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PurposeThe purpose of this editorial is to introduce this special issue on "International trade union networks, European works' councils and international labour regimes".Design/methodology/approachThe editorial provides an overview and introduces the papers which make up the special issue.FindingsThese papers allow us to consider the social, political and institutional dimensions of grass roots organising across countries and continents.Originality/valueThe issue adds new insights into the topic in addition to the more typical focus on institutional levels of union engagement.

Is South Africa more equitable now than in 1994?How can domestic violence be explained?How are we as individuals shaped by larger structures, forces and institutions?Why is the environment important for society?Sociology: A Comprehensive South African Introduction provides a comprehensive introduction to the sociological theories and themes commonly taught in undergraduate courses.The book is divided into five broad sections: the foundations of sociology; the individual in society; the institutions in society; the challenges for society; and sociology in context.Each chapter addresses key issues, topics and debates in sociology today, and uses contemporary and current South African case studies to make the material relevant and meaningful to students. Chapter introductions serve as a narrative linking and providing cross-references to material covered in other chapters, where appropriate.

This article presents an historical overview of the occupation of rock drillers in South African mines. It is argued that the critical productive role this occupation plays in the underground production process must be central to understanding why the rock drill operators (RDOs) initiated a major strike wave on South African platinum mines in 2012, what transpired at Marikana in August of that year and the 2014 industry-wide strike. Long established as an elite within the mining industry, the RDOs negotiated directly with management over the past 30 years beyond the ambit of representational politics. However, the migrant labour status, deplorable living conditions and memories of past struggles intersect with the impact of their working conditions underground. This article suggests that the historically identifiable objective location of these workers in production serves as the material basis for their political subjectivity.

Through the use of an epigraph from The Unnamable and repeated echoes in Dead Voices, Vizenor established a relation to Beckett's work. This paper traces the influence of Beckett in Vizenor and questions how Vizenor reads Beckett, particularly in political and postcolonial terms. Rather than the prevailing view that Beckett is an apolitical and ahistorical writer, the relation with Vizenor hinges on a postmodern and postcolonial awareness of the dangers of imposed and restrictive identities. This awareness finds expression in both authors as both an aesthetic and political concern. It is argued that both authors seek to undo all forms of rigid identity within the works in an attempt to maintain a fluidity which might inform attempts at continuance and resistance. However, as can be seen in the wanaki game of Dead Voices, Vizenor's sense of fluid identity is implicated in a communal "we", whereas Beckett's solitary voice in The Unnamable eschews any form of community, thus leading one to question the efficacy of Vizenor's position. Nevertheless, the paper argues that Vizenor's deployment of Beckett reveals that both authors adopt a committed political stance at the most fundamental aesthetic levels of the novel form.

In Japan, some of the socially, economically and politically marginalised have developed robust social and labour movements that engage with mainstream society. These movements have developed strategies challenging the conditions of the excluded, while also highlighting pathways to establish, or enhance, individual and collective participation in the labour market and the wider society. Two distinct though related, social and organisational forms of these movements are elaborated – firm-centred and community centred respectively. The former especially has a combative past in the labour struggles of the 1950s in what are known as sa'ha shωsū-ha kumiai (left wing Minority union, or, Minority-faction union). However, this does not mean Minorities are inherently leftist in orientation. In the 1940s and 1950s, during a period of radical union hegemony, a collaborative form of second unions developed assisting the purge of radical leaderships. Our focus here is on a contemporary radical democratic current. While articulating concerns of those in full time employment outside the political mainstream they may also represent ethnically and otherwise socially marginalised workers. The community unions, a form of what are known as 'new-type union', shingata kumiai (this term will be used here to describe the community unions) articulate the concerns of those socially and economically marginalized in the community and the wider labour market. Controversially, the term 'Minority union' is used to depict the different forms of oppositional social movement union in a broader sense than is typically understood in the literature. This is because they share a common concern with the articulation of Minority social and political interests in the context of the employment relationship and the local community. In considering the character of these social movement unions the article seeks to add to what Price (1997) describes as 'bottom up history' which we term 'sociology from below'.