Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-xbtfd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-05T14:37:47.415Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Trade unions, democracy and power

Review products

The Democratic Aspects of Trade Union Recognition. By BoggAlan, Oxford: Hart Publishing, 2009. 303 pp. ISBN 978-1-84113-790-2 £45.00 hardback

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 February 2011

Judy Fudge*
Affiliation:
Faculty of Law, University of Victoria, British Columbia

Extract

Should the law support union recognition by employers? If so, what form should this legal support take? These are the questions that Alan Bogg addresses in his excellent monograph, The Democratic Aspects of Trade Union Recognition. His focus is New Labour's 1999 statutory recognition procedure for trade unions, which he situates within the historical context of the United Kingdom's distinctive approach to the relationship between labour law and the social practice of collective bargaining – aptly (and famously) named collective laissez-faire by Otto Kahn-Freund (1972). Combining political philosophy and legal analysis, Bogg argues for robust legal support for trade union recognition that preserves the autonomy of trade unions to determine their own constituency and recognises their distinctive power to strike. Inspired by the idea of deliberative democracy and an ethical commitment to freedom as non-domination, he argues that civic republicanism provides the best normative basis for trade union recognition procedures. He contrasts this normative framework with the rights-based individualism and state neutrality characteristic of the liberal approach, which, he argues, is embodied in the United States and Canadian versions of industrial pluralism. Bogg also demonstrates the ‘yawning chasm between New Labour's civic rhetoric and New Labour's liberal legal reform agenda’ (pp. 118–19) when it comes to trade union recognition procedures. He concludes by offering a series of proposals that would enhance union recognition and further the values of freedom as non-domination, democratic participation through deliberative democracy, and community.

Type
Review essays
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2011

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Barenberg, Mark (1994) ‘Democracy and Domination in the Law of Workplace Cooperation: From Bureaucratic to Flexible Production’, Columbia Law Review 94: 753983.Google Scholar
Burtt, Shelley (1990) ‘The Good Citizen's Psyche: On the Psychology of Civic Virtue’, Polity 23: 2338.Google Scholar
Cohen, Joshua (1989a) ‘Deliberation and Democratic Legitimacy’, in Hamlin, Alan and Pettit, Philip (eds) The Good Policy: Normative Analysis of the State. Oxford: Blackwell, 1738.Google Scholar
Cohen, Joshua (1989b) ‘Democracy and Liberty’, in Elster, Jon (ed.) Deliberative Democracy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 185231.Google Scholar
Davies, Paul and Freedland, Mark (2007) Towards a Flexible Labour Market: Labour Legislation and Regulation since the 1990s. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Dukes, Ruth (2009) ‘Otto Kahn-Freund and Collective Laissez-Faire: An Edifice without a Keystone?’, Modern Law Review 72: 220–46.Google Scholar
Dukes, Ruth (2010a) ‘The Right to Strike Under UK Law: Not Much More than a Slogan?’, Industrial Law Journal 39: 8291.Google Scholar
Dukes, Ruth (2010b) ‘Review of Alan Bogg, The Democratic Aspects of Trade Union Recognition’, Modern Law Review 73: 691–93.Google Scholar
Estlund, Cynthia (2010) Regoverning the Workplace. New Haven: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Frick, Barbara J. (2009) ‘Not Just Collective Bargaining: The Role of Trade Unions in Creating and Maintaining a Democratic Society’, Working USA: The Journal of Labor and Society 12: 249–64.Google Scholar
Fudge, Judy and Tucker, Eric (2001) Labour Before the Law: The Regulation of Workers' Collective Action, 1900 to 1946. Toronto: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Habermas, Jürgen (1996) Between Facts and Norms: Contributions to a Discourse Theory of Law and Democracy, trans. Rehg, William. Cambridge, MA: Massachusetts Institute of Technology Press.Google Scholar
Kahn-Freund, Otto (1972) Labour and the Law. London: Stevens.Google Scholar
Milman-Sivan, Faina (2009) ‘Freedom of Association as a Core Labor Right and the ILO: Toward a Normative Framework’, Law and Ethics of Human Rights 3: 109153.Google Scholar
Novitz, Tonia (2003) International and European Protection of the Right to Strike. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Offe, Claus and Weisenthal, Helmut (1985) ‘The Two Logics of Collective Action’, in Offe, Claus (ed.) Disorganized Capitalism. Cambridge, MA: Massachusetts Institute of Technology Press, 197220.Google Scholar
Slinn, Sara and Hurd, Richard W. (2009) ‘Fairness and Opportunity for Choice: The Employee Free Choice Act and the Canadian Model’, Just Labour: A Canadian Journal of Work and Society 15: 104115.Google Scholar
Sunstein, Cass (1988) ‘Beyond the Republican Revival’, Yale Law Journal 97: 1539–90.Google Scholar
Wedderburn, Lord (1997) ‘Consultation and Collective Bargaining in Europe: Success or Ideology?’, Industrial Law Journal 26: 134.Google Scholar