IAN GREER

Profile

Qualifications

PhD Cornell
MSc Cornell
BSc Bard College, USA

Research

My past research has focussed on trade union strategies in the global North. How are unions coping with the growing availability of low-cost alternatives to their members' labor? We know that throughout the global north, worker representatives are scrambling to retain or create good jobs. What are the social goods that they pursue, or abandon, along the way? What are the consequences for local, national and transnational politics? Together with colleagues based in the US, Germany, Finland and the UK, I have used in-depth case studies at the city, national and transnational levels as well as cross-national comparisons matched by industry. My articles have explored urban trade union movements in the US and Germany, social movement unionism in Germany, neoliberal politics in "social" Europe, union outreach to the "community" beyond the workplace in the UK, and the rise of transnational union strategies.

My upcoming Leeds-based research project will be to examine the role of civil society, more broadly, in the regulation of labour markets. Together with Mark Stuart and Ian Greenwood, I will be studying for-profit, non-profit and public sector organizations that work in workfare, bringing the unemployed into the labor market and promoting "employability." The main question will be how shifts in government policy, especially funding regimes and competition between providers, are affecting the development of organizations and reshaping the working lives of their employees. We are planning to conduct an in-depth urban case study in the UK and in Germany.

Publications

"Social movement unionism and social partnership in Germany: the case of Hamburg's hospitals." Industrial Relations (Berkeley). Forthcoming, 2008.

(with Marco Hauptmeier) "Political entrepreneurs and co-managers: Labour transnationalism at four multinational auto companies." British Journal of Industrial Relations. Forthcoming. 2008.

(with Nathan Lillie) "Industrial relations, migration and neo-liberal politics: the case of the European construction sector." Politics and Society. Forthcoming. 2007.

(with Virginia Doellgast) "Vertical disintegration and the disorganization of German industrial relations." British Journal of Industrial Relations. 45:1. 2007.

"Special Interests and Public Goods: Organized Labor's Coalition Politics in Hamburg and Seattle." In Lowell Turner and Daniel Cornfield (eds). Labor in the New Urban Battlegrounds: Local Solidarity in a Global Economy. (Ithaca: Cornell ILR Press). 2007.

(with Barbara Byrd and Lou Jean Fleron) "Two Paths to the High Road: Urban Organization Building Seattle and Buffalo." In Lowell Turner and Daniel Cornfield (eds). Labor in the New Urban Battlegrounds: Local Solidarity in a Global Economy. (Ithaca: Cornell ILR Press). 2007.

"Business unionism vs. business unionism? Understanding the split in the U.S. labor movement." Capital and Class. 90. 2006.

(with Mark Anner, Marco Hauptmeier, Nathan Lillie and Nik Winchester) "The industrial determinants of transnational solidarity: Global inter-union politics in three sectors." European Journal of Industrial Relations. 12:1. 2006.

Workers of the World, Compete! Trade unions and Economic Development in the US and Germany. PhD Thesis, Cornell University School of Industrial and Labor Relations. 2005.

(with Lou Jean Fleron) "Social partnership in the U.S.A.? The development coalition in Buffalo, New York." International Journal of Action Research. 1:2. 2005.

(with Michael Fichter) "Analysing Social Partnership: A Tool of Union Revitalization?" In Carola Frege and John Kelly (eds). Varieties of Unionism. (New York: Oxford University Press). 2004.

(with Michael Fichter) "Sozialpartnerschaft als Gewerkschaftsstrategie. Beispiele aus fuenf Laendern." WSI Mitteilungen. September 2003.