Documents international trade union 233 results

"Trade unions in most of Europe are on the defensive: in recent decades they have lost membership, sometimes drastically; their collective bargaining power has declined, as has their influence on government; and in many countries, their public respect is much diminished.
This book explores the challenges facing trade unions and their responses in ten west European countries: Britain, Ireland, Sweden, Denmark, Germany, Austria, the Netherlands, Belgium, France, and Italy. Based on a substantial number of interviews with key union representatives and academic experts in each country, together with the collection of a large amount of union documentation and background material, the book gives an account of how trade unionism has evolved in each country, the main recent challenges that unions have faced, and their responses. The book engages with the debates of the past two decades on union modernization and revitalization, and more generally with theories of institutional change and the literature on varieties of capitalism.
Some observers ask whether unions remain relevant socio-economic actors, but challenging times can stimulate new thinking, and hence provide new opportunities. This book aims to show why trade unions are (still) important subjects for scientific analysis: first, as a means of collective 'voice' allowing employees to challenge management control and bringing a measure of balance to the employment relationship; second, as a form of 'countervailing power' to the socio-economic dominance of capital; and third, their potential as a 'sword of justice' to defend the weak, vulnerable and disadvantaged, express a set of values in opposition to the dominant political economy, and offer aspirations for a different—and better—form of society."

"The continuing advance of globalization, together with deepening European integration, has increased the significance of the transnational level of trade union organization and action. This study offers a comprehensive overview of the development, structure, and policies of global and European trade union federations to serve as a reference work on all the key trade union movements operating globally and in Europe. It presents an in-depth analysis of the challenges facing these organizations and their strategic and policy responses. As a handbook, this volume provides extensive and systematically presented data on transnational sectoral trade union federations. Applying an analogous structure in the presentation of both global and European levels, the study features extensive organizational profiles, portraits, and overviews. This empirical material serves to reveal recent innovations in cross-border policy instruments and strategic approaches since the 1990s. The changing profiles of international trade unions - as measured against a set of functional criteria drawn from political science - and key developments in transnational trade union activity since the start of the new century are also investigated."

"As unions face an ongoing crisis all over the industrialized world, they have often been portrayed as outmoded remnants of an old economic structure. This book argues that despite structural shifts in the economy and in politics, unions retain important functions for capitalist economies as well as for political democracy. Union revitalization in the face of their current difficulties is therefore of fundamental importance. This book charts the strategies unions use to respond to global union decline and to revive their fortunes in five countries — the liberal market economies of the US and the UK; the coordinated economy of Germany and the Mediterranean economies of Italy and Spain — thus providing a wide range of institutional settings, union structures, identities, and union responses. Each chapter provides a comparative analysis of a particular strategy, looking in turn at union organizing, social partnership, political action, organizational restructuring, coalition-building, and international action. It provides a rich source of documentation about union activity, but more importantly it goes beyond description to address two of the big questions in comparative research: How can we explain cross-country differences in union responses to global decline? And how effective are these actions in helping to revitalize national labour movements?"

" 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."

"This article compares and contrasts international trade unionism in its formative stages with patterns today. It identifies a continuing tension between an ‘agitator' model (internationalism from below) and a bureaucratic model (internationalism from above). With the construction of an architecture of international institutions, notably the International Labour Organisation, another variant emerged: the labour diplomat. It is argued that none of these models on its own is adequate: the future of effective internationalism requires a synthesis of these often contradictory elements."

"Often, perhaps too often, the history of organisations is written without due attention given to the actors involved in their construction. This book shows how the role that trade unions play on the European stage is constantly being shaped by internal dynamics, specific political contexts, and disparate national realities.

It mainly covers, but also reaches beyond, the period of 2003-2015, corresponding to the mandates of General Secretaries John Monks and Bernadette Ségol of the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC). This work is a historical fresco depicting not only the political scene of the period but, more particularly, the continuous formation of an international organisation out of its national affiliates – rich in their diversity but thus also diverse in their structures, traditions and strategies.

The book traces the major political debates in the EU at the beginning of the 21st century, as seen through the trade union prism: the revision of the European treaties, enlargement to include the countries of central and eastern Europe, and the economic governance of the EU. It then goes on to look at issues linked to the core business of European trade unionism: social policy, employment, social dialogue, environmental challenges and the international dimension. Readers are offered an insight beyond the slogans into the complex process of strategy and consensus-building in the service of a more social Europe."

"This paper uses neo-functionalist and institutionalist theories of geo-political integration to develop a theory of international trade unionism. In brief, the theory asserts that the type of international ‘context' in which international trade unions operate presupposes the types of ‘imperatives' that will dominate their interests and concerns. These imperatives are taken to operate along one of three dimensions – industrial, political and ideological, and are seen as evolving in accordance with the ‘logic of spill-over' in global and sub-global integration processes. Using this interpretation the discussion provides reasons as to why ideological imperatives have historically dominated international trade union thinking, the only significant exception being regional trade unions operating in Europe, which have evolved beyond the ideological to embrace industrial and political imperatives in their modes of organisation and operation."

"This paper describes and explains the broad patterns of union internationalism championed by Europe and US labour unions. Descriptively, historical evidence reveals that cross-national organizing and cooperation among US and European unions vary most significantly on three dimensions: (1) despite being modest and taking a back-seat to national priorities, both US and European unions have meaningfully increased their cross-border ties since the 1970s; (2) these unions have prioritized intra-regional ties over developing-country or transatlantic coordination; and (3) US unions are more interested in labour rights policies and basic organizing, including somewhat more attention to developing-country and transatlantic initiatives, while their European counterparts focus on broader welfare policy and collective bargaining in their regional setting. Analytically, the argument is that such patch-work internationalism reflects not only patterns of economic'globalization', but also historical-institutional features of domestic and international politics: Since transnationalism is difficult and costly for unions, unions invest scarce resources (organizers, money, political capital) on transnational activities to the degree that national opportunity structures limit policy, bargaining, and organizing benefits,and/orthat one or another international setting promises significant new opportunities for achieving such benefits."