Trade Unions in the Course of European Integration

The Social Construction of Organized Interests

Martin Seeliger

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9780429638824
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Negocios y empresa
• Subtopic: Gestión de recursos humanos

From the perspective of trade unions, European integration makes it more necessary than ever before to establish common political positions. At the same time, increasing heterogeneity between the member states makes the crafting of such positions more and more difficult. Can, under these circumstances, a joint political line among European trade unions emerge? To answer this question, the book sheds light on transnational trade union cooperation in the three most important policy fields: the debate around the Freedom of services, the discussion over a European minimum wage, and the efforts of international wage coordination.

Drawing on the results of extensive field research based on a qualitative study among trade unions from Hungary, Poland, Sweden, and Germany, as well as representatives from the European level, this book points to a significant gap in European trade union politics between pretensions and reality. The findings provide a solid theoretical framework, suitable not only to explain current dynamics in the field of European trade unionism, but also promising for further research on the topic.

With its focus on a contested political field, Trade Unions in the Course of European Integration contributes to practical and theoretical debates within European trade unionism. As an adequate understanding of European trade unionism in general and collective bargaining requires a twofold perspective on European integration and the role of trade unions in European labor relations, two fields of scholarly interest are being addressed. Moreover, with its focus on European trade unionism as an internationalist project of labor politics, the book will also appeal to those interested in the field of Global Labor Studies.

1 Introduction

Can national trade unions develop common political positions at the European level? Now in the early decades of the twenty-first century, this question arises in the context of two facets of European integration: consolidation and expansion. The history of European integration extends back to the 1950s. Since then, above the nation-state level, official bodies for collective regulation and decision-making have been established in order to facilitate and promote closer cooperation among the member states. Since the 1980s, European integration has been increasingly implemented through the establishment of a shared economy. The four basic freedoms of the European single market—the free movement of goods, the free movement of people, the freedom to provide services, and the free movement of capital and payments—as well as the common currency serve, at least in terms of their intended purposes, to facilitate closer cooperation among economic actors from the individual member states. The challenge faced by the trade unions in light of this development may be illustrated by the example of the European Services Directive.

Early in 2004, the European Commission planned, with the aid of the European Services Directive, to pass a regulation that would allow businesses to employ foreign workers in one European Union (EU) member state under the same conditions as in their EU home country. The core activity of trade unions, namely collective bargaining, is affected by this employment practice to the extent that, at the national level, the reference frame for collective bargaining is undermined. Under these conditions, the fact that paid labor is provided in a given state territory would no longer mean it is also subject to the wage policy regulations there.

This recommendation became particularly explosive amid the impending eastward expansion of the EU. With an average income below 50 percent of the EU average and a comparatively high level of unemployment (Bernaciak, 2014), the countries that joined in 2004 and 2007 were characterized by several features that were likely to mean that competition through undercutting wages (Krings, 2009) would become a palpable threat. As a result of the EU Commission’s deliberate undermining of the nation-state as a framework for collective bargaining, on the grounds that it is an obstacle to the European Services Directive, the trade unions in the countries of western Europe became aware of the necessity for collective action. With the so-called country-of-origin principle, they aimed to prevent any measures in the guidelines that threatened to invalidate the national bargaining regulations of the guest country with respect to employment.

Thus, in order to influence the content of a draft for a set of European guidelines and the debate surrounding approval in the European Parliament, the European trade union associations had the opportunity for political lobbying of the Commission and the members of the European Parliament. However, it was essential to mobilize an effective political majority against the inclusion of the country-of-origin principle as an inherent component in the guidelines, which also made it necessary to incorporate the representatives of the new member states (primarily but not exclusively among the trade unions in those countries), who, in the short term at least, would not suffer from unregulated competition in an EU-wide labor market and would actually benefit from it. However, if the workers of eastern Europe were in a position to offer certain services at a lower cost, why should they be prevented from doing so? Would differentiated regulation mean the application of double standards in regard to the needs and privileges of eastern and western Europeans? If the process of European integration was supposed to be based on the establishment of free competition in the labor market, shouldn’t the rules apply equally to the countries of western Europe?

