Trade unionism in Europe: Are the working class still members?

2019 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 107-120
Author(s):  
Carsten Strøby Jensen
Keyword(s):  
Social Class ◽  
Working Class ◽  
Survey Data ◽  
Trade Union ◽  
Union Membership ◽  
Trade Unions ◽  
European Social Survey ◽  
Upper Class ◽  
Social Survey ◽  
Trade Unionism

How far does social class position influence the likelihood that employees will be members of a trade union? I use European Social Survey data to compare trade union membership of ‘working-class’ and ‘middle- and upper class’ employees in different European countries. Although the former dominate the trade unions in absolute numbers in most (but not all) countries, the likelihood that the latter will be members of a trade union is higher in most of the countries analysed.

Political attitudes and trade union membership in the Nordic countries

2017 ◽  
Vol 23 (4) ◽  
pp. 381-395 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carsten Strøby Jensen
Keyword(s):  
Survey Data ◽  
Trade Union ◽  
Union Membership ◽  
Trade Unions ◽  
Political Attitudes ◽  
European Social Survey ◽  
Nordic Countries ◽  
Left Wing ◽  
Social Survey ◽  
The Impact

Do political attitudes influence the likelihood of employees being members of a trade union, and to what extent is this the case in the Nordic countries with their high aggregate levels of membership? In this article, I address these questions using European Social Survey data from 2012. The results show that left-wing political attitudes have the most impact on the likelihood of trade union membership in Sweden and to a lesser extent in Denmark. In Norway and Finland, there is no statistically significant impact. I argue that the impact of left-wing political attitudes on unionization in Sweden and Denmark reflects a conception among employees that trade unions are normative organizations.

scholarly journals How do union membership, union density and institutionalization affect perceptions of conflict between management and workers?

2020 ◽  
pp. 095968012096354
Author(s):  
Josef Ringqvist
Keyword(s):  
Trade Union ◽  
Union Membership ◽  
Trade Unions ◽  
Union Density ◽  
Social Survey ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
Country Level ◽  
Multi Level ◽  
The Individual ◽  
International Social

This article contributes to debates about trade unions and conflict by studying how individuals’ perceptions of conflicts between management and workers relate to trade union membership, country-level trade union density and institutionalization (collective bargaining coverage, centralization and policy concertation). Hierarchical multi-level models are fitted to data from the International Social Survey Programme from 2009. The results show that union members tend to be more likely than non-members to perceive management–worker conflicts and that this appears not to vary substantially between countries. However, regardless of union membership, individuals in countries with higher trade union density and with policy concertation tend to be significantly less likely to perceive conflicts. These findings highlight the risk of atomic fallacies in research limited to the individual-level effects of union membership. Contrary to an argument often raised by pluralists, neither bargaining coverage nor centralization has significant effects. Overall, the results question depictions of trade unions as divisive organizations.

scholarly journals What makes workers happy: Empowerment, unions or both?

2018 ◽  
Vol 25 (4) ◽  
pp. 363-376 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter H van der Meer
Keyword(s):  
Job Satisfaction ◽  
Survey Data ◽  
Union Membership ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Industrial Relations ◽  
European Social Survey ◽  
Pay Satisfaction ◽  
Social Survey ◽  
Negative Effect

Does the negative effect of union membership on job satisfaction, as shown in Anglophone countries, also hold for Continental Western Europe? Given the differences in industrial relations, I hypothesize that the effect will be different. I also test hypotheses about the effect of empowerment on job satisfaction, which might explain the negative union effect, and broaden the analysis to include pay satisfaction. Analyses of European Social Survey data show that the negative union effect does not exist for Continental Western Europe and that this can be explained by empowerment of employees.

Labour in Turkey during the 1960s: The Long Hot Decade of the Working Class

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-29
Author(s):  
Aziz Çelik
Keyword(s):  
Social Class ◽  
Working Class ◽  
Trade Unions ◽  
Class Struggle ◽  
Industrial Capitalism ◽  
Labour Movement ◽  
Critical Moment ◽  
Trade Unionism ◽  
The 1960S

Abstract The 1960s were unique and sui generis years for the labour movement in Turkey. This decade not only witnessed the emergence of industrial capitalism, but also was a critical and intense period of class struggle in which the formation of the country’s working class accelerated. As the working class gained momentum, it proved itself to be a new social class after being dismissed in previous decades. At the beginning of the period, trade unions gained constitutional guarantees, thereby increasing the momentum of the labour movement, even as traditional trade unionism eroded somewhat following a period of dominance in the previous two decades. Ultimately, class-based and independent unionism grew in strength in the 1960s, while the decade also represents a critical moment in the process of working-class politicisation.

