After a decade dominated by `neo-liberal' policies and by increasing managerial pressures towards labour flexibility in industrial relations, the role of labour movements is under challenge. In the light of the experience of the 1980s this volume provides an interdisciplinary reassessment of the traditions and future of collective worker's action in Western states. Contributors assess the roles of labour movements as actors in the economic system through such mechanisms as collective bargaining, and as actors in the political arena. Labour movements and the institutions in which they are embodied, particularly trade unions, are also examined in the light of the broader social movements from which they originate. Bringing together comparative research from a number of countries, this collection presents a unique source of analysis of recent and future trends in labour movements.