Among the ashes: Trade union strategies in the UK and German steel industries

The trade unions in the steel industry have faced two waves of restructuring, the first centring on closures, capacity reductions and mass redundancies, the second involving fundamental changes to patterns of work organization, labour utilization and industrial relations. overall, the trade unions involved have failed to develop an adequate response to management-led change, relying instead on traditional methods and fines of interest representation. The challenges embodied in such developments as teamworking and craft restructuring ave considered, together with union responses and the structural and ideological constraints on those responses. Contrasts are drawn with more successful union involvement in comparable changes in the German steel industry. In the conclusion, the authors review the dilemmas facing the UK unions in the steel industry and the main areas for a new agenda.