The Meaning of Militancy
Postal Workers and Industrial Relations

This text explores many of the major issues of concern to researchers studying trade unionism. It examines the relatively militant response of British postal workers to increased commercialisation of their industry, comparing it to that of postal workers in nine other industrial countries.

This text explores many of the major issues of concern to researchers studying trade unionism. It offers: a definition, elaboration and contextualisation of militancy (industrial, union and worker); an examination of the relationship between workplace unionism and the wider body of the union; a study of factionalism and industrial and political consciousness: and an analysis of the construction and mobilisation of conflict and co-operation (social partnership). These themes are considered through examining the relatively militant response of British postal workers to increased commercialisation of their industry. By comparing this response to that of postal workers in nine other major industrial countries, the study provides an explanation of why UK postal workers have been relatively successful in resisting new management techniques and privatisation through militancy and oppositionalism. One aspect given particular attention is the uneasy relationship within the postal workers' union between shop floor militancy and the social partnership approach followed by the union's leadership.

Worker militancy, trade unionism and industrial relations
Royal Mail's business, industrial and political environments
Strikes in Royal Mail: volumes and trends
The 1988 national postal strike
The 1996 national postal strike
Strike propensity and strike potency
Strike organisation and strike characteristics
The politics and consciousness of postal workers
Assessing militancy
Comparative positions and processes.