Since the middle of the last decade, the vote by the European trade union organizations from eastern and western Europe that followed the recommendation has been cited in the sociological literature on the subject as an example of political mobilization within the EU (della Porta and Caiani, 2008). Despite the various contradictions outlined here, they succeeded—with eager participation by representatives from all areas of the continent—in triggering a campaign that today remains unparalleled within the European debate. After a series of demonstrations in Strasbourg and Brussels, with tens of thousands of people taking part in each case, top-level national politicians such as Gerhard Schröder, under pressure from the transnational alliance of trade unions, left-wing and social democratic parties, as well as various other social movement organizations, expressed their support for deleting the country-of-origin principle from the guideline text. Thus, the goal of creating a European public realm could be regarded as having been achieved.

The fact that, as a result of this major campaign, the country-of-origin principle was successfully deleted from the version of the guidelines passed by the European Parliament is, according to Gajewska (2009), Mathers (2007), and others, largely due to the successful alliance policy of the trade union representatives from eastern and western Europe. Instead of focusing on the short-term benefits of support (or at least silent approval) of unbridled market integration within the EU, the trade unions of eastern Europe saw their political goal as working in solidarity with their colleagues in western Europe. The common battle for a European social model appeared to outperform the pure pursuit of national egoism. For example, the debate surrounding the European Services Directive shows that trade unions from different EU member states can develop and assert common political interests.

The integration of an increasing number of European countries into a single market follows various ideational impulses. A stabilizing force will emerge as a result of the development of economic interdependency, not only for the political system but also for civil society in the EU. This concept also works hand in hand with the fundamental liberal idea that market expansion offers a more efficient division of labor, more effective production opportunities, and, ultimately, more profit for all market participants (Smith, 1904). Thus, peace and prosperity serve as the ideational reference values in relation to the normative justification of the EU.

As demonstrated by the examples of macroeconomic adaptation policy during the Euro crisis (Schulten and Müller, 2013), or the judgments of the European Court of Justice (ECJ) on fundamental freedoms (Bücker and Warneck, 2010; Höpner, 2009), the dismantling of national barriers for cross-border (labor) market transactions incurs the risk of an erosion of national protective mechanisms. The trade unions face the potential risk of systematic regime competition within the EU in addition to the direct impact on labor and employment conditions.

Currently, one structural problem of European integration is that such “negative integration” (Scharpf, 1999) is not sufficiently complemented by measures toward “positive integration”; in other words, the establishment of corresponding regulatory bodies in the field of social policy at the EU level. While cross-border transactions are possible, and the density of interaction within the scope of economic activities is constantly increasing, the development of a social policy framework is discernible only to a limited extent. This discrepancy is described from the trade union perspective by IG-BAU representative Frank Schmidt Hullmann (2009b, 242) as follows: “The current state of the EU is neither fish (i.e., the United States of Europe) nor fowl (a marriage of convenience between sovereign states which is limited to precisely defined policy fields).” If it is true, in the words of Antonio Gramsci, that a crisis exists when the old (that is, the nation-state) dies and the new (a European welfare state) cannot be born, this diagnosis is applicable to the core of the problem with respect to European integration. A common market without a common labor and social policy not only endangers social cohesion among the member states of the EU but also threatens the corresponding provisions within those countries.

As representatives of the working class, the European trade unions must take a political stance in this respect. From the perspective of social science, the term “organized interests” (von Alemann, 2012) has become established in studies of such institutionalized representation. In order to assert their influence in the political system, wage earners join together in associations whose task is to represent their individual interests more effectively than if they were to act individually. The European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC—the most comprehensive organization representing their interests at the level of the EU) has membership organizations representing the different sectors, countries, and political directions. The finding and implementation of common positions as the basis for lasting political cooperation among these member organizations will be understood as the social construction of organized interests.

The assumption that interests cannot be simply derived directly from the specific social situation of individual and collective actors is a result of the basic sociological assumption described by Norbert Elias (2009) as “process character” or “the continuous development of the individual within a society” (1991, 46). Instead of pursuing transtemporally fixed goals, the actors confirm, adjust, and relativize their interests continuously in their daily interactions among themselves and with others.

