Social Movements and Industrial Relations: Mobilization, Cooperation and Outcomes

Abstract

Despite commonalities, research on trade unions and research on social movements have developed into two partly separate research fields: industrial relations and social movement studies. Numerous attempts to bridge the two have been made, however, industrial relations scholars still have not found their place in the journals of social movements and issues important to industrial relations are seldom at the top of the research agendas of social movement scholars and vice versa. This is unfortunate as both fields of research have a lot to learn from each other both theoretically, empirically, and methodologically. This panel welcomes papers which aim to combine social movement and industrial relations research, either at the theoretical and conceptual level or in some empirical application. For example, we welcome papers on the mobilization strategies and innovative ways to target policy-makers of the labor movement or the cooperation between movements and trade unions at the national and cross-national level, the effects of the economic crisis on the relationships between various left- and right-wing movements and trade unions or the ways industrial relations have been affected by the mobilization of various movements. Considering that social and labor movements are increasingly using new forms of communication, we encourage papers that address the ways these mediums (e.g., social media) is used for influencing industrial relations by the labour movement or social movements in general.