IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/ecolab/v12y2001i1p61-84.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Placing Peak Union Purpose and Power: The Origins, Dominance and Decline of the Barrier Industrial Council

Author

Listed:
  • Bradon Ellem
  • John Shields

Abstract

This article examines the power and purpose of union peak bodies, focussing on one particularly powerful organisation, the Barrier Industrial Council in Broken Hill. We argue that the power and purpose of all such bodies is multi-dimensional, historically contingent and spatially specific. The most illuminating studies conceptualise peak bodies as agents of mobilisation, with power delegated by affiliates, and of economic and political exchange, with power derived from a ‘structural coupling’ with the state and capital. However, there is a third possible peak body purpose: social regulation and, specifically, the regulation of labour and commodity markets. This was a conspicuous activity of the Barrier Industrial Council, underpinned by success in mobilisation and exchange and by ‘place consciousness’. Understanding the variety of potential power sources holds the key to explaining not only why some peak bodies command more power than others but also why there is so much variation in peak union focus and behaviour.

Suggested Citation

  • Bradon Ellem & John Shields, 2001. "Placing Peak Union Purpose and Power: The Origins, Dominance and Decline of the Barrier Industrial Council," The Economic and Labour Relations Review, , vol. 12(1), pages 61-84, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:ecolab:v:12:y:2001:i:1:p:61-84
    DOI: 10.1177/103530460101200105
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/103530460101200105
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/103530460101200105?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Andrew Jonas, 1996. "Local Labour Control Regimes: Uneven Development and the Social Regulation of Production," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 30(4), pages 323-338.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Bradon Ellem, 2006. "Scaling labour," Work, Employment & Society, British Sociological Association, vol. 20(2), pages 369-387, June.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Zhiwei Zhao & David Walters & Desai Shan, 2020. "Impediments to free movement of Chinese seafarers in the maritime labour market," The Economic and Labour Relations Review, , vol. 31(3), pages 425-443, September.
    2. Elena Baglioni, 2022. "The Making of Cheap Labour across Production and Reproduction: Control and Resistance in the Senegalese Horticultural Value Chain," Work, Employment & Society, British Sociological Association, vol. 36(3), pages 445-464, June.
    3. Katie J Wells & Kafui Attoh & Declan Cullen, 2021. "“Just-in-Place†labor: Driver organizing in the Uber workplace," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 53(2), pages 315-331, March.
    4. Winifred Curran, 2004. "Gentrification and the Nature of Work: Exploring the Links in Williamsburg, Brooklyn," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 36(7), pages 1243-1258, July.
    5. Elena Baglioni, 2018. "Labour control and the labour question in global production networks: exploitation and disciplining in Senegalese export horticulture," Journal of Economic Geography, Oxford University Press, vol. 18(1), pages 111-137.
    6. Fuchs Martina & Dannenberg Peter & López Tatiana & Wiedemann Cathrin & Riedler Tim, 2023. "Location-specific labour control strategies in online retail," ZFW – Advances in Economic Geography, De Gruyter, vol. 67(4), pages 189-201, December.
    7. J Wills & A Lincoln, 1999. "Filling the Vacuum in New Management Practice? Lessons from US Employee-Owned Firms," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 31(8), pages 1497-1512, August.
    8. Azmeh, Shamel & Nguyen, Huong & Kuhn, Marlene, 2022. "Automation and industrialisation through global value chains: North Africa in the German automotive wiring harness industry," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 63(C), pages 125-138.
    9. Jess Walsh, 2000. "Organizing the Scale of Labor Regulation in the United States: Service-Sector Activism in the City," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 32(9), pages 1593-1610, September.
    10. Tatiana López, 2021. "A practice ontology approach to labor control regimes in GPNs: Connecting ‘sites of labor control’ in the Bangalore export garment cluster," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 53(5), pages 1012-1030, August.
    11. Patrick Bottazzi & Sébastien Boillat & Franziska Marfurt & Sokhna Mbossé Seck, 2020. "Channels of Labour Control in Organic Farming: Toward a Just Agroecological Transition for Sub-Saharan Africa," Land, MDPI, vol. 9(6), pages 1-21, June.
    12. Kevin Ward & Andrew E G Jonas, 2004. "Competitive City-Regionalism as a Politics of Space: A Critical Reinterpretation of the New Regionalism," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 36(12), pages 2119-2139, December.
    13. Kevin Ward, 2003. "UK Temporary Staffing: Industry Structure and Evolutionary Dynamics," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 35(5), pages 889-907, May.
    14. Neethi P, 2010. "Globalisation Lived Locally: New Forms of Control, Conflict and Response Among Labour in Kerala, Examined Through a Labour Geography Lens," Working Papers id:2431, eSocialSciences.
    15. Andrew Cumbers & Jane Atterton, 2000. "Globalisation and the Contested Process of International Corporate Restructuring: Employment Reorganisation and the Issue of Labour Consent in the International Oil Industry," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 32(9), pages 1529-1544, September.
    16. Scott Baum & Anthea Bill & William Mitchell, 2008. "Labour Underutilisation in Metropolitan Labour Markets in Australia: Individual Characteristics, Personal Circumstances and Local Labour Markets," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 45(5-6), pages 1193-1216, May.
    17. Glynne Williams & Steve Davies & Crispen Chinguno, 2015. "Subcontracting and Labour Standards: Reassessing the Potential of International Framework Agreements," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 53(2), pages 181-203, June.
    18. Fichter Michael & Stevis Dimitris & Helfen Markus, 2012. "Bargaining for corporate responsibility: The global and the local of framework agreements in the USA," Business and Politics, De Gruyter, vol. 14(3), pages 1-31, October.
    19. Aidan While & Andrew E G Jonas & David C Gibbs, 2004. "Unblocking the City? Growth Pressures, Collective Provision, and the Search for New Spaces of Governance in Greater Cambridge, England," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 36(2), pages 279-304, February.
    20. Sally A. Weller, 2008. "Are Labour Markets Necessarily 'Local'? Spatiality, Segmentation and Scale," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 45(11), pages 2203-2223, October.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:ecolab:v:12:y:2001:i:1:p:61-84. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.