One of, if not the essential challenges with regard to the political goals of European trade unions arises from the political and economic heterogeneity within the EU. Since it was founded after World War II, the characteristic feature of the EU has been the diversity of its member states. This characteristic was reaffirmed in 2000, when the EU instituted its motto of “United in Diversity.” For political actors, this creates the problem of having to develop common cross-border positions despite such national differences. From the trade union perspective, this task entails resolving the problem of dual heterogeneity. On the one hand, the EU countries differ not only in terms of institutional matters such as labor laws or national modes of determining wages because, at the level of the individual organizations, national development paths also determine the structure and scope of the respective trade union movements and their ideological orientations. Thus, the development of common political positions is achieved against the background of diversity within these dimensions.

Generally, cross-border positions between trade unions can be formed in different contexts. While in the field of wage negotiations, a bilateral agreement among the trade unions would be required in order to prevent competition through undercutting, influencing legislative processes demands the most united lobbying strategy possible in relation to the European institutions. The challenge arising from such position formation is acknowledged by Keune (2008, 297) in that the countries and groups of actors in those countries face different problems, interests, and traditions, so their views vary in regard to which solutions are desirable or feasible.

Accordingly, Höpner (2015, 31) sees a “lack of analysis of dominant conflict lines” in the debate within the social sciences regarding the development of political positions in the EU’s political system. The assumption that trade unions might represent the general interests of a European working class in the process of European integration cannot do justice to the complicated constellation in this area.¹ Not only do the labor laws of individual member countries differ in terms of their economic structures, normal wage levels, and protections granted to employees in the workplace, but their involvement in decision-making processes within the national political systems can vary as well, not only in terms of the negotiating strength and organizational structure of the national trade unions or as a consequence of their relationship to one another. A further component is their ideological orientation—even if they agree on the desirable end goals of political activity, this does not mean that the path to achieving them is equally clear-cut.¹

To this effect, there are different preferences in the vertical dimension of trade union representation work in the EU, which lead the respective representatives to reach different conclusions. While the representative of a European sectoral federation also aims to solve a particular problem at the European level, a colleague at the national sectoral level may be satisfied with a regulation at the state level or may even regard the European regulation as a threat.

A further difficulty stems from the horizontal differentiation among national trade unions. Since the eastward expansion of the EU, in particular during the course of the past decade, the political and economic heterogeneity of the EU has increased in such a way that the establishment of common political positions has often appeared unlikely due to the diversity of backgrounds. While western workers may regard their comparatively high employment standards as being at risk, their counterparts from the countries of central and eastern Europe might perceive a competitive advantage in the lack of such standards in their countries of origin. The successful export strategy of the German national economy, and thus also of the trade unions represented there, illustrates a similar dilemma: While German employees might benefit from the export strength of their economic sector, they are not only undercutting the wage earners of the other Euro countries, but they are also indirectly contributing to the macroeconomic asymmetry in the common currency area (Flassbeck and Lapavitsas, 2015). The development of common political positions is therefore impeded by the heterogeneity of the EU with respect to institutional framework conditions for goods and services and the varying levels of national prosperity, as well as by the diversity of the national trade union organizations. Whether it’s the number of members, their worldviews, and the extent to which they are established in the national political system or their financial strength, such parameters influence the political lines taken by trade unions. For example, trade unions that have only weak representation in the national political system often pursue their goals at the European level, while contrastingly the organizations with strong national representation tend to fear a loss of influence through such transfers of competence. Thus, Meardi (2012, 156) also describes the expanded EU at the start of the twenty-first century as “a starting test for union capacities.” The more varied the backgrounds are, the more complicated the process of finding common positions will be.

“To put it briefly,” Hans-Wolfgang Platzer (2011, 107) identifies the increasing heterogeneity of the European trade union organizations as being the main obstacle to their reaching agreement on a position. With continuing negative integration, this problem is gaining in virulence: Common positions are becoming more important but also more difficult to establish. What is “probably the most important yardstick for the effectiveness of trade unions” (Wiesenthal, 1992, 7) is traditionally collective bargaining, in which the negotiation of labor and employment conditions involves the state, capital, and labor. Here, and in social policy, not only is it made clear who is involved in societal added value, and how, but the formal conditions are also determined under which waged work is to be performed.

