Austerity and public sector trade union power: Before and after the crisis

2018 ◽  
Vol 25 (2) ◽  
pp. 129-145 ◽  
Author(s):  
Werner Schmidt ◽  
Andrea Müller ◽  
Irene Ramos-Vielba ◽  
Annette Thörnquist ◽  
Christer Thörnqvist
Keyword(s):  
Public Sector ◽  
Economic Crisis ◽  
Trade Union ◽  
Trade Unions ◽  
Union Power ◽  
Institutional Power ◽  
Power Resources ◽  
Political Resources ◽  
Before And After ◽  
The Uk

We use a power resources approach to examine the effects of the 2008–2009 financial and economic crisis on public sector trade union power in Germany, Spain, Sweden and the UK, comparing structural, organizational, institutional, societal and political power resources before and after the crisis. Unions’ power resources have (at least temporarily) weakened in Spain, with a similar but less pronounced trend in the UK; whereas in Sweden and Germany, one can detect ambiguous but slightly positive signals, which reflect neither the crisis nor opposition to austerity. As well as structural, organizational and institutional power resources, societal and political resources are decisive for public sector trade unions.

Negotiating Better Conditions for Workers during Austerity in Europe

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Damian Grimshaw ◽  
Stefania Marino ◽  
Dominique Anxo ◽  
Jérôme Gautié ◽  
László Neumann ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Public Sector ◽  
Local Government ◽  
Trade Unions ◽  
Industrial Relations ◽  
Pay Equity ◽  
Wage Setting ◽  
Local Union ◽  
Power Resources ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Government Workers

This chapter compares union actions affecting local government workers during a period of austerity across five European countries: France, Germany, Hungary, Sweden, and the UK. These five countries are characterized by different national industrial relations institutions, different systems of public sector wage-setting, and varied opportunities for local union influence. The study analyses the conditions under which trade unions have been able to reduce precarious work among local government workers (in-house and subcontracted) and to promote more equitable and solidaristic outcomes. It specifically focuses on union actions against pay precarity and employment precarity. It concludes by discussing the contributory roles played by national institutions, austerity measures, and unions’ power resources in shaping the prospects for pay equity and chain solidarities in Europe’s public sector.

scholarly journals Trade union strategies in the age of austerity: The Romanian public sector in comparative perspective

2018 ◽  
Vol 25 (2) ◽  
pp. 113-128 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dragoș Adăscăliței ◽  
Aurelian Muntean
Keyword(s):  
Economic Crisis ◽  
Working Conditions ◽  
Trade Union ◽  
Trade Unions ◽  
National Level ◽  
Effective Strategies ◽  
Power Resources ◽  
Union Democracy ◽  
Wage Increases ◽  
The Impact

This article examines the impact of the economic crisis and its aftermath on collective bargaining, by comparing reactions to austerity policies of trade unions in healthcare and education in Romania. We develop an encompassing theoretical framework that links strategies used by trade unions with power resources, costs and union democracy. In a tight labour market generated by the massive emigration of doctors, unions in healthcare have successfully deployed their resources to advance their interests and obtain significant wage increases and better working conditions. We also show that in the aftermath of the crisis, healthcare trade unions have redefined their strategies and adopted a more militant stance based on a combination of local strikes, strike threats and temporary alliances with various stakeholders. By comparison, we find that unions in the education sector have adopted less effective strategies built around negotiations with governments combined with national-level militancy.

Legal Expertise: A Critical Resource for Trade Unionists? Insights into the Confédération Française Démocratique du Travail

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cécile Guillaume
Keyword(s):  
Qualitative Research ◽  
Collective Bargaining ◽  
Trade Union ◽  
Trade Unions ◽  
Industrial Relations ◽  
Institutional Power ◽  
Collective Redress ◽  
Critical Resource ◽  
The Law ◽  
Legal Expertise

Abstract Based on in-depth qualitative research conducted in one of the major French trade unions (the CFDT), this article explores to what extent and under what conditions trade unions adopt different legal practices to further their members’ interests. In particular, it investigates how ‘legal framing’ has taken an increasingly pervasive place in trade union work, in increasingly decentralised industrial relations contexts, such as France. This article therefore argues that the use of the law has become a multifaceted and embedded repertoire of action for the CFDT in its attempt to consolidate its institutional power through various strategies, including collective redress and the use of legal expertise in collective bargaining and representation work.

