New trajectories of unionization in the Nordic Ghent countries: Changing labour market and welfare institutions

Abstract

Unemployment insurance funds (the ‘Ghent system’), subsidized by the state and controlled by the labour movement, have contributed to high trade union densities in the Nordic countries. However, dependence on these funds as a recruiting mechanism makes trade union membership sensitive to institutional changes to unemployment insurance benefits and the institutional set-up surrounding and regulating them. In this article, we investigate recent institutional changes in the three Nordic countries following the Ghent model, Finland, Sweden and Denmark, and analyse the consequences for union and fund membership. These countries have witnessed different combinations of two types of reform, less attractive unemployment benefits plus new institutional alternatives to the traditional union-run funds, and this has led to different outcomes in each country. Benefit retrenchment and increased contributions led to a sharp decline in fund membership in Sweden, whereas this trend is less pronounced in Finland and Denmark. Instead, the main trend here has been a shift from union-led to alternative forms of fund membership, but in different ways.