Purpose – Much current academic writing focuses on the changing nature of work in the services sector, particularly with regard to the implementation of new technological processes. Bringing attention back to a traditional industry, coal mining, the paper aims to consider the impact of...

The paper draws on a qualitative case study of workplace industrial relations in an inner-city secondary school identified as 'failing' and subsequently closed. It considers the way unionized teachers and their representatives interpret, influence and resist the impact of centralized managerial...