This article explores the conditions under which trade unions in the car industry in Western and Central-Eastern Europe cooperate with each other. It analyses relations between Polish and German unions at three automotive companies displaying variation in the timing and content of cross-border cooperative ventures. Unions cooperated transnationally when no local negotiation channel was available to the German unionists and the Polish unionists benefited more from the assistance of their Western counterparts than from local solutions. Overall, the evidence suggests that East—West labour transnationalism contains a strong element of reciprocity and is guided primarily by cost—benefit considerations.

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Focusing on the cases of Italy and Poland, this paper examines the link between union organizational democracy and the economic and political inclusion of precarious workers. It argues that union membership of vulnerable groups is not a necessary condition for the representation of their voice and economic interests by labour organizations; rather, these two forms of the inclusion are shaped primarily by institutional contexts in which unions operate as well as by their identities and structural characteristics. In both examined countries the economic inclusion of precarious workers has been more advanced, while the degree of their political inclusion lagged behind and varied across major union confederations in line with two distinct models of unionism: a solidaristic and a diversity-oriented one.

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