Trade Union Structure Research Articles

Organizing Marketized Services: Are Trade Unions Up to the Job?

In most European countries trade union membership is declining. A contributory factor to this decline has been the failure of trade unions to recruit new members in marketized services at the same rate as members were being lost from areas of traditionally high unionization. This article examines the approaches adopted by trade unions to raise unionization rates in marketized services and identifies some elements of organizational change that might improve the current situation. Central to these reforms is the re-establishment of articulated trade union structures and activity, requiring greater organizational concentration and scope, on one hand, and decentralization of resources and activity on the other. Pivotal is also to develop agendas that accommodate heterogeneity and the needs of individual members and particular groups, at the same time highlighting the interdependence between individual self-realization and collective regulation.

Product Market Competition and Trade Union Structure

textabstractTrade unions tend to reduce the dispersion of wages among their members. Skilled workers may therefore have an incentive to separate from an encompassing union and organize into a separate craft union. In this paper, we examine a theoretical model to gain insight into the determinants of the number of trade unions at a firm. We show that imperfect competition in the product market may drive skilled and unskilled workers together, even though unskilled workers use their political power in the trade union to extract rents from the skilled workers. Additionally, we examine the influence of several features of production technology on trade union structure.

The World's Strongest Trade Unions: The Scandinavian Labor Movement

The Unions Collective Bargaining Trade Union Structure Trade Union Policies The Unions and the Special Democrats Women in the Trade Unions White Collar Unionism Inter-Federation Relationships Union Memberships Benefits How Members View Their Unions Why Scandinavian Unionism has Prospered Epilogue Bibliography Index

Trade Union Bargaining Horizons in Comparative Perspective: The Effects of Encompassing Organization, Unemployment and the Monetary Regime on Wage-Pushfulness

Before wage-pushfulness can be empirically related to the organizational structure of trade unions, the framework conditions that determine their perceived set of options must be adequately conceptualized. Although rising union density tends to increase wage pressure, the greater `encompassingness' of labour movements has a moderating effect. In addition, unemployment and the policy choices of the political authorities create incentives and constraints which shape union responses. The counteracting forces of density and concentration are presented in an interactive model based on data from 20 OECD countries for 1970-96. The article presents statistical evidence suggesting that wage-pushfulness depends on the specific constellation of density, concentration and the extent to which the political authorities are prepared to accommodate wage pressure.

Strategic Campaigns and International Collective Bargaining: The Case of the IBT, FIET, and Royal Ahold NV

Both national and international labor organizations are beginning to critically examine current trade union structures and determine how they can best reorganize structurally, strategically, and tactically in order to meet the challenges of globalization. This case study will show how the IBT and the FIET developed a worldwide company council in attempt to gain recognition and basic labor and bargaining rights for all Royal Ahold NV. While an important first step for trade unions, trade unions must be cognizant of both the benefits and limitations of the emerging structures and tactics.

The `Culture-Free' Organization? Industrial Relations in European Authorities

How far can organization-specific industrial relations coexist with national industrial relations systems? This article adopts a novel perspective on this question by looking at organizations which are outside any national framework of industrial relations. Two case studies of employment conditions, labour relations and trade union structures in European authorities reveal industrial relations systems independent of those of the country in which they are based, and primarily dependent on organization-specific factors such as the institutions regulating employment conditions in the organization.

