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rece nt Austra l ian chan ges for non-Austra l ian read ers who want to unde rs tand this im po r tantrecent example of labor reladons system reform.Alexander J. S. ColvinM artin F. Sc he inm an P rofessor of Conflict R esolu tionILR Schoo l, Corn ell University

Union V oices Tacticsand Tensions in UKOrganizing. By M elanie Simms, ja n e Ho lgate,and E dm un d Heery. Ithaca, NY: Cornel l Universi ty Pres s/IL R Press, 2013. 176 pp .ISBN 978-0-8014-7813-0 (P ap erb ac k).In 2008, I pardcipated in a four-day training in organizing strategies coordinated by theU.K trade union umbrella organization, the Trades Union Congress (TUC). I rememberbeing stirprised w hen I entered the classroom at Ruskin College, Oxford. E xpecting the typi-cal pale, male, stale crew, I found myself surrou nded by about 20 young, energedc , andambitious activists, male and female. While reading the bookUnionVoices Tactics and Tensions

inU Organizing I often thought back to those days, as many of the arguments resonatedwith myalbeit very briefexperience with part of the TUC's Organising Academy.Melanie Simms, Jane Holgate, and Edmund Heery, three long-dme experts on union or-ganizing in the United Kingdom, have bundled together a plethora of data from between1996 and 2010 to examine the development of organizing pracdces within the U.K. labormovement. Basing their analysis on in-depth qualitative case studies of union organizingcampaigns, surveys of graduates from the organizing academy, participant observation, andmore than 200 in-depth interviews with key actors, such as union organizers, m entors, unionofficers, and policymakers, they attempt to answer the follorang questions: Wliy has the Brit-ish labor movement focused increasingly on union organizing since the mid-1990s? Is therea so-called organizing model transposed from the United States and Atistralia to the UnitedKingdom? What are some of the tensions that arise between professional union organizersand general unio n officers? And, finally, how should we evaluate the organizing strategiesthat have been employed over the past two decades?

Through their enormous wealth of longitudinal data, the authors provide a nuancedanalysis and a more complex evaltiadon of union organizing than has any previous work. Of-fering the re ader thick descriptions, this comprehensive study is accessible to academicsand pracdtioners alike. As a heads up, however, often no easy answer can be given as towhether certain strategies work better than others . This topic is not a simple and straightfor-ward story that can be placed in a parsimon ious m odel with just a couple ofkeyvariables ex-plaining the success or failure of organizing campaigns. As the authors point out, in manysituations no right answer is possible, but differing approaches have their advantages anddisadvantages, and different tensions can come to the forefront. That said, the authors do aremarkable jo b of explaining the intricacies in an accessible way and disentangling the com-plexities for a broader audience.Rather than describing each of the six chapters, I will pull otit some of the key pointsmade throughout the book. According to the authors, while organizing occvirred in theUnited Kingdom before the mid-1990s, no cadre of trained, specialist organizers was onhand to promote broader cultural change within the labor movement. In 1996, after long-term decline in union m emb ership, the TUC stepped out ofitspurely coordinating role anddecided to launch the New Unionism Inidative to promo te union renewal. Influenced by theorganizing initiadves in the United States and Australia, the TUC set up the OrganisingAcademy and had its first intake of yotmg, mainly union, acti\ists in 1998. Over the past fewyears,however, the training has become increasingly skill-based, often neglecting the impor-tant strategic or political aspects oforganizing. sa conseq uence , organizing, defined as anapproach to union btiilding that relies on unions facilitadng local leadership at the work-place level so that workers are empow ered to act for themselves (7), became a toolbox of

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example, the union Unite takes a specialist approach, in which organizing is carr ied out byorganizers , while negodadng and represent ing members are the responsibi l i ty of the unionofficers. In the general union GMB, the union off icers take on the organizing work as well.The integradon of these two roles has meant that, i t i some cases, the actual organizing hasbeen neglected as officers have too much work addressing individual grievances. Finally, forthe service sector union USDAW, organizing is rather roudtiized work using specif ic tacdcsand argum ents to convince workers to joi n the u nion .Only about 300 organizers are in the U.K. labor movement , compared with more than3,000 unio n off icers. While the idea was to pro m ote the organizers as agents of chang e,they have often clashed with the union officers. In some cases, the officers consider organiz-ing equal to recrui tment and focus on the increase in membership numbers , whereas theorganizers str ive to build sustainable membership structures and to promote a deeper formof un io n dem ocracy an d worker self-organizadon. Th e organizers are often very you ng an dassume a low, entry-level status within the labo r m ovem ent, with bleak c areer prospects. Halfof them eventually became off icers, enjoying higher pay and the presence of a career ladder .

As a consequence however, given the lack of career prospects, the labor movement loses asignif icant number of skilled people.From a survey of 238 organizing ca rnpaigns, it is clear that most camp aigns are ab ou t in-f il l organ izing, or stre ng the nin g the unio n structures wh ere collective barg ainin g is alreadyin place, rath er than greenfield organiz ing, or setd ng up collective barg ainin g wh ere nounion exists. The unions will often strategically target workplaces in the private sector orworkplaces closely related to traditional strongholds, rather than expand into new areas.Based on their data , the authors argue that organizing campaigns require workplace sup por tas well as stron g central co ordi natio n or supp ort from the officers. In the ir conclusio n, mea-sures of organizing outcomes are discussed, resulting in a rather bleak picture. Over the pasttwo decades , gains in terms of me mb ership , collecdve bargaining, repres end ng un der rep re-

sented groups or under represented sectors , and, f inal ly, union democracy or worker selforganizadon have been far f rom opdmal .While the authors end with a fairly negative assessment, it is actually unclear whether theyregard the need for organizing toward union renewal essendal, or what an alternative couldbe . In this regard, i t is somedmes hard to understand why organizing as an innovadve praxishas failed to revitalize the labor mo vem ent. And while the autho rs poi nt ou t that differencesin the spread of the pracdce can be explained through differences in the history, polidcs,and structure of the unions, they don' t really expand on this . Similar ly, they argue that orga-nizing was done before the mid-1990s, but they do not make clear to what extent and how itdiffered from the current wave. In that sense, it would have been fruitful to adopt a moreanalytical perspecdve. But again, the purpose of the book was clearly to describe and to tellthe unto ld, complex s toi ies ra the r than presen t the data in a purely academic man ner .These reservadons aside, the authors offer extremely valuable insights into the complexi-des and the tensions that surround organizing pracdces, and they do so in a very readableand accessible way. nion oicesshou ld be on th e shelf of every acade mic an d pra cd tion erinteres ted in unders tanding the oppor tuni t ies and chal lenges of union organizing or in thefuture of the British labor movement more broadly.

Maite TapiaAssistatit ProfessorSchool of Human Resources and Labor ReladonsM ich iga n State Un iversity ' -, - .

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C o p y r i g h t o f I n d u s t r i a l & L a b o r R e l a t i o n s R e v i e w i s t h e p r o p e r t y o f C o r n e l l U n i v e r s i t y a n d

i t s c o n t e n t m a y n o t b e c o p i e d o r e m a i l e d t o m u l t i p l e s i t e s o r p o s t e d t o a l i s t s e r v w i t h o u t t h e

c o p y r i g h t h o l d e r ' s e x p r e s s w r i t t e n p e r m i s s i o n . H o w e v e r , u s e r s m a y p r i n t , d o w n l o a d , o r e m a i l

a r t i c l e s f o r i n d i v i d u a l u s e .