Unions as “managers of precariousness”

Abstract

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to argue that: in a context of global labour market competition and in the absence of new strategic repertoires, class trade unions are progressively becoming “managers of precariousness”. Thus, the paper challenges the compromise logic as the unique solution to corporate threats to relocation, since it undermines trade union power resources, mainly discursively and organisationally, and hinders trade union capacity to transform the balance of forces to their favour later, when the hegemonic discourse can more easily be challenged in periods of crisis.Design/methodology/approachThe paper draws upon the doctoral fieldwork the author undertook in the city and province of Barcelona during Spring–Summer 2015. More than 30 semi-structured interviews to various union delegates and regional metal officials have been accompanied by an exhaustive review of primary and secondary documentation. In so doing, this paper gives a rich and nuanced account on the different “world-views” and strategies that union delegates pursue when bargaining against transnational corporations.FindingsThis paper shows how the conservative position that Spanish trade unions adopted to the 2008 financial crisis in the automotive industry is path-dependent to dynamics established during the 1990s when lean production techniques were implemented in exchange for higher salaries. It draws upon the collective bargaining history of the Nissan–Zona–Franca assembly factory in the outskirts of Barcelona to, crucially, explain how signing micro-corporatist pacts and portraying them as the unique solution to corporate threats to relocation undermines trade union power resources, and has two important drawbacks: that micro-corporatist pacts only postpone the recurring threat to relocation to the future by eroding, not improving, the conditions of the workforce, accepting corporate discourse erodes the solidarity among workers, and it also allows yellow unions to displace class unions.Originality/valueThis paper enriches and updates the literature on micro-corporatism, collective bargaining in transnational corporations, and the erosion of trade union power resources which dates back to the 1990s and early 2000s. Whilst the negative aspects that competitiveness pacts have on workers’ salaries and conditions have been widely reported, this paper provides a rich and updated explanation of how such pacts have negative repercussions on the discursive and organisational power resources that unions have at the workplace level. In that sense, the originality of this paper rests on engaging into a substantiated historical analysis on how trade unions change throughout time as a result, at least partially, of their own strategic choices. Moreover, this paper clearly shows that concessionary positions towards collective bargaining are self-undermining.