The backward march of labour halted? Or, what is to be done with ‘union organising’? The cases of Britain and the USA

This article evaluates the phenomenon and dynamics of union organising. It neither presents a critique of variants of union organising nor a preferred version of union organising as the solution. Rather, it provides some of the intellectual resources needed to create theoretically informed practice. It examines critiques of union organising to foreground discussion of the two key hallmarks of union organising to date; namely, officer domination and externally-led organising. This opens out the argument to consider a number of under-explored areas for the more expansive and ambitious version of union organising. Thereafter, it examines cross-cutting issues between the two countries and the absence of class consideration from union organising.