The more strongly national regulatory opportunities are diminished or abolished, the more urgent the need becomes from a trade union perspective to establish new bodies for collective bargaining regulation. Under conditions of the common market and the currency union, measures for such European collective bargaining would have to be aligned with the maintenance or extension of national labor and employment standards. The coordination of wage agreements to prevent competition by means of undercutting can, in this context, play a role of equal importance with the joint formulation and assertion of certain minimum standards within the European framework.

Relative to the representation of interests in relation to the European institutions, collective agreements among trade unions can also contribute to correcting a “democracy deficit” (Schäfer, 2006; Follesdal and Hix, 2006), which has recently been increasingly diagnosed within the political structure of the EU. While the present critical nature of the integration project is recognized in almost all diagnoses of the current situation (to take Preunkert and Vobruba, 2015; Offe, 2015 as examples), various specialists also refer to the potential that thus emerges for the future shaping of the EU. If we assume that a political majority could be mobilized, according to Seikel (2016, 6), the socio-political capacity of the EU would offer a “historic opportunity for fencing in capitalist competition among the states.”

As Zürn (2013, 413) notes, at the beginning of the twenty-first century, we are “in the middle of an open-ended process of politicization of the EU.” Among political actors, there is a need for debate arising from the identification of urgent problems. If this need can be met constructively, measures can be taken to clear these problems in the future, or at least to alleviate them (Habermas, 2014; Brunkhorst, 2014). The need for discussion among European workers, which corresponds to aggregation and articulation, would here fall within the remit of organized interests; in other words, primarily the trade unions with regard to collective bargaining.

International cooperation among European trade unions has occurred since the mid-nineteenth century. However, under the conditions of European integration, it has taken on a new quality. European trade unions are now developing their political positions within a multi-level system that extends from the operational or regional framework through to an overall European one. With the founding of the ETUC in 1973, an organization was created that is regarded by many as the most comprehensive representative body of all European employees. At the European level, there are further federations in the form of the respective professional associations for the individual sectors, which represent the respective national member organizations there. During the process of European integration, cross-border agreement within this multi-level system is gaining political importance both for the national and for the European organizations. However, there has long been disagreement among social scientists as to the extent to which such coordination ambitions are likely to succeed.

A first group of observers is focused, from an optimistic perspective, on the potential for cooperation among trade unions on a European scale by underlining the opportunity for such cooperation, as well as its necessity on the basis of empirical and often also merely conceptual findings (Kowalsky, 2010). The specific political (collaborative) work of trade unions in Europe may have suffered serious setbacks in recent years, such as in the austerity policy of the Troika, as well as enduring weakness among the international associations through the loss of members in a majority of national organizations. With regard to precisely this crisis, however, Gumbrell- McCormick and Hyman (2013, 192) see the intensified pressure as being a starting point for possible impulses for change: “Hard times may result in strategic paralysis, but can also stimulate the framing of new objectives, new levels of intervention, and new forms of action.” A “transnational class situation” that could “change into a [divided] class consciousness” through the right form of engagement among national trade union representatives is also recognized by Brunkhorst (2014, 167). If, the optimists assume, trade unions are able to establish structures of exchange within the European framework, common positions can be developed despite structural differences.

A less hopeful perspective is found among a second group of research contributions, which point to the obstacles to the international representation of interests by trade unions (that is, a general loss of influence at n...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of Illustrations
• 1 Introduction
• 2 Introduction to the Topic and the State of Research
• 3 Political Fields and the Framework for Their Conceptual Study
• 4 Theoretical Approach
• 5 European Collective Bargaining: Empirical Findings From the Core Areas
• 6 Summary: The Social Structure of Organized Interests in the EU
• Appendix A: Interview Partners
• Appendix B: Nominal Unit Labor Cost Developments in the Eurozone
• Bibliography
• Index