The Future of Trade Unionism

International Perspectives on Emerging Union Structures

Magnus Sverke

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9780429788635
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Economics
• Subtopic: Labour Economics
• Index: Economics

First published in 1997, this volume discusses the conditions for contemporary and future unionism in the light of recent economic, political and managerial changes. It presents theoretical and empirical research from Australia, Austria, Canada, Denmark, Italy, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Russia, South Africa, Sweden and the United States. Part 2 provides a rich international description of threats and challenges to contemporary and future unionism. Part 3 focuses on union strategical and structural change. Part 4 is concerned with the consequences of the changing union environment for member-union relations. Magnus Sverke and the contributors here present research addressing how the changing environmental conditions affect unions and their members and demonstrate the importance of applying an international and multi-disciplinary perspective on the analysis of these issues.

Part I
INTRODUCTION

1Emerging union structures: An introduction

Magnus Sverke

Throughout the world, the features that for a long time have characterized industrial relations appear to be undergoing a radical change. Inter¬nationalization of capital, intensified global competition, technological change, industrial restructuring, decentralized employment relations and the introduction of flexible production systems are all examples of external challenges that trade unions have been facing for the past several years (Hyman, 1994; Kochan, Katz, and McKersie, 1986; Visser, 1994). These environmental changes have been accompanied by declines in several sectors within the manufacturing industry while a major expansion has occurred in the service sector. Simultaneously, the traditional distinctions between different industry sectors and between blue- and white-collar work have been loosened. Sectorial decline, unemployment, and blurred jurisdictional boundaries have led to eroded recruitment potentials and decreasing membership rates for many unions.

How far, then, have trade unions succeeded in adjusting to the rapidly changing industrial relations climate? There is no single comprehensive answer to this question. As noted in several recent volumes (e.g. Hyman and Ferner, 1994; Kester and Pinaud, 1996; Niland, Lansbury and Verevis, 1994; Strauss, Gallagher and Fiorito, 1991; Tetrick and Barling, 1995), it is apparent that the nature and severity of the environmental threats and challenges differ between countries as well as between unions. Depending on factors such as the severity of change, the degree to which unionism has a historical role in the country, employer and legislative resistance to unionism, and the strength of the particular union, the new situation can either be a grave threat or represent a challenge which can be turned into an opportunity.

Unions have effected various structural reforms, such as mergers, in order to come to grips with rapidly changing environmental conditions and declining membership numbers. Such structural reforms are, in turn, likely to affect the membership. On the other hand, members’ support for union goals and willingness to participate in industrial action are of fundamental importance for unions. As noted by Davis (1994, p. 115), the ‘future condition and character of unions will necessarily depend upon their ability to attract and retain members’. An understanding of the changing environmental conditions and the effects they have on unions and their members, therefore, would require theoretical and empirical evidence from both the macro and the micro level.

This book discusses the conditions for contemporary and future unionism in the light of recent economic, political and managerial changes. It presents theoretical and empirical research from Australia, Austria, Canada, Denmark, Italy, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Russia, South Africa, Sweden and the United States. Part II provides a rich international description of threats and challenges to contemporary and future unionism. It also gives a background to remaining parts in which the consequences of the challenges, and union attempts to overcome them, are further investigated. Part III focuses on union strategical and structural change. It contains chapters addressing issues such as union amalgamations, political unionism, strategic planning, decentralized wage bargaining, and strategies for implementing gender equality within unions. Part IV is concerned with the consequences of the changing union environment for member-union relations. It focuses on members’ attachment to, active involvement in, and willingness to belong to unions. Some chapters also address the effects of union membership for employee role fulfilment, of employment characteristics for union attachment, and of structural and strategical union interventions for members’ perceptions of their unions.

The central role of union structure

In Chapter 2, Gary Chaison inquires into the role of union structure in unions’ attempts to meet the threats and challenges of the environment. As a consequence of declining membership numbers, many unions have been forced to consider structural reforms in order better to adjust to the changing environmental conditions. Chaison also observes that decentralized employment relations and collective bargaining practices have faced unions with the dual challenge to both decentralize the authority required for local level bargaining and to centralize the resources needed to develop long-term strategies and support local unions.

There has been a tendency, Chaison notes, to use structural reforms as a means to reduce the number of small unions, increase the share of total membership in the largest unions, and rationalize overlapping union jurisdictions. Obviously, large unions benefit from economies of scale and have the opportunity to increase staff expertise and experience, but smaller unions may have a structure that fosters union identity, encourages participation and better allows for representing members’ interests. The homogeneity of member interests in industrial unions may result in greater bargaining strength, while the heterogeneous membership bases of general unions might provide opportunities for union officers to centralize decision making and, thereby, possibly reduce membership participation. On the other hand, unions with narrow jurisdictions are dependent on one particular industry or craft, and thereby more susceptible to technological change. Chaison’s chapter provides a research agenda and raises a number of important questions about how the emerging structures of unions may affect factors such as the implementation of union goals and strategies, the ability to represent increasingly heterogeneous member interests, the strength and bargaining power of unions, and the attitudes and behaviours of the members. These questions permeate the research presented in the remainder of chapters in this book.

Threats and challenges to contemporary trade unionism

In connection with the gobalization of the economy and the intensified international competition, trade unions all over the world have been faced with a number of threats and challenges to traditional ways of organization and interest representation. In some countries, the existence of unions has long been recognized and accepted by both employers and governmental laws. In other countries, the notion of unionism is a new one and unions are fighting hard for the right to organize the workforce. In still other countries, the conditions of previously strong union movements have changed dramatically, resulting in severe membership losses and even in discontinuations of whole organizations. The chapters in Part II provide an overview of how the changing environmental conditions affect trade unionism in a variety of countries.

