Solidarity is not a unified phenomenon with unchanging qualities; it partakes of moral, political and performative elements that are underpinned and reinforced by a shared work context, an organisational infrastructure and an institutional frame which together create distinctive path dependencies in solidarity across different forms of capitalism. Neo-liberalism has challenged these path dependencies by changing the material conditions and the ideological terrain, by heightening the diversity of the workforce, by restructuring the institutional context. However, this is not the end of solidarity and the article addresses the question of what sort of solidarities are now emerging and how.

This article focuses on the ‘hybridity’ of solo self-employment by shedding light on the lived experiences and meanings of the subjects within their institutional and socio-economic contexts. It offers an original perspective to the study of the hybridization of work by linking the subjective and objective conditions underpinning solo self-employed workers. The study found that solo self-employed workers exercise agency over their working lives while facing high levels of insecurity, and that their contextualized experiences are related to the dominant narratives about self-employment. At the same time, however, findings also show that solo self-employed are engaged in (re)-constructing their alternative and dissonant narratives as well.

The article addresses the question of the extent to which, and the reasons why, western European trade unions may have privileged the protection of 'insiders' over that of 'outsiders'. Temporary Agency Workers, among whom migrant workers are over-represented, are taken as test case of 'outsiders'. The findings from a comparison of Belgian and German multinational plants show that collective agreements have allowed a protection gap between permanent and agency workers to emerge in Germany, but not in Belgium. However, the weaker protection in Germany depends less on an explicit union choice for insiders than on the weakening of the institutional environment for union representation and collective bargaining. The conclusion suggests that European unions are increasingly trying to defend the outsiders, but meet institutional obstacles that vary by country. This article has three interrelated analytical aims. Firstly, through selected case studies within the same multinational companies affected by the same external pressures, it questions the role of efficiencydriven or rational choice-based explanations for using one extreme form of vulnerable work, namely temporary agency work. The cases illustrate diversity in the organisation of the use of agency labour that cannot be explained by company variables alone and require the consideration of social and political factors. Secondly, the article explores some of these factors by comparing 'most similar' cases, i.e. two neighbouring 'co-ordinated market economies' with similar welfare state models, but where temporary agency workers are subject to very different degrees of protection. The comparison allows to identify the importance of union power and related collective bargaining, and representation systems, and thereby to assess Palier and Thelen's (2010) argument more in depth. Thirdly, we go beyond existing institutional accounts by addressing agency and institutional factors together to tackle the underlying question of the extent to which the unions' role in co-organising dualisation depends on their political choices rather than on the environment they are in. 3The comparative perspective adds to the literature on labour market segmentation and on union responses (Benassi, 2013;Lillie, 2012;Doellgast and Greer, 2007;Hassel 2012), by looking in particular at the implications of power and the influencing factors. We propose to problematize the role of employers and trade unions beyond economic determinism and structural approaches that derive their roles merely from supposedly pre-existing interests. Instead, we pay deeper attention to the socio-political context in which the actors operate and which they concomitantly construct.Thereby, we aim to contribute to debates on social inclusion and dualisation by stressing the crucial role of institutionally situated micro-political games, where actors are strategic 'agents' within a context of power relations.The article is organised as follows. Firstly, segmentation debates are addressed and the rationale of a ...

Most studies of flexicurity have focused on formal institutions within distinctive national labour market systems. However, the level and types of flexibility and security in a national labour market are to an important extent influenced by company-level processes, relationships and policies; thus a micro-perspective should be integrated into the study of flexibility and security. This article advances understanding of the influences of decentralized rule-making and its links with the macro level by drawing on case study research in four multinational companies, each with subsidiaries in Germany, Belgium, Italy and the UK. It reveals major differences in terms of flexibility and security between companies operating in the same country, and major similarities between the subsidiaries of the same multinational. Product market characteristics affect local autonomy to define human resource policies; national institutions and local circumstances then affect the capabilities of trade unions and works councils to negotiate local flexibility-security trade-offs.

Social networks represent one possible trade union response to cross-border industrial restructuring. The aim is to bring together independent actors so as to generate interaction, cooperation and coordination of cross-national practices and integration of policies. This article draws on empirical evidence from four sectors. It first examines whether unions make effective use of the Internet when developing networking and coordination activities to respond to transnational change in Europe. Second, it discusses the reasons for cross-sectoral variation in the use of virtual networking. It is argued that the use of the Internet by European unions becomes a matter of strategic choices and politics, and reflects sector-based differences in the way that transparency, coordination, social cohesion and democracy are secured for representation and bargaining purposes among employees and unions across borders.

To retain and attract nurses by reducing work-to-family conflict, hospitals should not (only) rely on work-family policies but should also invest in organisational support and adapted job dimensions.

Transformations of European labour markets and welfare systems have deepened the problem of precarious work, leading trade unions to develop strategies to represent and organize the workers affected. We focus on Italy and Spain, two of the countries with the most precarious labour markets in Europe, and address the specificity and variety of union responses. We relate these responses to the different institutional contexts, including employment and welfare regulation, and the power resources unions can draw upon.

The paper investigates local trade union influence on temporary agency work in four Belgian and German workplaces. It argues that the union's capacity to influence the job conditions of agency workers is heterogeneous. Societal differences between systems of workplace representation and the different structures of collective bargaining are used to explain the heterogeneity of local union practices and their effect on the working conditions of agency workers. These societal differences intersect with the socioeconomic conditions of the firm to generate local unions' responses to the management's use of agency workers.