Recent scholarship has found wage-setting practices to be a key ingredient in the eurozone crisis, but has yet to examine the specifics of individual wage-bargaining systems and how they behave under EMU. This article addresses this oversight, dissecting wage-bargaining systems by the mechanisms that deliver horizontal and vertical coordination, as well as the indicators to which they are calibrated. It then presents the results of a comparative study of the wage-bargaining systems in Belgium, Germany and the Netherlands. Comparisons of the Dutch and Belgian systems find that calibration is an important component of wage-bargaining systems, while greater subtlety is needed with regard to the role of the state. While Belgium has clearly struggled because of its practice of indexing wages, the German and Dutch cases instead suggest that developments unconnected to monetary union may be limiting their ability to manage its pressures. The article concludes that in order to continue to function, these three systems require revisions.
This article examines the stances of Polish trade unions on EU enlargement, intra-EU labour mobility and EU service market liberalization. It shows that, despite the liberal rhetoric embraced by mainstream media and successive Polish governments, the country’s labour organizations did not lend their support to the logic of low-cost competitiveness. The article accounts for this stance by referring to the insider-outsider theorem. It argues that whereas transnationally mobile workers and self-employed individuals (the ‘outsiders’) could make use of short-term cost advantages, the domestic workforce (the ‘insiders’) benefited from the gradual improvement of employment conditions in Poland and their convergence with western standards. The desire to cater to the interests of the insiders made the unions reject social dumping and defend the west European social ‘archetype’ to which their countrymen aspired.
Over the short history of European integration, the European institutions and social partners have set up structures where social dialogue takes place, at cross-industry, sector and company level. When compared to collective bargaining bodies in each national system of industrial relations, it is clear that these European structures do not have the same role. However, they formally hold a capacity to define joint rules that can be implemented in the Member States. To what extent does this capacity lead in practice to regulation of employment relations, or at least to potential for regulation? The article addresses these questions by the means of close examination of the European sectoral social dialogue. It shows that the potential for regulation at this European level not only depends on institutional settings but, rather, that it largely depends on ‘vertical relations’ between the European-level bodies and national social partners.
This article analyses the strategy of major Spanish trade unions in the context of economic crisis through the theoretical framework of political exchange. It focuses on a frequently ignored dimension of political exchange, namely the relationship between union leaders and the rank-and-file, which, under certain circumstances, can lead to a crisis of representation. Based on document analysis and semi-structured interviews, this article explores the strategic behaviour of Spanish trade unions and their relationship with the so-called 15M movement. It concludes that the ambiguous strategy of the major unions can be explained, not only as a result of their effort to preserve their institutional power and their political influence in the public sphere, but also as a response to the emergence of the 15M movement, which has made these organizations confront the threat of a crisis of representation.
In this article it is argued that the strategy of the Norwegian Nurses Organisation in relation to temporary agency work represents a critical intervention. The strategy addresses the need to challenge hegemonic ideas about working women, especially professionals, including the association of unionism and militancy with men, masculinity and manliness, which might undermine any attempt at union revitalization. The article thus contributes to the gendering of the union renewal debate, while also adding to our understanding of professionals in the labour movement. The analysis is conducted in a ‘retroductive’ manner, posing the question of why an unexpected turn in the strategy of the NNO towards temporary work agencies came to pass.
Based on four case studies, this article analyses the significance of Swiss participation in European Works Councils (EWCs) in foreign companies, coming to the conclusion that it is generally low. However, in one case, that of the French-based engineering company Alstom, two sequences of events show that, against a background of the general effectiveness of the Alstom EWC and the relative importance of its Swiss plants, Swiss employees clearly benefit from EWC participation, enjoying the same guarantees and subject to the same procedures as employees in other European countries. The perception of such benefit among employee stakeholders is however dependent on local constellations.
Drawing both on social movement studies and labour studies, this article investigates the kind of people who join trade union-staged marches during the current crisis, looking at the presence of (politicized) grievances, collective identity and the embeddedness of mobilization. Data were taken from surveys conducted during 13 marches organized by the main trade unions in five European countries. They show that participants in union-staged demonstrations in countries in which a corporatist model dominates and trade unions have a tradition of business unionism (Belgium and the Netherlands) are characterized by higher political trust, more moderate positions on the left–right continuum and stronger organizational ties. On the other hand, in countries in which unions are less institutionally recognized and with a tradition of oppositional unionism (Italy and Spain), participants in union-staged demonstrations are more mistrustful of politics, located more to the left and rely more upon informal social networks to mobilize. The United Kingdom falls between these two poles.
Despite the interest in the use of new information and communication technologies (ICTs) by trade unions, little is known about how new ICTs have changed trade union protest. In a period of austerity, in which new groups – including labour-related ones – have shown impressive mobilization using social media, we focus on a cross-country approach, looking at the impact of trade union strikes and protest in the public sector. Our findings show that new ICTs are being used at all stages of strike action and union protests in general, but do not allow us to assert that unions have changed the way they act in a fundamental way.
This article explores the possible link between trade union organizing and industrial action. The focus is on Germany and the period between 2004 and 2015. During that period there was a significant shift in German strike activity from manufacturing to the service sector. Special attention will therefore be given to the United Services Union, ver.di, the second largest union in Germany. The article argues that major preconditions for organizing crystallize during industrial disputes. Strikes constitute decisive moments in which the diverging interests of employers and employees are directly experienced, and in which unions are called on to demonstrate their effectiveness as collective organizations. There is evidence that ‘organizing through conflict’ has the potential to support union building and that within such an approach industrial action can work as a catalyst. The conclusion is that successful strikes offer opportunities within a comprehensive organizing strategy without however being the magic bullet with which unions can easily close the representation gap.
The article examines whether gender might be a key to understanding the different patterns of protests organized by miners and nurses, two active occupational groups that are characteristically masculine and feminine, respectively. The gender division does not imply symmetry, as the situations of women and men on the labour market and in the trade union movement are different. The article identifies differences and similarities between these two groups in terms of discourse and tactics and the general strategy and outcomes of strike and protest actions within a framework that enables us to study both occupations and their trade unions in terms of hegemonic masculinity theory. Can the gendered character of protests be one key to understanding the successes or failures of the trade union movement? The theory of hegemonic masculinity is used to analyse the organization and reception of strikes and protests by nurses and miners.
This article looks at strikes by employees in the public sector, discusses the theoretical background to these conflicts and shows – based on a case study of three strikes in the Danish public sector – how different union strategies lead to very different outcomes in terms of economic gains and losses, ranging from a slightly positive result to a negative result from which it will take eight to ten years to recover. This is of great importance because the challenge facing public sector unions is different from that of their counterparts: private sector unions struggle with the owners of capital, while public sector unions trying to move up the wage hierarchy cannot expect much help from fellow public sector unions, often quite the reverse.
This article analyses union strategies to enhance strike effectiveness in Italy and Spain in the Great Recession. These two countries have traditionally scored very highly in strike activity statistics due to an adversarial industrial relations framework. In both countries, unions have relied upon similar repertoires of industrial action. Even though they are often grouped under the same industrial relations cluster, there are some significant differences, particularly when it comes to union characteristics and power resources. An analysis of trade union strategies regarding industrial conflict and their attempts to enhance strike effectiveness shows how, in spite of similar challenges, the unions in Italy and Spain have followed different paths and fared differently in their attempt to enhance the effectiveness of industrial action.