Interpreting strike activity in western Europe in the past 20 years: the labour repertoire under pressure

Abstract

This article provides a comparative overview of developments in strike activity in western Europe since the mid-1990s. It uses various indicators to analyse discernible trends over time in levels and patterns of strike activity across sectors and countries. The article argues that strikes are generally blending into a broader palette of workers’ repertoire of collective action. This possible blending applies in particular to a context in which the institutional logic of collective bargaining is underdeveloped or has been undermined.

Union renewal: what can we learn from three decades of research?

“…The decoupling of productivity and real wage growth, public sector austerity, and transnational competition between production sites and suppliers in the private sector are all factors that diminish the instrumentality of collective bargaining and the centrality of institutions created to regulate labour and class conflicts (Howell, 2016). The decline in the volume and efficacy of strikes and industrial conflict over collective bargaining in the most developed economies (Vandaele, 2016;Godard, 2011) contributes to a self-reinforcing logic where, in the absence of significant victories, workers are less inclined to undertake collective action. The success of general strikes in western Europe in extracting concessions from governments (Hamann et al, 2013) is qualified by the typically defensive character of these actions.…”

Rethinking Industrial Relations, or at least the British radical frame

“…Another weak point in long wave theory, whether from Marx or Kondratiev, is the prediction that cycles of worker mobilization and conflict show substantial synchronicity across countries. On one hand, the hypothesis seems supported because labor union density and strikes show the same downward, quiescent trend across most of the advanced industrial countries (Gall, 2012; Vandaele, 2016) but, on the other, this common trend is cold comfort for Kelly and fellow Marxists/radicals because it reinforces support for the postmodernist ‘unions are industrial dinosaurs’ story. Also a problem, labor unrest and strike activity are on the upswing in some Asian and southern hemisphere nations (e.g., China, Vietnam, Brazil) and RIR and mobilization theory need to be able to give a consistent explanation for this divergent behavior.…”

Trade Unions on YouTube

“…In addition to electoral engagement and agenda-setting, the third form of political action for unions is the mobilization of protests. Even though the main protest activity of trade unions has always been the strike (Vandaele 2016), there are plenty of examples of mass demonstrations mobilized by unions in cooperation with other social groups, especially since the 1990s. This trend is related to the role of unions in the democratization processes in Latin America, Eastern Europe and South Africa, as well as to the increasing mobilization that is occurring against globalization and neoliberal political reforms (Della Porta 2006;Fantasia and Stepan-Norris 2004).…”