"This article addresses trade union membership policies in the hospital sector and contrasts the situations in the United Kingdom and Germany, countries with different varieties of capitalism. It draws on industrial relations scholarship that is interested in the diversity of modern capitalist economies and their industrial relations institutions. Departing from a macro-social perspective, these studies revealed the important insight that trade union strategies and practices are influenced by national institutions, but not fully determined by them. This article is also inspired by social movement literature that has developed a perspective on micro-social processes and emphasizes the importance of union actors' identities and framing processes. Yet, we assume that union membership policies can neither be solely explained by macro-determinants such as the institutions of national political economies nor by a focus on trade unions as entrepreneurial actors in shaping their own destinies. This article instead deals with the tensions and contradictions that exist between industrial relations actors' behavior on the one hand and socio-economic structures and institutions on the other hand. The key to understanding union membership policies is therefore, first, the knowledge of the varying and often competing institutional logics and social relations within which trade union practices and strategies are embedded. Second, a perspective is required that sees trade unions themselves as actors that have (historically) enforced and maintained certain institutions at different spatial scales that in turn determine their membership policies."

Support: Digital