Unionization and Union Leadership--the road haulage industry. (Book Reviews).

Paul Smith

Continuum, London and New York, 2001, x + 230pp.

ISBN 0-8264-5214-0 (hbk) [pounds sterling]60.00

This research monograph examines the construction and mobilisation of union bargaining power and influence in contract transport services and in-house transportation (commonly known as 'road haulage') in Britain. Smith makes his opening gambit by staking his claim to look at human agency in building union power, rather than the usual rather barren structural determinants and macro-processes, in a sector of key economic activity under capitalism: one of the troika of the means of production, distribution and exchange. This is a fascinating story, often told in a fast-paced way, putting the 'T' in the TGWU (Transport and General Workers' Union).

Smith provides a good grounding in the conceptual underpinnings of the construction of collective power deploying not uncritically the writings by Offe and Wisenthal, Muller-Jentsch, and Hyman on unions' position in society, their forms, internal dynamics and processes, with a focus on democratic and solidaristic (although not combative) cultures. The accompanying section on leadership is briefer and less developed. Nonetheless, the basis is established for a sustained and contextualised study of agency, activists, organisation, process, strategy and tactics. Unionisation is defined as the creation and mobilisation of workers' collective power, contra the common understanding of the process of joining or recruiting to a union. Similarly, demobilisation and destruction are termed deunionisation. This more rounded conceptualisation is consistent with the focus on agency but Smith misses the opportunity to more fully and fruitfully develop this conceptualisation.

Thereafter, the monograph is divided into historical compartments and case-studies. The first deals with the TGWU's road transport group's historical origins and antecedents between 1918-1953.

Smith shows how union weakness, allied to employer demand, lead to promotion of statutory framework for pay, alongside scatterings of collective bargaining. Prevailing difficult economic conditions, including wage cutting, and poor union organisation with fragmented industry structure and falling membership, coupled to hostile employers who sought standardisation to reduce wage competition, lead to the establishment of such a framework. The tensions between this long-term strategy and the growth in 1930s of assertive local-based unionism in some areas (through recruitment drives, strike actions, withdrawal of cooperation for regulation of drivers hours under the Road Traffic Act 1933) are brought out. Alert to future events and frictions, the traditions of local union and workplace autonomy (unofficial action and oppositional culture), albeit of only a few areas, are outlined.

An examination of 1953-1978 focuses on the emergence of two, often de facto competing, strategies of attaining national and regional collective bargaining. Often, company-level bargaining was the fallback position during these struggles. The advocates of these strategies were shown to be broadly delineated by combinations of left/right politics, lower/higher union positions and organising/bureaucratic modus operandi. Cases-studies of branch and workplace unionism in Birmingham, Liverpool and London provide essential and detailed accounts of the processes of local union building. Smith is particularly good on explaining the disunity between drivers and dockers in London but also their unity in Liverpool and the many consequences of this. Attention then turns to the 1979 national strike, representing in retrospect the high point of collective worker power for reasons of fuller mobilisation, with branch and workplace unionisms forcing its pace and nature. Smith shows how the years of painstaking union building c reated the organisation capable of mounting and winning this strike.

The final historical section deals with disarticulation, exclusion and disorganisation between 1979-1998. The strike paid dividends in 1980 but thereafter strong union organisation was undermined by recession, restructuring through sub-contracting, concentration and internationalisation of capital through mergers/take-overs, and new employment laws, leading to a 66% decline in TGWU membership in a growing industry. Union organisation fragmented, losing its identity and ability to mobilise. The concluding chapter returns to the initial themes to assess more fully the issues covered in the body of the book. One of these is intra-union tensions: in addition to union weakness generating support for statutory regulation, the national leadership also sought this model to exercise control over members. Smith concludes that effective leadership is best explained by virtue of political values and location in union structures where class sentiments, a mobilising or action-based perspective, and assessment of the balanc e of Forces are critical components.

Smith's contribution is three-fold. He provides analysis of a hitherto under-researched area, demonstrating the utility of, and elaborating on, a radical or Marxian analysis of trade unionism. He also shows the benefit, albeit with difficulties, of forging supportive links between different groups of workers, in recognition of the limited ability of individual groups of workers to either win significant concessions or withstand employer attack.

But there are limitations, in terms of not taking these aspects further. Throughout, key notions or concepts like 'militancy' and a 'movement' are not defined or discussed, hampering a clearer understanding of what Smith imputes. This relates to the role and importance of full-time officers in mobilisation, for Smith decontextualises these by not explaining what milieux, acting as transmission belts, lay behind these officers, and how these milieux came about and operated within conducive conditions vis-a-vis union members. Lack of analytical development also relates to the explanation of the success of the state and employer offensive by virtue of changed employment laws. These were the surface manifestations of something much deeper. Given the flouting and defeat of such industrial laws in the 1970s, what explains the potency of Thatcher's attempt in the 1980s? Smith offers two brief passages (p. 161, pp. 188-189) on the importance of workers' lack of political understanding and the inability of trade union ism to construct ideological defences for this. They may be the crux of the matter but we cannot fully tell.

Furthermore, Smith pays little attention to the weak and weaker union areas. These constituted the majority and herein may lie another important facet in providing a more rounded explanation of why unionism in road haulage was so susceptible to a counter-offensive. Using Kelly's work on mobilisation (cf. Smith's intention, p.3) would help in this. finally, key questions along the way often go unanswered. For example, there is no explanation of why, or exposition of the mechanics by which, the national union decided not use the opportunity presented by the 1958 Smithfield market strike to build a national campaign, or why key strikes were defeated or victorious. There was ample room to carry out these tasks. The book is short at 230 pages of which 76 are notes, references, index and appendices. Moreover, the book provided the opportunity to go beyond his two articles in Historical Studies in Industrial Relations (No.s 3 and 7 on the periods 1918-1940 and 1969-1979). However, in making these points, it should b ecome clear that Smith has made a very useful empirical and conceptual contribution, but one that creates an appetite for usefully going a bit further.

Dr Gregor Gall is a reader in industrial relations at the University of Stirling. He is editor of Union Organising: campaigning for trade union recognition (Routledge 2002) and author of The Meaning of Militancy? Postal workers, trade unionism and industrial relations (Ashgate 2003).