Why do contingent workers join a trade union? Evidence from the Irish telecommunications sector

MacKenzie, Robert

doi:10.1177/0959680110364829

Cited by 20 publications

(11 citation statements)

References 28 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…It is especially in national contexts with strong legal employment protections that unions have belatedly developed bargaining capacities that addressed temporary workers. In more deregulated institutional regimes, like that of the UK, there are instead many examples of trade unions organizing in areas of casual or insecure employment, such as transport and construction, as well as the creative industries (Heery et al, 2004;Böheim and Muehlberger, 2006;Saundry et al, 2006;MacKenzie, 2009MacKenzie, , 2010Simms and Dean, 2015).…”

Section: The Collective Representation Of Solo Self-employed Workersmentioning

confidence: 99%

Hybrid Areas of Work Between Employment and Self-Employment: Emerging Challenges and Future Research Directions

et al. 2020

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The growth of non-standard employment relations has created one of the major challenges in terms of workers' rights as well as collective representation in European societies. Among non-standard employment relations, so-called "solo self-employed"-self-employed workers without employees-are challenging the very foundations of our labor markets, that is to say the opposition between employers and employees, fostering the development of emerging "hybrid" areas of work. The heterogeneity of the solo self-employed is difficult to capture from official statistics, which are still based on traditional classifications, and questions also the legal categories that qualify these workers. Moreover, the fact that solo self-employed workers do not form a homogenous group, and are diverse in terms of their activities, interests and needs, calls for changes in the way trade unions, employer organizations, and new freelancer associations develop collective actions, claims-making activities, and strategies of organizing. With the aim to achieve an in-depth understanding of the increasingly extensive and populated categories of the solo self-employed, this contribution aims at reconstructing the state of the art within different fields of study, such as employment relations, labor law, industrial relations and social movements, and at offering some possible future research directions.

show abstract

Section: The Collective Representation Of Solo Self-employed Workersmentioning

confidence: 99%

Hybrid Areas of Work Between Employment and Self-Employment: Emerging Challenges and Future Research Directions

et al. 2020

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Efforts to organise TAW workers working at the same site and carrying out the same jobs as permanent staff are particularly fraught with difficulties: as noted earlier, there are genuine differences of interest, while contractual difference in terms and conditions and the identity of the official employer create serious obstacles to common action. These are not, however, irrevocable as union success in the Irish telecommunications sector shows (MacKenzie, 2010). Unions have had to work hard at educating existing members and officials about the need to include atypical workers; this has often required leadership and appeals to solidarity from above.…”

Section: Trade Union Responsesmentioning

confidence: 99%

European trade unions and ‘atypical’ workers

Gumbrell‐McCormick¹

2011

Industrial Relations Journal

127

128

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The increase in 'atypical' or precarious forms of work, including part-time, temporary or agency, contracted-out, posted, dependent self-employed and undocumented work, has created one of the major challenges facing trade unions in Europe today. Indeed, the 'atypical' has become more and more 'typical' in a number of European countries, particularly among women and younger workers. The rise in atypical forms of work calls for changes in the way trade unions develop strategies, policies and structures and presents a challenge to their traditional ways of thinking and organising. This article begins with the definition of atypical work and a general overview of the literature on the subject before moving on to the nature of the challenge it creates for trade unions in Europe and an overview of their responses, drawing on preliminary findings from a three-year research project in unions in 10 European countries. The article concludes that while unions have made a great deal of progress in addressing the concerns of atypical workers, they will have to make substantial changes to their structures, thinking and way of operating in order to be fully able to respond to the challenge of this growing form of work.

show abstract

“…This attitude could partly be explained by the fact that the interests and needs of the temporary workers did not necessarily coincide with that of F o r P e e r R e v i e w 6 the core workforce, whose 'secure position [rested] on the insecurity of the former' (Heery, 2004: 441). It can also be partly explained by the implications that the inclusion of atypical workers could have on the structure of the unions (Gumbrell McCormick, 2011;MacKenzie, 2010). Although unions across the EU responded to the challenge of contingent labour differently, a common element in their approach was that they were less concerned about representation than about opposing this kind of work per se (Gumbrell McCormick, 2011: 298).…”

Section: Theoretical Backgroundmentioning

confidence: 99%

Getting together or breaking apart? Trade union strategies, restructuring and contingent workers in Southern Europe

Kornelakis

Voskeritsian

2016

Economic and Industrial Democracy

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The article considers the strategies of trade unions towards the representation of call centre workers. Using a comparative case study, it examines the divergent union responses to the growth of contingent labour by looking at the telecommunications industries in Italy and Greece. Although the trade unions in Italy pursued inclusive strategies embracing the call centre workers and negotiating the restructuring of the whole sector, the unions in Greece followed a policy of exclusion leaving call centre workers outside representation and negotiating their internal restructuring. The article argues that the different union identities, and the diverse power resources and internal organizational politics help explain the variation in the trade unions’ strategic responses.

show abstract

Why do contingent workers join a trade union? Evidence from the Irish telecommunications sector

Cited by 20 publications

References 28 publications

Hybrid Areas of Work Between Employment and Self-Employment: Emerging Challenges and Future Research Directions

Hybrid Areas of Work Between Employment and Self-Employment: Emerging Challenges and Future Research Directions

European trade unions and ‘atypical’ workers

Getting together or breaking apart? Trade union strategies, restructuring and contingent workers in Southern Europe

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About