Trade Unionism and Industrial Relations in the Commonwealth Caribbean: History, Contemporary Practice and Prospect

(Hardback)

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This study analyzes the critical factors that have shaped the character of trade unionism in the Commonwealth Caribbean, as well as the major challenges that currently confront trade union practice. Particular emphasis is placed on the sociological foundations of labour law and the role of the state, in addition to the shape and contours of future industrial relations practice in the region. This unique analysis is placed within a theoretical framework that sheds light on the role of trade unions in a peripheral capitalist social formation. This approach exposes the contradictions that characterize trade union practice and defines the role of the state in an economy that performs a particular function in the international division of labour. This work sets out to compel a rethinking of some important questions in industrial relations, including the character and ideological orientation of Caribbean unions, the nature of and fundamental reasons for state involvement in industrial relations and how the future of industrial relations practice may be shaped. The book may be of interest to scholars and practitioners in industrial relations, labour history and studies, and the economics of labour.

Author Bio

LAWRENCE A. NURSE is Senior Lecturer in Management Studies, at the University of the West Indies, Barbados. Previously, he served as Industrial Relations Adviser to the Caribbean Community Secretariat in Guyana and as a senior trade union officer with the Barbados Workers' Union, the major private sector union in Barbados.