (Ch. 14) on masculinities and emotions, and Franzway on sexual politics (Ch. 13). I was also pleased that most of the chapters reported qualitative empirical research, many including verbatim quotes and anecdotes for illustration. This is still not common, particularly in comparative works, which tend to take a much narrower, institutional and often solely quantitative approach.
While the chapters can be read as stand‐alone, it is also interesting to reflect on the collection as a whole, looking at the similarities and differences between countries, some of which are more unanticipated than others. I was not surprised for instance to find (depressingly) that women are still under‐represented within trade union hierarchies world wide. While the specifics of policy and context in each country differ, there are clear commonalities, some of which are picked up by the editors in Chapter 1. Each of the chapters points to the importance of women’s struggle for representation as setting precedents for other minority groups within trade unions. Indeed the connection of women’s trade union activity with wider social movement causes is clearly important, for example with the lesbian and gay movement in Canada (Hunt, Ch. 12) and Australia (Franzway, Ch. 13).
In all cases, some element of separate organising is or has been evident, focusing on the importance of safe spaces, and the building of identity consciousness and willingness to take action on behalf of a constituency. Given this general finding, it is interesting to note that countervailing tendencies within unions also emerge, which aim to avoid the backlash associated with what can be seen as “special treatment” for women. In the chapters on Canada (Briskin, Ch. 2) and the US (Cobble and Michal, Ch. 11), the need for policies around gender rather than women are emphasised. As with the GPMU in the UK (Colgan and Ledwith, Ch. 8), ensuring that positive action measures such as reserved seats for women avoid the displacement of men in post, is a strategy utilised to avoid such backlash. In Sweden, Mahon (Ch. 3) notes how equality initiatives that disproportionately benefit women are initiated on the basis of class rather than gender. Similar broad egalitarian rather than explicitly feminist strategies are also noted within the Italian trade union movement (Beccalli and Meardi, Ch. 6). What is noteworthy is that while many of the authors emphasise the need for policies to move away from “women’s issues”, it is also clear that the loss of separate organising has detrimental effects on the place of women within the unions. For example, Mahon (Ch. 3) reports the decline of women’s activist involvement in the Swedish LO that occurred after the abolition of women’s committees in the 1980s. It is also clear that “women’s issues” are still important – Healy and Kirton (Ch. 9) emphasise how different agendas for women and men can be identified, which is also supported by evidence from the USA (Ch. 11) and Canada (Ch. 12).
The collection provides insight into the range of activities, roles and practical effects that women have had within unions, challenging a view of trade unions only as “a men’s movement”, albeit that much of this activity occurs despite lack of official recognition and the patriarchal culture of many unions. Challenging stereotypes is perhaps more salient in the case of the three “developing” world chapters, where it is clear that the stereotypical view of the docile and obedient developing world woman worker is far from the reality. As Todd and Bhopal (Ch. 4) present in their account of the complexities of gender and ethnicity in Malyasia, Malay women are often the economic supporters and decision makers within their families. It is both illuminating and depressing to see how women in South Africa were at the forefront of the formation of unions in the 1970s in the struggle against apartheid and workplace exploitation, and how and why this involvement has declined over the 1990s, (Tshoaedi, Ch. 10). In India (Hensman, Ch. 5), the vibrancy of women’s activism is palpable. Moreover, reading this account indicates that women within Indian unions have been successful in areas that unions in the UK and elsewhere have struggled. For instance, successful organisation of self‐employed and home‐workers, and through forcing women’s issues onto the agenda by recruiting women members of workers’ families in the example of the Mahila Mukti Morcha (p. 103). This stands as evidence of a real “community union” model, which some UK unions might take note of. Overall, these chapters indicate the importance of breaking down the binarism between developed and developing world.
Returning to the original aims of the editors stated at the beginning of the review, my only cautionary point is that I am not convinced that an international perspective in conceptual terms is really developed. While the editors develop a six‐fold conceptual typology in Chapter 1, I do not think that this links clearly enough to the material presented, and stands more as a descriptive rather than a conceptual, or more usefully, an explanatory typology. I would have preferred more guidance that really linked the collection together. Perhaps this may have been better achieved by splitting the editorial “linking” chapter at the beginning, allowing more explanation of common themes emerging from the collection as a whole, at the end of the book. This is all the more salient given that the editors themselves in the preface recognise the difficulty of making sense of the variety of different approaches within these chapters. A case in point here is the use of different terminology‐depending on country context, some authors talk of equity, equality, equal opportunities, diversity etc., when it is quite clear that these are not used to mean the same thing by the authors. Some further explanation of these differences would have been helpful, particularly for those new to the field.
That said, these are only very minor criticisms on what I feel is a commendable and ambitious project, which delivers some new facts and areas of inquiry as well as analysis on some older themes – I for one never knew that as well as that of HRM, there is also a Harvard model of union relations read Chapter 11 for more details! Overall, this is a very worthwhile addition to bookshelves and libraries.
