Conflictual Complementarity: New Labour Actors in Corporatist Industrial Relations

Abstract

Liberalisation of industrial relations entails the weakening of unions and a respective rise of alternative, ‘new labour actors’, altering traditional class representation by introducing new strategies. Research on this phenomenon has focused on decentralised contexts, where new actors are seen to pursue both independent strategies as well as cooperation with unions to contest rising employers’ discretion. Drawing on multiple qualitative methodologies, this article analyses the roles and contributions of new actors in the context of corporatist industrial relations, to find rising conflicts between them and unions. Combining social movement theories of strategic change with industrial relations theories of power and theories of institutional complementarity, reveals conflictual forms of complementarity between new actors and corporatist unions. Through interacting with new labour actors, corporatist union strategies are seen to change in a ‘spin-off’ form, reforming unions’ traditional power and dominance to (partially) counter previous liberalisation of industrial relations.

With or without U(nions)? Understanding the diversity of gig workers’ organizing practices in Italy and the UK

“…Self-organized collectives have also continued to operate, and some forms of cooperation between these actors have emerged, with the creation of a national network comprising established unions and workers’ collectives, although tensions have remained. This point towards a possible conflictual complementarity (Bondy, 2021) within the gig economy, still to be explored.…”

“…These include the adoption of oppositional discourses emphasizing precarious workers’ identity as unrepresented constituencies (Borghi et al, 2021: 11) and placing attention on their specificities (Però, 2019: 907); the building of horizontal networks of collaboration with self-organized groups of workers and other activist and community groups, avoiding a logic of top-down incorporation in pre-existing union structures (Borghi et al, 2021: 14); the adoption of participatory practices and the encouragement of members active involvement in negotiations, following a ‘logic of membership’ (Offe and Wiesenthal, 1985) in contrast with ‘traditional’ unions practices of bureaucratic representation; and the adoption of agile and speedy forms of industrial action (Però, 2019). The successes of ’new’ IR actors in mobilizing precarious workers have also served, over time, as an example to established unions to innovate their practices vis-à-vis these constituencies, often fostering positive complementarities between ‘new’ and ‘old’ labour actors (Bondy, 2021; Hyman and Gumbrell-McCormick, 2017; Smith, 2021).…”

Conflicting Imperatives? Ethnonationalism and Neoliberalism in Industrial Relations

“…1 1 The findings presented in this article are part of a multi-year study, . Material from this study has been published in three articles to date: Bondy (2021a) discusses relationship between traditional and new IR actors, and their impact on the representation of precarious workers; Bondy (2021b) develops the concept of By "neoliberalization" we mean the policies and arrangements that bring about the gradual liberalization of the economy, the reduction of barriers to movement of capital, goods and labor, and the insertion of competition and market logics into ever-expanding swathes of economic and social life. By "ethnonationalism" we mean the dominance of one group of people over all others under the regime's de facto authority; in some cases, this group is also identified with the state and disproportionally served by it.…”

“…Despite enjoying the support of the union's younger leadership, which drew inspiration from inclusive social movements (Bondy 2021b), the strategy failed to bring quick results and contradicted the union's well-established norms of social partnership over bottom-up organizingand it was therefore found to be of secondary importance (correspondence with interviewee 8). Nonetheless, this "path not taken" shows how the dominant ethnonationalist labor organization, facing the decline of its traditional institutional power (Bondy 2021b), is willing to countenance the inclusion of the ethnonational "other" to regain economic power while developing a new associational base that can, potentially, reinforce its institutional power while at the same time increase the access of noncitizen workers to social rights. Furthermore, with the abolish of the mandatory deductions of agency fees to the Histadrut, new trade unions increase their efforts to represent Palestinian workers, through both grassroots organizing (interview 13) and top-down regulatory reforms (interview 14).…”

“…strategies (Rubery 1978;Lillie and Greer 2007) or identities (Connolly, Marino, and Martı ´nez Lucio 2014) that are often nationally constructed (Bonacich 1972). The relations between unions and other actors, as well as between levels of the IR system (Bondy 2020(Bondy , 2021a, are key factors nurturing or constraining the potential of collective representation to open spaces for ''effective citizenship'' (Preminger 2017). 3 This potential is also shaped by the nature of unions' dependence on the state and their ties with the regime (Collier and Mahoney 1997;Bellin 2000;Howell 2005;Braton and van de Walle 2012).…”