Unionization levels are far lower among young workers than for the workforce in general. How can trade unions become more responsive to their particular interests and needs? Union confederations, even in countries with decentralized union structures, have the potential to take effective initiatives to facilitate and support new organizing strategies targeted at young workers, for example by spreading knowledge, practical skills and vision of relevance for improving the representation and recruitment of young workers. Yet the survey findings reported here show that youth representatives across Europe find their confederations’ responsiveness and commitment to organizing to be inadequate. Their dissatisfaction confirms previous research findings concerning young workers and their unfulfilled desire for unionization.
This article addresses the question of whether, and to what extent job flexibility is detrimental to mobilization with regard to the willingness to take part in industrial action. The authors examine the influence of job flexibility (‘standard’ versus ‘non-standard’ work) and job instability (changes from one job to another) on employees’ willingness to strike. Based on Dutch survey data it is shown that only minor differences exist between ‘standard’ and ‘non-standard’ employees in their willingness to participate in a strike. While this study did not establish a major direct effect of job flexibility on strike participation, tests of interaction effects reveal that job flexibility moderates other mobilizing factors, such as union membership and job dissatisfaction. Job instability, on average, has no effect on strike participation.
This article provides a comparative overview of developments in strike activity in western Europe since the mid-1990s. It uses various indicators to analyse discernible trends over time in levels and patterns of strike activity across sectors and countries. The article argues that strikes are generally blending into a broader palette of workers’ repertoire of collective action. This possible blending applies in particular to a context in which the institutional logic of collective bargaining is underdeveloped or has been undermined.
Introduction: is Belgium a 'Ghent country'?Belgium is one of the few post-industrialised countries in which more than half of the dependent labour force is a trade union member. Net union density even slightly increased from 53.9% in 1990 to 55.4% in 200255.4% in (Visser 2006. Union density is higher only in Denmark, Finland and Sweden. These Scandinavian countries have in common the presence of a so-called 'Ghent system'. 1 A Ghent system can be defined as state-subsidised, but voluntary unemployment insurance administered by unions. Such union-run unemployment funds were first successful in the Belgian city of Ghent. 2Transfer 4/06 647A report from the homeland of the Ghent system: the relationship between unemployment and trade union membership in Belgium 1 Norway abolished the Ghent system in 1938. 2 'Gent' in Dutch and German or 'Gand' in French.
Special focus on the Ghent system
News and background
News and backgroundTransfer 4/06 648
Special focus on the Ghent system3 As an alternative form of public intervention on unemployment, the so-called 'Liège system' directly supplied grants to the union unemployment funds in 1897. The provincial government had the explicit purpose of stimulating the unions involved in UI. This socialist initiative was unsuccessful because Catholics and liberals favoured the Ghent system whose basic principles were more in line with their respective ideologies.
News and backgroundTransfer 4/06 649 Special focus on the Ghent system 4 According to the employers, unemployment benefit was too high, and, as a result, a wage-deflationary policy was obstructed.
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