One important common theme of our five-country research is that all union movements see political engagement as essential in their efforts at revitalization. Specific forms of political action, however, vary according to national context. If unions find or build adequate political and institutional supports, they have less incentive to mobilize the membership, organize the unorganized, build coalitions with other groups, or give support to grass-roots initiatives. The irony is that a strong institutional position can reduce incentives to organize, which may be essential to sustain long-term influence; yet organizing unions in America and Britain are hard pressed to sustain gains in the absence of adequate institutional supports

Abstract[Excerpt] The purpose of this chapter is to present a framework for the analysis of union coalition-building and demonstrate its utility using comparative empirical material mainly from the United States, Germany, and the United Kingdom though we also comment on union action in Italy and Spain. In what follows, we seek to define union-coalitions and specify their functions, identify a variety of types of coalition and the variety of factors that encourage unions to forge coalitions. We then set out and seek to explain the variable patterns of coalition use across our five countries. The chapter concludes in speculative vein, by considering the role that coalition building should and could play in the revitalization of national labour movements.

In recent decades, German unions have rested on their institutional laurels even as the ground has slipped away. This article analyzes two recent innovative campaigns based on grassroots mobilization that, the author argues, offer possibilities for renewed union strength. A breakthrough campaign against a militantly anti-union firm in the retail industry demonstrates the potential for a German brand of social movement unionism. The story line and institution-building strategy of this campaign fall entirely outside the framework of traditional German industrial relations. A second, very different campaign, from deep inside that traditional framework, has mobilized union members in Nordrhein-Westfalen (IG Metall's largest district) for active engagement in contract negotiations and membership growth. Together, these two stories challenge existing perspectives on once stable German industrial relations, point toward inadequacies of prominent contemporary theories of institutional stability and change, and suggest constraints and opportunities for a German labor movement in need of strategic reorientation. AbstractIn recent decades, German unions have rested on their institutional laurels even as the ground has slipped away. This article analyzes two recent innovative campaigns based on grassroots mobilization that, the author argues, offer possibilities for renewed union strength. A breakthrough campaign against a militantly anti-union firm in the retail industry demonstrates the potential for a German brand of social movement unionism. The story line and institution-building strategy of this campaign fall entirely outside the framework of traditional German industrial relations. A second, very different campaign, from deep inside that traditional framework, has mobilized union members in Nordrhein-Westfalen (IG Metall's largest district) for active engagement in contract negotiations and membership growth. Together, these two stories challenge existing perspectives on once stable German industrial relations, point toward inadequacies of prominent contemporary theories of institutional stability and change, and suggest constraints and opportunities for a German labor movement in need of strategic reorientation.

At national level, the development of effective labour movements has involved the interaction of two processes: the establishment of formal organizational structures, and the rise of rank-and-file pressure and protest. At European level, recent years have seen significant organizational developments; this article discusses the role of the European Trade Union Confederation and the emergent European Works Councils. As yet, however, there has been no parallel evidence of transnational labour protest, and indeed the obstacles are considerable. Nevertheless, institutional frameworks may create a `political opportunity structure' which facilitates its emergence.

The current revitalization of the American labour movement is driven primarily by two forces: from above, new strategic leadership in some unions and at the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO), ready to offer institutional support for local efforts to organize, build coalitions and expand the scope of grass-roots politics; from below, renewed interest in rank-and-file activism and participation. We call these two forces institutional support and network mobilization, and we find indications of their overriding importance in all six union strategies on which our case-study research focuses: organizing, political action, coalition building, labour-management partnership, organizational change and international solidarity.

In this article, we compare recent innovative union campaigns: the 'sans papiers' campaign in France and the 'Justice for Cleaners' campaign in the United Kingdom, both based on a sustained grass-roots mobilization of immigrant workers. Rather than focusing on the 'usual suspect' explanatory factors, such as contrasting national settings, union power structures or traditions, our cross-national comparison highlights important underlying similarities in unions' strategic responses to a growing precarious immigrant workforce. In the absence of established channels of representation, both unions decided to act like social movements fighting for social protection. Using Polanyi's framework, we view both case studies as examples of countermovements against heightened levels of global liberalization and precarious employment.

In this article, the authors consider the findings of a multi-year, case study-based research project on young workers and the labor movement in four countries: France, Germany, the United Kingdom, and the United States. The authors examine the conditions under which young workers actively engage in contemporary labor movements. Although the industrial relations context matters, the authors find the most persuasive explanations to be agency-based. Especially important are the relative openness and active encouragement of unions to the leadership development of young workers, and the persistence and creativity of groups of young workers in promoting their own engagement. Embodying labor's potential for movement building and resistance to authoritarianism and right-wing populism, young workers offer hope for the future if unions can bring them aboard.

Global liberalization is driving a 'logic of participation', for firms and unions alike. Economic pressures drive managers to innovate across a range of possibilities, from outsourcing and union busting to work reorganization and labor-management partnership. Those same pressures, reflected largely through the strategic choices of employers, also force unions to innovate -from concession bargaining and cooperation to coalition building and international solidarity. Because employers are increasingly tempted by strategies that seek to weaken or marginalize unions, sustained participation for unions arguably requires a new period of activist mobilization.This article explores one significant component of renewed labor mobilization: union coalition building. Based on a case study of coalition efforts in the United States between the United Steelworkers and the Sierra Club from 1999-2004, concepts and causal linkages are suggested for broader analysis. Research findings presented here indicate the following causal processes at work: union strategies, defining moments and spillover combine to drive coalition building processes that include events, campaigns and institution building -ranging from local to national and global levels. Beyond this US-based case, a framework for cross-national comparative analysis is also suggested.