Blurred Ideological Fault Lines

Abstract

Since the beginnings of the neoliberal era in the 1980s some scholars have argued that alliances between trade unions and political parties can no longer be justified given that they seldom offer anything more to the trade unions than a tokenistic opportunity to influence the party when it takes up a seat of government. Leading labour scholars have thus called on unions to take on a more radical counter-hegemonic posturing by forging alliances with civil society groupings and joining the ‘movement of movements’ against neoliberal globalisation (Fairbrother and Yates 2003; Moody 1997; Turner et al. 2001; Waterman 2001).