scholarly journals Spanish trade unions against labour market reforms: strategic choices and outcomes

2019 ◽  
Vol 25 (4) ◽  
pp. 421-435
Author(s):  
Pablo del Rio Loira ◽  
Menno Fenger
Keyword(s):  
Labour Market ◽  
Trade Unions ◽  
Welfare States ◽  
Market Reforms ◽  
Strategic Choices ◽  
Political Actors ◽  
Labour Market Reforms ◽  
The Government ◽  
General Strike

Trade unions are considered to be key political actors in the formation of welfare states. Their importance for the current fate of welfare states, however, has been disputed within academia. Aiming to contribute to this vast body of literature, this article analyses the participation of Spanish trade unions in labour market reforms since the restitution of democracy in Spain. The article analyses the strategic choices open to trade unions, particularly the choice of calling for mobilisation, and why unions make the choices that they do. Mobilisation in the form of a general strike constitutes unions’ last and most extreme resort for confronting the government. We also explain the context in which such mobilisations are able to prevent retrenchment measures attempted by the government.

scholarly journals Explaining divergent bargaining outcomes for agency workers: The role of labour divides and labour market reforms

2018 ◽  
Vol 25 (2) ◽  
pp. 163-179 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chiara Benassi ◽  
Lisa Dorigatti ◽  
Elisa Pannini
Keyword(s):  
Collective Bargaining ◽  
Labour Market ◽  
Trade Unions ◽  
Vicious Circle ◽  
Market Reforms ◽  
Precarious Employment ◽  
Power Resources ◽  
Labour Market Reforms ◽  
Divide And Rule

Under what conditions can unions successfully regulate precarious employment? We compare the divergent trajectories of collective bargaining on agency work in the Italian and German metal sectors from the late 1990s. We explain the differences by the interaction between trade unions’ institutional and associational power resources, mediated by employers’ divide-and-rule strategies and by union strategies to (re)build a unitary front. In both countries, the liberalization of agency work allowed employers to exploit labour divides, undermining unions’ associational power and preventing labour from negotiating effectively. However, while Italian unions remained ‘trapped’ in the vicious circle between weak legislation and fragmented labour, German unions were able to overcome their internal divides. The different degree of success depended on the nature of the divides within the labour movements.

Reforming the Labour Market in Good and Bad Times

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Britta Gehrke ◽  
Enzo Weber
Keyword(s):  
Time Series ◽  
Business Cycle ◽  
Labour Market ◽  
Markov Switching ◽  
Matching Theory ◽  
Market Reforms ◽  
Structural Reforms ◽  
Labour Market Reforms ◽  
Short Run ◽  
The Business Cycle

This chapter discusses how the effects of structural labour market reforms depend on whether the economy is in expansion or recession. Based on an empirical time series model with Markov switching that draws on search and matching theory, we propose a novel identification of reform outcomes and distinguish the effects of structural reforms that increase the flexibility of the labour market in distinct phases of the business cycle. We find in applications to Germany and Spain that reforms which are implemented in recessions have weaker expansionary effects in the short run. For policymakers, these results emphasize the costs of introducing labour market reforms in recessions.

Party System

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zaad Mahmood
Keyword(s):  
Labour Market ◽  
Party System ◽  
Political Competition ◽  
Group Analysis ◽  
Party Competition ◽  
Market Reforms ◽  
Intermediate Variable ◽  
Labour Market Flexibility ◽  
Labour Market Reforms ◽  
The Impact

The chapter discusses the party system in the macro context of politics. It highlights the limitations of political party and interest group analysis without reference to the political competition that shapes behaviour in politics. The chapter discusses theoretically the impact of party system on labour market flexibility and proceeds to show the interrelation between party competition and the behaviour of political parties, composition of socio-economic support bases, and the behaviour of interest groups that influence reform. In the context of labour market flexibility, the party-system operates as an intermediate variable facilitating reforms. The chapter contradicts the conventional notion that party system fragmentation impedes reform by showing how increasing party competition corresponds to greater labour market reforms. It shows that increases in the number of parties, facilitates labour market reforms through marginalization of the issue of labour, realignment of class interests within broader society and fragmentation of trade union movement.

Understanding the positions taken by moderate union confederations and centre-left parties during labour market reforms in Portugal and Spain: Why the configuration of left parties and trade union confederations matters

2021 ◽  
pp. 095968012110057
Author(s):  
Paulo Marques ◽  
Dora Fonseca
Keyword(s):  
Labour Market ◽  
Trade Union ◽  
Stable Equilibrium ◽  
Market Reforms ◽  
Negative Consequences ◽  
Labour Market Reforms ◽  
Electoral Support ◽  
Over Time ◽  
Radical Left

The insider-outsider politics approach conjectures that moderate unions and centre-left parties safeguard the interests of insiders and neglect outsiders in labour market reforms. This article challenges this hypothesis. By comparing the positions taken by centre-left parties and moderate union confederations during labour market reforms in Portugal and Spain (1975–2019), it shows that while they may indeed protect insiders, they sometimes do the opposite. To explain this, the article argues that more attention must be paid to the configuration of left parties and confederations. In Portugal, where communist and radical left parties were strong, the centre-left was afraid of losing outsiders’ electoral support, and thus it did not follow a pro-insider strategy. This was reinforced by the fact that the centre-left had to face the opposition of a strong class-oriented confederation that was not willing to commit to two-tier reforms. This was not what happened in Spain. The centre-left, supported by a union confederation, undertook a two-tier reform in 1984 because there was a different configuration of left parties and confederations. Notwithstanding, this was not a stable equilibrium because this confederation changed its position over time when it realized the negative consequences of these reforms. Henceforth, their strategy became more pro-outsider.

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