Towards a reform agenda? European trade unions in transition

Abstract

After 1945 a particular form of trade union activity and organisation was pre-eminent throughout Western Europe. Participating within stable institutions of industrial or national collective bargaining and firmly embedded within the nation state, this form of unionism secured real wage increases for its members, extended organisation throughout much of manufacturing and the public sector, and successfully lobbied for a raft of statutory individual and collective protections. Beyond the narrow sphere of bargaining, unions influenced the terms and development of welfare provision, promoted re-distributive policies and improved the level and timing of pension arrangements. The end of the long post-war boom during the late 1970s marked the onset of decline for this form of unionism. By the 1990s decline had deepened to crisis as the breadth and depth of the challenges facing unions from the pattern of economic development, shifts in political climate, and employers' policies transformed the terrain of union engagement.Accompanying the end of the long post-war boom was a greater political acceptance of a neo-liberal policy agenda as a means to compete within increasingly competitive international markets. In consequence, many of the institutions and policies that characterised regulatory regimes of the post-war period were reformed. Measures to deregulate labour markets became widespread: employment protection legislation was weakened to encourage labour market flexibility; full employment policies were abandoned in practice, if not in principle; statutory protections were removed from trade union organisation and activity; and exposure to market pressures extended by means of privatisation and cuts in government subsidies. This policy shift exposed weaknesses in trade union organisation, which trade unionists were slow to address. Furthermore, social democratic parties 'distanced' themselves from trade unions. In combination, these factors threatened trade union embeddedness within national regulatory regimes.The reform of regulatory regimes also impinged on employers' policies towards trade unions. Employers shifted the parameters of bargaining by restricting the

Temporary migration projects and voting rights

“…Schmidt (2006) and Fitzgerald and Hardy (2010) list various ways in which national labour unions have changed their mode of operation in order to be more efficient in organizing temporary migrants: cooperation with unions in the country of origin (see also Meardi 2012); creation of regional or global migrant workers unions (Gordon and Turner 2000, Waddington 2000, Cotton and Gumbrell-McCormick 2012; portability of trade union membership across borders or mutual recognition of affiliations between national trade unions (Ford 2013, p. 263, Rosewarne 2013; establishment of branches in the sending countries (Gordon 2007, p. 575); establishment of, or cooperation with, migrant worker centres that provide information, legal assistance and support to temporary migrant workers (Fine 2007, Choudry andThomas 2013); and integration of migrants into national labour unions, sometimes involving derogations to strict equality among unionized workers, in order to make special provisions for temporary migrants.…”

Innovations for union renewal

“…Servicing, organising, partnership at work, social partnership, community unionism and social movement unionism are among the range of options suggested within the literature (Wills 2002;Waddington 2000;Shostack 1991;Dribbusch 2003). In the light of post-modernist…”

Ever larger unions: organisational restructuring and its impact on union confederations

“…Internal reasons can also be important, such as financial problems (not least due to declining membership) which compel union leaders to pool resources and seek economies of scale-though these gains would require a reduction in union staff, often a contentious issue before and after mergers (Waddington, 2000). Unions before merging often seek concessions for the transition of leadership and staff as well as looking for partial autonomy through special section status.…”