The European labor movements developed in different directions during the twentieth century. The class formation literature has tried to explain these differences but left unexplored the internal dynamics of the labor movement and, above all, the differences in ideological schooling. Workers' education constitutes a forum for ideological schooling of members, and these educational settings can be identity constitutive and thus play an important part in the class formation process. In this article I analyze the institutions for workers' education in Sweden and Britain and I suggest that the variation of the design and practices of workers' education had an impact on the movements' developments in terms of identity formation and cohesiveness.The labor movement came to play a crucial role in the development of welfare states and democracy in the early twentieth century. Democratic citizenship was promoted by the reformist labor movement and became an important part of the consolidation of democracy during the interwar period. There were, however, significant differences between the European labor movements in terms of size, cohesiveness, ideology, and, ultimately, influence. In some of the Nordic countries, especially Sweden, the reformist labor movement became strong, unified, and influential. These countries developed comprehensive welfare states and peaceful industrial relations, while in other countries the labor movement was more fragmented. Different ideological factions ended up in conflict with each other instead of struggling together, making labor weak. Meanwhile in Spain, Italy, and Germany fascist movements overthrew democracy with support from parts of the working class. 2 How can we understand these national differences? There are varied explanations for the relative strength and ideology of the labor movements in Europe. The most common ones focus on structural variables and take the class formation literature as their point of departure. The internal dynamics of the labor movement and especially the differences in ideological schooling have, with few exceptions, not been the focus of comparative research on national labor movements. In this article I argue that examining workers' education may offer a path to a deeper understanding of the class formation process and, thus, a clearer grasp of national differences among labor movements. Workers' education constitutes a forum for ideological schooling of members that can be and has been identity-constitutive.To understand how class formation took place in different countries, we need to include workers' education in the analysis. In this article I analyze

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This article explores how cohesive labour movements are created. Although overlooked by previous research, strategic labour leaders that act as identity entrepreneurs can play a decisive role in class formation processes. Using the Swedish trade union movement during the crucial period from 1910 through the 1930s as a case, I examine the labour leaders’ strategic actions to create cohesiveness in the movement. Being pressured by emerging left-wing organizations in the 1910s, Swedish labour leaders realized that the Trade Union Confederation needed a strong organizational identity. The threat of the fragmentation of the trade union movement into different organizations fighting over the same members made the leaders formulate and implement a strategy for cohesion. Through an extensive education campaign to teach trade union members the aim and meaning of the reformist union movement, the leaders hoped to solve the fragmentation problem. This article indicates not only that labour leaders actively managed identity formation in the Swedish case, but also that internal education served as a means for creating cohesiveness in the movement.

Trade unions are called to increase their influence on policy‐making by becoming more politically active and use social media, but only a few studies investigate unions’ online political activism. We propose that industrial relations regime of a country relates to unions’ perceived opportunities for mobilisation and thereby also unions’ online political activism. We test this argument with the help of data about European trade union confederations’ political mobilisation on YouTube, 2007–2017. The results showed, expectedly, that resource‐rich confederations in the organised corporatist regime (Scandinavia) use YouTube for political activism to lesser degree than in other regimes; when these confederations do pursue political activism, such videos are often related to elections and reflect the political party‐union relationship. Unexpectedly, the resource‐poor confederations in the transitional regime (Central and Eastern Europe) mobilised politically on YouTube to the same extent as have the confederations in the social partnership, liberal and state‐centred regimes.

Although trade union revitalization processes have been thoroughly examined by industrial relations scholars, less is known about the implications of such processes on unions’ self-image. This article addresses that gap in knowledge by investigating how the self-image of a major Swedish public-sector trade union, the SKTF/Vision, changed after a thorough revitalization process took place. The findings indicate that due to pressure resulting from public-sector privatization, the union abandoned much of its former self-image and replaced ideas of ‘the collective’ with individualism. This article analyzes these changes and discusses the implications for the union movement.