The focus of the new trade union. Opinions of members and non-members regarding social differences and trade union priorities in the Netherlands

2009 ◽  
Vol 15 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 439-460 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marc Van Der Meer ◽  
Roos Van Os Van Den Abeelen ◽  
Jelle Visser
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Trade Union ◽  
Union Membership ◽  
Trade Unions ◽  
Policy Making ◽  
National Level ◽  
Social Differences ◽  
Social Challenges ◽  
Union Democracy ◽  
The Social

Trade union legitimacy at national level is increasingly coming under pressure due to the new social challenges arising from the shifting of decision making from national to both international and decentralised levels. In this article we discuss representative opinion research on the social differences perceived by Dutch citizens and the priorities on which trade unions should focus. This allows us to relate the emerging criticisms of the unbalanced composition of Dutch trade union membership to issues of ‘positive’ coordination and policy-making legitimacy in light of internal trade union democracy and the representation of younger labour market cohorts.

The European Trade Union Federations within the European polity: ETUFs and international trade union activity

2020 ◽  
Vol 26 (3) ◽  
pp. 289-305
Author(s):  
Torsten Müller ◽  
Hans-Wolfgang Platzer
Keyword(s):  
Trade Union ◽  
Trade Unions ◽  
National Level ◽  
Social Dimension ◽  
European Level ◽  
The Social ◽  
Institutional Structures ◽  
Decision Making Processes ◽  
European Trade ◽  
National Trade

This article examines the European Trade Union Federations’ (ETUFs) role within the European polity in representing the interests of their affiliates vis-à-vis decision-makers at European level. In order to influence processes at European level, however, ETUFs need to aggregate and coordinate the often heterogeneous interests of their affiliates. This dual focus of the ETUFs’ activities is captured in the article by using the concept of the ‘logic of membership’ and ‘logic of influence’ to investigate how changes in their internal and external environment have affected the ETUFs’ capacity to act within the institutional structures and decision-making processes that constitute the European polity. A key finding of the article is that the European Commission’s renewed focus on strengthening the social dimension in principle opens up new opportunities for ETUFs to increase their influence at European level. The analysis, however, also shows that this is only possible if the ETUFs manage to mobilise the support of their affiliates for joint European strategies. This in turn requires national trade unions to overcome their tendency to retreat to the national level to cope with transnational challenges.

scholarly journals (How) can international trade union organisations be democratic?

2020 ◽  
Vol 26 (3) ◽  
pp. 253-272
Author(s):  
Richard Hyman ◽  
Rebecca Gumbrell-McCormick
Keyword(s):  
International Trade ◽  
Deliberative Democracy ◽  
Trade Union ◽  
Trade Unions ◽  
National Level ◽  
International Level ◽  
International Union ◽  
Union Democracy ◽  
Vast Literature ◽  
International Unions

International trade union organisations, like unions at national level, commonly affirm their commitment to internal democracy. But what does this mean? There exists a vast literature on union democracy, addressing the questions whether democracy in trade unions is desirable; whether it is possible; and if so, how it can be achieved. However, the focus of analysis is almost exclusively at the national (or sub-national) level, with the premise that union members are individual workers. But international unions (like many national confederations indeed) do not have individual workers as members: they are organisations of organisations. What does this imply for our understanding of union democracy? We begin our article by summarising the broader literature on union democracy, then develop an interpretation of international unions as ‘meta-organisations’. We next explore some of the implications for debates on democracy at international level, and end by asking whether theories of deliberative democracy can help in understanding the options for international union democracy.

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.

Social partnership as an approach to CSR: ‘traditional’ and ‘new’ actors, their roles and relations

2004 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 416-432 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mikkel Mailand
Keyword(s):  
Labour Market ◽  
Trade Unions ◽  
National Level ◽  
Policy Transfer ◽  
Business Networks ◽  
Active Labour Market Policy ◽  
Public Authorities ◽  
Social Partnership ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Partners

This article reports on research into social partnerships aiming at labour market inclusion that developed during the 1990s in Denmark, the UK and Spain. Some of these partnerships are directly related to corporate social responsibility (CSR initiatives in individual firms), whereas others are only indirectly related (for instance, active labour market policy initiatives at local, regional and national level). Developments such as new target groups for such policies, the weakening of the social partners, ideological change, policy transfer and budget constraints of the state have led to more partnerships taking a multipartite form, meaning that not only the public authorities and the social partners, but also new actors such as business networks, commercial operators and NGOs, participate. The involvement of new actors poses a challenge for the traditional actors – among them the trade unions. Whether the relations between traditional and new actors are best described by conflict or by cooperation cannot be explained by regime theories. The decisive factor seems to be the extent to which the new actors challenge the privileged positions of the traditional actors.

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.

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.

How to Build a Trade Union Oligarchy

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Scott Stephenson
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Decision Making ◽  
Trade Union ◽  
Trade Unions ◽  
The United States ◽  
National Context ◽  
Free Communication ◽  
National Differences ◽  
United Automobile Workers ◽  
Occupational Communities

Trade unions are ostensibly democratic organizations, but they often fail to operate as democracies in practice. Most studies of Western trade union democracy have acknowledged that oligarchy is the norm among unions but have nonetheless examined exceptional democratic unions to understand how those unions defied the trend. My study inverts this approach and instead examines two known oligarchical unions, the Australian Workers Union (AWU) and the United Automobile Workers (UAW) in the United States. I argue that union oligarchy requires certain conditions to thrive. Both unions lacked democratic rules, close-knit occupational communities, local autonomy, rank-and-file decision making, internal opposition, equality between members and officials, and free communication, but these absences were expressed in different ways in each organization. Comparing a prominent US union with a prominent Australian union allows for assessment of the extent to which oligarchy was the result of national context. I argue that the experience of trade union oligarchy in the United States and Australia was more similar than different. National differences between the two countries were important, but they manifested primarily as different methods to achieve similar outcomes.

Delivering Organizational Change in Partnership With Trade Unions

2019 ◽  
pp. 387-397
Author(s):  
Gaye A. Greenwood ◽  
Carolyn Ward
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Organizational Change ◽  
New Zealand ◽  
Union Membership ◽  
Case History ◽  
Trade Unions ◽  
Union Density ◽  
Pivotal Role ◽  
Workplace Conditions ◽  
Union Leaders

This case history offers an insiders' view of bringing about change in union bargaining within major New Zealand organizations. While unions play a pivotal role in the day-to-day bargaining of wages and workplace conditions, there has been a significant reduction in union density and membership. In this case, two union leaders narrate how a shift from traditional bargaining to interest-based negotiation enabled participation in organizational change decision-making, built trust in relationships, and increased 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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