scholarly journals Trade Union Practices in the EU and Latvia: Experience for Eastern Partnership Countries

2014 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 99-118
Author(s):  
Sergejs Stacenko ◽  
Biruta Sloka
Keyword(s):  
Public Sector ◽  
Trade Union ◽  
Trade Unions ◽  
Industrial Relations ◽  
Comparative Approach ◽  
Eastern Partnership ◽  
The Public ◽  
Social Dialogue ◽  
Eastern Partnership Countries ◽  
The Eu

AbstractThe article will show major dimensions in the experience of EU Member States that could be shared with the Eastern Partnership (EaP) countries. The framework of the study is the EU concept of trade unions in social dialogue and social partnership in the public sector. This study outlines the concept of social dialogue as a core element of industrial relations and will focus on industrial relations specifically in the public sector. The authors have elaborated the approach to industrial relations and social dialogue taking into account comparative approach to definitions provided by international institutions such as ILO and OECD, as well as institutions in the EU and Latvia. Latvia is also a case study for Eastern Partnership countries as these countries and their trade unions are in a transition period from socialist structures to structures that possess liberal economies. Trade unions in these countries are members of the International Trade Union Confederation. The major transformation that trade unions underwent from being part of the socialist system and becoming an independent institution since Latvia regained independence in 1991 has been studied. The paper discusses the current developments related to the position of Latvian Free Trade Union Federation in the system of decision-making process related to the public administration management. Finally, the prospective role of trade unions in the EU and in Latvia is analysed and possible revitalisation of trade union is discussed. This approach could be applied to the Eastern Partners of the EU.

Purging the Trade Unions

2020 ◽  
pp. 343-373
Author(s):  
Ewing Mahoney
Keyword(s):  
Public Sector ◽  
Trade Union ◽  
Union Membership ◽  
Trade Unions ◽  
Industrial Relations ◽  
Legal Regulation ◽  
Service Trade ◽  
Public Sector Employment ◽  
Legal Foundations ◽  
Legal Position

This chapter looks at government attempts to ban trade unions, considering the steps that were taken in lieu of an outright ban on trade union membership. Consistently with other measures taken at the time under the cover of security, government intervention to deal with the alleged menace of Communist infiltration of the civil service trade unions did not take the form of legislation. The legal position reflected both the lack of legal regulation of industrial relations generally and the lack of legal regulation of public-sector employment in particular. In practice, governments rarely needed to reveal or justify the legal foundations for their actions. The benefit for government is that although security policies might well be announced and made public, there would be little accountability thereafter if operated unobtrusively.

scholarly journals Closure, equality or organisation: Trade union responses to EU labour migration

2020 ◽  
Vol 30 (5) ◽  
pp. 528-542
Author(s):  
Alexandre Afonso ◽  
Samir Negash ◽  
Emily Wolff
Keyword(s):  
Trade Union ◽  
Migrant Workers ◽  
Minimum Wages ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Immigration Control ◽  
Power Resources ◽  
The Face ◽  
Comparative Case Studies ◽  
Political Intervention ◽  
The Uk

This paper explores trade union strategies to protect wages in the face of EU migration after the enlargement of the European Union. We argue that unions have three instruments at their disposal to deal with the risks linked to downward wage pressure: closure through immigration control, equalisation through collective bargaining and minimum wages, and the organisation of migrant workers. Using comparative case studies of Sweden, Germany and the UK, we show how different types of power resources shape union strategies: unions with substantial organisational resources (in Sweden) relied on a large membership to pursue an equalisation strategy and expected to be able to ‘afford’ openness. German unions with low membership but access to the political system pushed for a mix of closure and equality drawing on political intervention (e.g. minimum wages). British unions, unable to pursue either, focused their efforts on organisation.

scholarly journals Institutional resources as a source of trade union power in Southern Europe

