Commentary The Information and Consultation of Employees. The Point of View of the European Trade Union Confederation

I . Confronted with the acuteness of the socio-economic problems the two major labour organizations (i.e. : the socialist and the christiandemocratic trade union confederation) have in 1976 strengthened their «Common Trade Unions' Front» (with about two million members on a total of 2,300,000 wage- and salary earners in Belgium) in view of their negotiations with employers and with the government, to which the trade unions have submitted a common platform.The common front, that has its antecedents on the local, regional and professional level has never been and never will be of a permanent nature, some sort of organic unit. Each confederation maintains its own identity and the front is meant to be re-animated according to the circumstances.II. From the employers' side (and to some extent completely independent from the trade unions' common front) representatives of employers' organizations have «as a personal point of view» and, no doubt, as a preliminary approach, launched the idea that a new and very comprehensive «social pact» should be negotiated. The socialist trade unions clearly tend to reject this idea, since it maywell lead to a further integration in the capitalist system, whereas the christiandemocratic union seems to be rather in favour of such a pact.In the present state of affairs (end of June, 1977) the probability that it be realized is rather low indeed.

Download Full-text

European trade union cooperation, union density and employee attitudes to unions

Transfer European Review of Labour and Research ◽

10.1177/1024258920933118 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 26 (3) ◽

pp. 345-358

Author(s):

Bengt Furåker

Keyword(s):

Trade Union ◽

Trade Unions ◽

Union Density ◽

Employee Attitudes ◽

Financial Resources ◽

Social Survey ◽

International Social Survey Programme ◽

European Trade ◽

Using Data ◽

International Social

European trade unions have much to gain from cooperating with each other. Such cooperation does exist, but it is still fairly limited and many obstacles need to be overcome if cooperation is to be improved. According to our survey data, higher-level union officials regard differences concerning financial resources and national labour market regulations to be particularly substantial barriers to cooperation. The enormously varying union density across Europe, and its general decrease, also creates barriers. Therefore, employee attitudes to unions are examined using data from the International Social Survey Programme. As expected, union members tend to be more positive about trade unions than non-members. The most interesting finding, however, is that employees in some countries with low union density exhibit fairly positive views or at least views that are not less positive than what we find among employees in many countries with higher density rates. This suggests that there is potential for recruiting members.

Download Full-text

Women and the Labour Movement in France, 1869–1914

The Historical Journal ◽

10.1017/s0018246x00019063 ◽

1986 ◽

Vol 29 (4) ◽

pp. 809-832 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Patricia J. Hilden

Keyword(s):

Trade Union ◽

Trade Unions ◽

Industrial Workers ◽

Labour Movement ◽

European Trade

In histories of European trade union movements, the observation that women industrial workers were rarely found among the membership has become axiomatic. In virtually every developed nation, it seems that once the industrial order was established, predominantly male trade unions were everywhere the rule, and female unions and trade unionists everywhere notable exceptions.

Download Full-text

Sustainable Alliances: The Origins of International Labor Environmentalism

International Labor and Working-Class History ◽

10.1017/s0147547904000201 ◽

2004 ◽

Vol 66 ◽

pp. 118-135 ◽

Cited By ~ 9

Author(s):

Victor Silverman

Keyword(s):

Sustainable Development ◽

Trade Union ◽

Trade Unions ◽

Health And Safety ◽

Environmentally Conscious ◽

International Labor ◽

Political Sources ◽

European Trade ◽

Late Twentieth ◽

Stockholm Conference

This article examines evaluates the strength of the Labor-Environmentalist alliance of the late twentieth century. It traces the evolution of trade unionists' thinking about nature and the human relationship to the environment by examining intellectual and political sources of labor involvement in United Nations' environmental policy making from the 1950s through the 1980s. The article explores the reasons trade union organizations, notably the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions, the International Trade Secretariats (Global Union Federations) and the European Trade Union Confederation, participated in a variety of international conferences and institutions such as the 1972 Stockholm Conference on the Environment, the 1992 Rio Earth Summit and the 2002 Johannesburg World Summit on Sustainable Development. It finds that environmentally conscious trade unionists developed their own version of environmentalism and sustainable development based on a reworking of basic trade union principles, a reworking that emphasized solidarity with nature and made central the protection of the health and safety of workers, communities, and environments.

Download Full-text

Challenges posed by the EU minimum wage initiative to the ETUC and European trade union cooperation

Transfer European Review of Labour and Research ◽

10.1177/1024258920945111 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 26 (3) ◽

pp. 325-343 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Kristina Lovén Seldén

Keyword(s):

Minimum Wage ◽

Trade Union ◽

Industrial Relations ◽

Recent Developments ◽

Institutional Differences ◽

European Trade ◽

Institutional Contexts ◽

The Government ◽

Role Of The Government ◽

The Eu

This article addresses recent developments in the debate on a European minimum wage and tries to shed light on the Swedish standpoint, which from a European perspective might be difficult to comprehend. The article argues that even though the ETUC secretariat has tried to find a balance among the member organisations regarding the EU initiative on a fair minimum wage, it is far from enough from a Swedish and Nordic perspective. Issues such as how to approach collective bargaining, how to think about minimum wages and the role of the government in industrial relations cause problems when unions that operate in relatively diverse institutional contexts try to cooperate. It is therefore likely that the EU minimum wage will continue to be at the core of European trade union discussions in the coming years. At the same time, institutional differences between countries are not the only factors determining union cooperation in Europe. Contextual factors also matter.

Download Full-text