The crisis of public sector trade unionism: evidence from the Mid Staffordshire hospital crisis

This article contends that there is a growing, if uneven, crisis in public sector trade unionism masked by relatively high membership figures that obscure a weakening of trade unions in the workplace, leaving hollowed out organisation vulnerable to further legislative and employer-led onslaughts. The weakening is not inevitable but to overcome it requires a refocusing of organising efforts on the everyday concerns of members such as understaffing and the provision of better public services. Only with an engaged membership will national issues and wider campaigns have material force. Having outlined a general argument, the article takes as illustrative the nature and performance of trade unions, and particularly UNISON, during the Mid Staffordshire hospital crisis

The leadership component of Kelly’s Mobilisation Theory : contribution, tensions, limitations and further development

This reassessment of Kelly’s analysis of the relationship of activist leadership to collective action within the overall jigsaw of mobilisation theory draws on social movement literature, studies by industrial relations scholars utilising aspects of Kelly’s approach – including this author’s own work – and related research on union leadership within collective mobilisation. In the process, it identifies and celebrates how Kelly’s work, whilst contributing a distinct and substantive actor-related approach, recognised that leadership is one ingredient amongst other factors, including important structural opportunities and constraints. It considers three potential ambiguities/tensions within Kelly’s conceptualisation of leadership related to the social construction of workers’ interests, spontaneity of workers’ action and the ‘leader/follower’ interplay. The review also identifies two important limitations, related to the union member/bureaucracy dynamic and the role of left-wing political leadership, and concludes by signalling different forms of leadership relationships on which further refinement and development would be fruitful

House prices, disposable income and permanent and temporary shocks: the N.Z., U.K. and U.S. experience

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to compare responses of house prices in three important markets when faced with permanent and temporary shocks to income. It additionally decomposes each historical house price series into its permanent, temporary and deterministic components. Design/methodology/approach: Using quarterly data over 1973-2008, two-variable systems of house prices and income are specified for three major house-owning economies: New Zealand (NZ), the United Kingdom (UK) and the United States of America (USA). Findings: NZ and UK housing markets are sensitive to both permanent and temporary shocks to income, while the US market reacts to temporary shocks with the permanent component having a largely insignificant role to play in house price composition. In NZ, the temporary component of house prices has tended to be positive over time, pushing prices higher than they would have been otherwise; while in the UK, both permanent and temporary components have tended to reinforce each other. Originality/value: The paper uses state-of-the-art methods to analyse the relationships between income and house prices in three economies