In Chapter 3, Rudolf Meidner discusses threats and challenges to contemporary Swedish trade unionism. Sweden is known to be a corporatist society with a high degree of unionization. As Meidner notes, the Swedish Model of interest representation — characterized by an active manpower policy, centralized wage bargaining and the wage policy of solidarity, and with full employment and general welfare as its goals — has served as a source of inspiration for both industrial relations scholars and trade union leaders in many countries. Although, in comparison with other countries, Sweden’s traditionally high degree of unionization remained almost unaffected by the last international crisis in the late 1980s (Visser, 1994), Meidner argues that a number of environmental changes (e.g. the intensified inter¬nationalization, a decline in the manufacturing industry, an increasing unemployment level and a trend towards decentralized bargaining) have undermined the solidaristic wage policy and, therefore, threatened the Swedish model. Only by adopting strategies encompassing a return to full employment, a reconsideration of the principle of solidarity and coordinated wage claims, a strive for new forms of financial participation and a closer cooperation between blue- and white-collar unions, can the Swedish union movement, he suggests, be revitalized.

Wolfgang Pollan (Chapter 4) describes the development within another corporatist society, Austria. His focus is on the nationalized industries, which used to employ almost one third of the workforce, and their role in Austria’s system of Social Partnership. As Pollan shows, even if the Social Partnership, with its strong emphasis on wage restraint, has endured for almost four decades, a number of recent changes have challenged the Austrian industrial relations system. One such change is that since the mid-1980s the traditional informal consensus regarding wage restraint has given way for large wage differentials. The recent privatization of the nationalized industries is another important factor which has affected the Social Partnership system. These changes do not necessarily imply the end of the partnership, Pollan argues, but labour market flexibility, decentralized bargaining and increasing wage differentials put unions under strong pressure and definitively indicate that Austria is on its way to a new industrial relations system.

In Chapter 5, Patrizio Di Nicola discusses recent changes in the Italian union movement. He argues that the proletarian model, characterized by egalitarianism and with a strong social appeal, was an important factor behind the rising union density in the 1970s, but that it also may have been responsible for the membership decline in the 1980s when wage differentials were called for. Despite an increasing proportion of instrumental and passive members in Italian unions, company level bargaining appears to be vital and workers — unionized as well as non-unionized — are willing to support strikes. Di Nicola furthers the idea that Italian workers have moved from membership in unions to selective support for union action, from formal to informal representation. He envisions a future characterized by decentralization, local level bargaining and more informal relationships with the unions.

Chapter 6 provides an analysis of the dramatic decline in New Zealand unionism during the past decade. Raymond Harbridge and Anthony Honeybone demonstrate that in comparison to changes in the labour market and in the public opinion, the removal of the external legitimacy of unions through impaired labour laws has been the major determinant of this decline. Whereas formerly there was a legislative basis of compulsory unionism and inclusive bargaining, the Employment Contracts Act of 1991 has led to decollectivization and a weakening of New Zealand unions. The 1990s has witnessed a dramatic decline in union density, and collective bargaining has gradually been replaced by individual employment contracts. Harbridge and Honeybone argue that in order to meet the demands of the changed industrial relations system, New Zealand unions must find new and better forms of organizing and recruitment if they are to prosper in the new environment.

In Chapter 7, Reynald Bourque and Claude Rioux illustrate how technological change confronts trade unions with challenges to traditional forms of structure and organization, and exemplify with the development in the pulp and paper industry in Quebec, Canada. Decentralization and new, flexible approaches to work organization has led to an increasing number of local agreements and a higher degree of autonomy for union locals. Bourque and Rioux observe that in many cases unions have adjusted their structures to the changed environmental conditions by broadening their agenda to encompass market imperatives and the objective of increased control over the work organization. The trend towards decentralization, they conclude, suggests the emergence of a new representational model in which a strategic alliance between the local union and the employer is maintained, and also calls for a new structural balance between local and central levels within unions.

Chapter 8 focuses on the emergence of a new industrial relations system in Russia. Boris Kagarlitsky provides a vivid description of how the breakdown of the former political system, the passage to a market economy an d the profound privatization have affected the labour market climate and the preconditions for union representation. Russia’s official unions declared their independence of the communist party in 1990, which restricted their agenda to distributive and welfare issues. At the side of the official unions, a new independent union movement, with broader political ambitions and with roots in the support of the perestroika, gradually began to grow in the late 1980s. However, Russia’s tripartite system, which ‘was meaningless when the three parties were not distinct ... [because the] ... overwhelming majority of enterprises remained in state ownership, while the trade unions remained representatives of management, not of workers’ (Clarke and Fairbrother, 1994, p. 377), has definitively restricted the roles of traditional as well as alternative unions. Kagarlitsky observes that unions were even more weakened in 1993, partly as a function of a conflict with the government but primarily because the Russian economy was so bad that workers’ demands for reforms became more or less impossible to realize. Thus, a major challenge for Russia, as for eastern Europe in general (Héthy, 1994), appears to be to achieve both economic an...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of Contributors
• Preface
• Part I Introduction
• Part II Threats and Challenges to Contemporary Trade Unionism
• Part III Introduction
• Part IV Member-Union Relations