Strategic Unionism and Partnership: Boxing or Dancing? (review)

At last, here is a book for trade union practitioners who have been struggling with the questions of developing trade union strategy in a global context. Thirteen trade union researchers and activists spent four years chronicling the overwhelming choices facing unions in developing strategies for growth and renewal. In their documentation of various strategic choices they use the metaphors of "dancing" and "boxing" denoting the cooperative and adversarial modes of industrial relations.

Denis Gregory and Tommy Nilson set the foundation with their exploration of the numerous challenges facing unions in Western Europe and the US over the last two decades. They outline how these unions have responded to globalization, the rapid development of communications and technology, and the organization of work in transnational business operations. They examine the union's choices, ranging from the adversarial approach (boxing) of collective bargaining to a cooperative partnership (dancing), working together to find common ground. These strategic choices are not mutually exclusive, and the authors provide the reader with a structure of auditing the principles that shaped the trade union leaders' decisions.

Tony Huzzard outlines a conceptual framework for unions to use in developing their organization's strategic choices. Huzzard sets out four levels of development which guide union decision-making, regardless if it is in the context of traditional bargaining (boxing) or partnership (dancing). The strategic decisions can range from identity and mission of the union to the structure and capabilities needed to prevail in the changing environment. This framework will assist union leaders, labor educators and other practitioners to broaden the dialogue on the strategic choice beyond militancy and cooperation to one of union renewal.

The book's later chapters are a study of global trade unionism, exploring how diverse countries and industrial relations structures have been transformed to deal with globalization, decentralization and the development of social partnerships across the European Union (EU) and the US. This is an excellent documentation of contemporary labor history.

Steven Deutsch reviews the US experience of volunteer employee participation and partnerships. He outlines the challenges of union leadership in developing a strategic approach to carry out a union agenda and to include member participation as part of this strategy. This approach requires leaders to move back and forth between working cooperatively on common goals and still struggling against unilateral management power.

The authors conclude that the actions of boxing and dancing are woven into the future of modern industrial relations. We are not looking at an either/or choice regarding boxing and dancing as much as when, where and how much. These questions are dependent on the clarity and effectiveness of a union strategy and the skills and capacity to implement that strategy. The ongoing challenge for unions today is best captured in the words of Mohammad Ali, "Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee."