Throughout the industrialised world trade unionists are reforming their organisations as part
of a strategy to adjust to new labour market economic and political circumstances. This volume
examines the role of merger activity in this process of reform. The book identifies the pattern
of merger activity the factors that promote its development and its impact on union structure
and governance. Most merger activity is shown to originate in some adverse environmental change
such as membership decline. Furthermore there is little evidence to suggest that mergers have
improved union performance in the recruitment retention and organisation of members although
in some cases the reform of systems of membership participation has been facilitated. The
shift away from industrial unions has been accelerated by merger involvement which has also
brought into question the role of confederations where the number of affiliated unions has
declined markedly. The book comprises two sections. The first section examines the merger
process in ten countries (Australia Austria Denmark Germany Greece Norway Portugal
Sweden UK and US). The second section comprises three 'horizontal' chapters in which authors
of the national chapters develop themes that emerge from the national chapters in comparative
perspective.
