This article examines the future of employee interest representation in Britain against the broader European background. An attempt is made to define the character of interest representation in terms of the concepts of autonomy, legitimacy and efficacy. The core section of the article discusses recent and current developments with a focus on five themes: the level, structure, process, agenda and outcome of representation. A brief conclusion considers alternative scenarios and policy issues for employee representation. Underlying the whole discussion is the question: What future for (British) trade unions? No more than an imprecise and ambiguous answer can be suggested.
It is generally agreed that trade unions require new strategies to respond to external and internal challenges. Economic internationalisation makes it easier for employers to escape national structures of employment regulation, and appears to weaken the ability of governments to defend nationally-based social models; sectoral and occupational shifts in employment erode traditional union strongholds, while social and ideological changes undermine workers' traditional orientation to collectivism. Yet what do we mean by trade union strategy, and how can it be modernised? This article addresses in particular the literatures on organisational learning, social capital and vocabularies of motive to explore how the twin principles of leadership and democracy can be harnessed to meet the challenges of the ‘new’ capitalism.
The literature on and for management makes increasing use of notions of strategy. Is such an approach compatible with analyses of capitalism as structurally determined? The first part of the paper argues that contradictions within capitalist enterprise both create openings for strategic choice, and entail that no strategy will prove successful. The second part examines, in the context of six distinct managerial functions, the extent to which the control of labour can be regarded as a dominant management strategy.
There is a consensus among European trade unions that economic integration should be complemented by a strong 'social dimension'. What is far less clearly agreed is what 'Social Europe' means, and how it should be defended against the challenges inherent in a neoliberal approach to economic integration, the dominant logic of 'competitiveness', and the pressures for 'modernization' of social welfare.Unions' ability to resist these challenges is weakened by their integration into an elitist system of EU governance in which mobilization and contention are inhibited.The article concludes that a new mode of trade union action is required if the 'social model' is to be sustained. Keywords: European integration, trade unions, social dimension, competitiveness, elitism IntroductionThere is a consensus among European trade unions that economic integration should be complemented by a strong 'social dimension'. If European integration merely creates a common market, its underlying principles -the free movement of goods and services, capital and labour -threaten the viability of systems of employment regulation which rest on purely national foundations. To the extent that such systems are undermined, or at least reduced in their effectiveness, a complementary framework of regulation at European level is required.To defend the 'European social model', action at European level is thus essential.So much is largely uncontested among national trade union representatives. There is far less common ground as to the nature of a desirable European framework, and even less as to the means of its attainment.In this article I discuss some of the ambiguities of the 'European social model', and the complex ways in which it is challenged by economic integration. I suggest that the nature of this model, and much more generally the very idea of 'Europe', is a contested terrain. It is increasingly evident that the dominant dynamic of Europeanization reflects a neoliberal logic, a logic which the official institutions of European trade unionism, through their commitment to the role of European 'social partners', have found it difficult to challenge forcefully. In the process, there has developed a dangerous gap between the enthusiastic Europeanism of the official policies of most unions, and the far more sceptical or even hostile attitudes of many of their memberships. European unions are confronted by serious strategic dilemmas, and new modes of engagement both with the EU institutions and with their own memberships are urgently required. Industrial Relations and the 'European Social Model'Industrial relations can be understood as the regulation of work and employment through some combination of market forces, state intervention and collective bargaining. None of these elements can be seen as independent. For example, markets are always socially constructed; laws, to be effective, must be interpreted, observed and enforced by employers and employees (and their organizations); and the status of collective agreements, and of the bargaining part...
In most of the world, work has usually been precarious. For several decades, however, greater employment security was achieved in the developed economies. These gains have been increasingly eroded by neoliberal globalisation. We focus on Western Europe to examine whether trade unions are merely protectors of the remaining labour market 'insiders', or whether they can also represent the interests of the growing numbers of 'outsiders'. We also examine the role of 'new' social movements in mobilising against insecurity. Our reflections end by considering whether and how the two modes of response offered by trade unions and social movements may be integrated.
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