2017 ◽  
Vol 24 (2) ◽  
pp. 129-143 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mike Rigby ◽  
Miguel Ángel García Calavia
Keyword(s):  
Trade Union ◽  
Trade Unions ◽  
Recent Literature ◽  
Industrial Relations ◽  
Southern Europe ◽  
Union Power ◽  
Market Outcomes ◽  
Institutional Resources ◽  
Labour Market Outcomes ◽  
Southern European Countries

Institutional resources are one of the sources of power available to trade unions, but recent literature has tended to pay less attention to these than to associational and organizational resources. We examine institutional resources in three Southern European countries, Greece, Portugal and Spain, which share many common characteristics. However, the character of institutional resources in Spanish industrial relations is distinctive. We examine the plasticity of industrial relations institutions in Spain in terms of labour market outcomes but argue that institutional security is an essential platform for unions seeking to develop other sources of power.

scholarly journals Comparison wage in trade union decision making

2007 ◽  
Vol 57 (4) ◽  
pp. 377-388
Author(s):  
S. Drakopoulos
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Decision Making ◽  
Utility Function ◽  
Trade Union ◽  
Trade Unions ◽  
Unemployment Benefit ◽  
Union Power ◽  
Starting Point

The starting point of this paper is the idea that trade unions and individual workers pay attention to wage settlements in similar sectors of the economy. The foundations of the concept of comparison wage can be found in other social sciences and also in the literature of psychological economics. Despite the fact, however, that comparison — or reference — wage enters the decision making of the union (i.e. the union utility function), the concept has not received much attention in connection with union decision making. In this paper, a union utility function is employed incorporating the concept of comparison wage. The analysis is conducted in a bargaining framework and the results show the effects on the optimal wage of important variables like comparison wage, unemployment benefit, union power and of the weight that the union places on the comparison wage.

scholarly journals The "Double-edged Sword" of Institutional Power: COSATU, Neo-liberalisation and the Right to Strike

2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Carin Runciman
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
South African ◽  
Trade Unions ◽  
Analytical Framework ◽  
The South ◽  
Labour Relations ◽  
Institutional Power ◽  
Power Resources ◽  
Legal Provisions ◽  
The Right

On 1 January 2019 amendments to the Labour Relations Act came into force that significantly altered and curtailed the right to protected strike action in South Africa. Internationally, the right to strike has been eroded in recent years with many countries adopting legal provisions that violate the International Labour Organization’s principles. Comparatively, the rights of South African workers to go on protected strikes remain better than many other places in the world, a reflection of the militant history of the South African labour movement. But the erosion of these rights, with the active support of the Congress of South African Trade Unions, should be a cause for concern for activists and labour scholars in South Africa and beyond. This article develops the Power Resources Approach to consider how union institutional power has entrenched neo-liberalism in South Africa. Grounding the analysis of institutional power within the analytical framework of corporatism allows this article to develop an analysis of institutional power that is attentive to class forces. This provides an avenue for understanding the “double-edged sword” of institutional power in the South African context in order to comprehend when and under what circumstances trade unions advance and defend the interests of the working class and when they defend those of capital.  KEY WORDS: labour; neo-liberalism; institutional power; corporatism; South Africa

scholarly journals Relying on weak governments: Austrian trade unions and the politics of smoothed dualization

2017 ◽  
Vol 45 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Philip Rathgeb
Keyword(s):  
Labour Market ◽  
Trade Union ◽  
Trade Unions ◽  
Policy Making ◽  
Labour Market Policy ◽  
Active Labour Market Policy ◽  
Market Policy ◽  
Political Actors ◽  
Secondary Sources ◽  
Power Resources

Austrian political actors have improved the protection of outsiders by expanding the coverage of labour rights, social security, and active labour market policy spending in the past two decades. The article attributes these ‘solidaristic’ traits of Austrian labour market policy change to the persistent reliance of weak governments on trade union support in the mobilisation of a durable consensus. When governments are internally divided and prone to reform deadlocks, they face a powerful incentive to share policy-making authority with the social partners. Despite a significant decline in power resources, the Austrian trade union confederation has therefore remained influential enough to compensate outsiders for growing economic uncertainty on a volatile labour market. To substantiate this claim empirically, the article draws on primary and secondary sources as well as interview evidence with policy-making elites.

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