Union Retreat and the Regions

Since the beginning of the 1980s, British trade unions have experienced a dramatic retreat, marked by rapidly falling membership and declining industrial power. The authors examine the regional dimensions of this retreat of organised labour, paying particular attention to: The resilience of the unions' historical heartland areas. The impact of economic restructuring on local union traditions. The shrinking landscape of industrial militancy. The geographical decentralization of the new industrial relations. The link between these factors and the more general debate on regional development and regional labour markets. An important synthesis of economic geography and industrial relations work, this book marks a major contribution towards the newly emerging field of labour geography

Jane Wills, Ron Martin, Peter Sunley

1. The Disorgnaised of organised Labour. 2. Situating Trade Unionism: Spaces of Regulation and Representation. 3. The Contours of Decline: Union Retreat and Resilience in the Regions. 4. Labour Market Restructuring and Regional Unionism. 5. Striking Out the Past? Geographies of Industrial Action. 6. Decentralization and Local Industrial Politics. 7. Mapping Union Futures: Representation and Organisation in a Detraditionalized Economy.