The Politics of Proletarianization: A Review Article

1979 ◽  
Vol 21 (2) ◽  
pp. 227-230
Author(s):  
Michael Hanagan
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Working Class ◽  
Trade Unions ◽  
Labor History ◽  
Review Article ◽  
The Political ◽  
Regional Studies ◽  
Trade Unionism ◽  
Working Class History ◽  
Political Conditions

The process of proletarianization and its role in the shaping of working class consciousness has captured the attention of French social historians over the last ten years. Until recently, works on French labor history generally neglected the formation of the working class to concentrate on the origins of national working-class parties or trade unions; thus, general histories of the political ‘workers’ movement' abound, to the detriment of occupational or regional studies. As early as 1971, Rolande Trempé's thèse asserted that the transition from godfearing peasant to socialistic proletarian had only just begun when a man put down his hoe and took up a pickaxe. In Les mineurs de Carmaux, Trempé showed the evolving social and political conditions which led coalminers in southwestern France to espouse trade unionism and socialism. The recently published thése of Yves Lequin, Les ouvriers de la region lyonnaise, provides another benchmark in the study of nineteenth-century working class history. Lequin reveals that, for the pre-1914 period in the Lyonnais region of France, the dynamics of proletarianization were more important in promoting worker militancy than its end result, the appearance of an industrial proletariat.

Social protests, discontent and politics in southern and eastern Europe

2018 ◽  
Vol 24 (2) ◽  
pp. 195-215 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maria da Paz Campos Lima ◽  
Antonio Martín Artiles
Keyword(s):  
Political Institutions ◽  
Trade Unions ◽  
Contentious Politics ◽  
European Social Survey ◽  
European Countries ◽  
Necessary Condition ◽  
Eastern European ◽  
Social Survey ◽  
Social Protests

Taking into consideration the debate on the role of social movements and of trade unions in organising social protests, in the light of contentious and conventional politics, this article examines participation in demonstrations in Europe and the political attitudes of the participants. The article uses data from the European Social Survey to examine the differences and similarities between European countries in respect of mobilisation levels over the past decade, arguing that distrust and dissatisfaction with political institutions might be a necessary condition but not a sufficient one to justify resorting to contentious politics. The article reveals the contrasts between the levels of mobilisation in southern European countries (Portugal and Spain) and Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries (Hungary and Poland) and examines the patterns and (re)configuration of the profile of the protestors in the 2002–2014 period.

Globalisation and the dilemmas of international trade unionism

2000 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 29-42 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rebecca Gumbrell-McCormick
Keyword(s):  
International Trade ◽  
Multinational Corporations ◽  
Trade Union ◽  
Trade Unions ◽  
Global Economy ◽  
Trade Union Movement ◽  
Labour Movement ◽  
Trade Unionism ◽  
Union Movement ◽  
Economic Developments

This article presents the author's reflections on the possibilities of a restructuring of the international trade union movement, on the basis of a collective research project to mark the fiftieth anniversary of the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU) which seeks to open a debate within the movement over the lessons to be learned from its history as a guide for its future action. The most important question facing the trade union movement today is what is generally called 'globalisation', a phenomenon that goes back many years, both in terms of economic developments and labour struggles. From this perspective, the paper examines the basis for the existing divisions of the international labour movement, before going over the work of the ICFTU and of the International Trade Secretariats (ITSs) to achieve the regulation of the multinational corporations and of the international economy, and concluding on the prospects for unity of action in the unions' work around the global economy.

Een halve eeuw vakbondslidmaatschap : Een verkennende longitudinale studie naar enkele cyclische determinanten voor de ledenontwikkeling van de Belgische vakbonden, 1946-1995

Res Publica ◽  
2004 ◽  
Vol 46 (1) ◽  
pp. 6-32
Author(s):  
Kurt Vandaele
Keyword(s):  
Trade Union ◽  
Union Membership ◽  
Trade Unions ◽  
Econometric Model ◽  
Positive Impact ◽  
Union Density ◽  
Free Riding ◽  
Structural Variable ◽  
Explanatory Variables ◽  
The Impact

This article explains the ebb and flow in Belgian trade union membership from 1946 to 1995 by replicating the econometric model by Bain and Elsheikhn in which changes in macro-economic variables are highly significant. Since the automatic indexation of wages and the extension of collective labour agreements invite free riding, the relevance of the change in inflation and real wage is quite striking. However, the free riding-effect is slowed down by the institutionalised presence of the trade unions on the work floor. The Ghent system explains the positive impact of the unemployment rate . The model is furthermore improved by the trade union density as a structural variable. The linear form reflects the enforcement effect, while the quadratic form mirrors the saturation effect on the trade union membership. Mainly due to the 'Allgemeinkoalitionsfähighkeit' of the Belgian government system, the impact of left parties on union growth and decline is not significant in a quantitative framework. With only four explanatory variables the model clarifies more than 75% of the fluctuations in Belgian trade union membership.

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.

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