The Changing Face of Australian Industrial Relations: A Survey*

SummaryIn 1994 David Metcalf, writing about Britain, reached the following conclusion: ‘There can be no doubt that the institutions and processes of British industrial relations has [sic] changed fundamentally in the last decade or so’ (Metcalf 1994, p. 152).This description seems perfectly apt in describing recent change in Australia. The spread of enterprise agreements, the increased scope for individual agreements, the marked fall in trade union membership, the restructuring and rationalization of trade union structures, and the dramatic fall in levels of industrial action and persistence of relative industrial peace have all been relatively recent phenomena and mark the last 10 to 15 years as a period of significant change, certainly as compared with the relative stability of the industrial relations institutions throughout most of this century.Despite this, whether the volume and nature of change experienced to date can be judged as transformational is still questionable. The Commission, for example, despite legislative change designed to limit its influence, continues to act as an arbiter of national and award‐based minima in pay and conditions and as a means of conciliation and arbitration. Furthermore, while the introduction of enterprise and individual agreements within the awards system is a significant change, it does not yet constitute a break with past centralized practices since agreements remain subject to approval by either the Commission or the newly formed Office of the Employment Advocate. Moreover, it is not clear that enterprise agreements are necessarily delivering outcomes that are greatly different from that which would have been delivered in their absence, either through awards or through over‐award bargaining. Only the changed role of the trade union movement can clearly be judged as transformational. Even the most die‐hard unionists have long since given up hoping that the downward trend in union membership might be reversed. The best they can hope for is that the haemorrhage is staunched.

Industrialization and Politics: A Century of Union Structural Development in Three European Countries

Using data from three European countries - Sweden, The Netherlands and Britain - and a period of about one hundred years, this article charts and explains the development of trade union structure. Although the character of the union movements in the three countries differs markedly, the rate of change of union structural events (foundations, dissolutions and mergers) shows considerable similarity. One of the main features of these structural events is that they occur in waves. The article reviews existing explanations of trade union structural development in the light of these findings and suggests how they might be revised.

Women's interests in the workplace. Between delegation and self-representation

In the vicious circle of under-representation of women in trade union structures - particularly in positions of influence - and of women's interests not being considered as a vital component of trade union politics, we see the development of a range of experience which has a huge influence on the articulation and mobilisation of interests, thereby effecting participation in collective promotion of interests. This article reconstructs the process of women articulation their workplace interests in order to illustrate the "inner" and "outer" obstacles regarding both the articulation of interests and these interests being acted upon. These obstacles stand in the way of problems being solved in a manner which would benefit women. An important consequence of this, viz. that this process is usually hampered right from the outset - before interests are even explicitly articulated - points to the necessity of creating new forms of trade union politics in the workplace. Such new forms should address women's current attempts to wield a greater influence, both individually and collectively, regarding their position in the workplace and, most importantly, should take into account their "central points of interest", such as working hours.

Stressing a women's agenda. Women of three European sectors define their needs

Women are inadequately represented in the decision-making structures of trade unions, in their European representative organisations and hence also in the European Social Dialogue. The article describes a series of innovatory workshops mounted in Brussels in the summer of 1995, bringing together women grassroots activists of the automobile components manufacturing sector, the railways, and industrial cleaning. The participants generated a comparison of the employment of women in different European member states and worked towards a women's collective bargaining and policy agenda for their different sectors. Practical steps towards gender democracy in the union structures were emphasised, for without them a women's agenda was unlikely to be effectively pursued.

The Job of the Full-Time Trade Union Official

This paper exarnines the work activities and work patterns of 91 New Zealand full-time union officials located at different levels in the paid trade union structure. While officials with managerial responsibilities in their unions allocated their work-time to various tasks differently compared to those in non-managerial positions, broad similarities existed in terms of how and when managerial and non-managerial union officials morked. The findings are discussed in terrns of the current legislative climate in New Zealand.

The modernisation of trade unions in Denmark

The experience of the past 20 years of declining membership rates in most European countries is no doubt the main reason for identifying a crisis of trade unionism, prompting a direct opportunity to look further into what might be the reason, what has gone wrong and what should be done to modernise trade unions to get them back on the main track again. In Denmark, however, declining membership rates are not the starting point for investigating what unions could do better. Unlike most other European trade unions, the Danish trade unions have experienced a constant increase in trade union membership rates - approximately 80% of all wage earners are unionised in 1994 - but this does not indicate that trade unionism in Denmark does not have any problems. Neither does it mean that the unions are beyond criticism nor that they do not need to implement changes in a modernising effort. The unions are aware of this and indeed so are their critics. To evaluate the necessity for modernisation, the changes in society - especially changes in working life and the political/ideological environment - are a starting point, and this is closely connected to the second topic to be dealt with here, namely the changing contours of the (potential) members. Thirdly to be discussed are issues and trends in collective bargaining, including the international perspectives, and fourthly trade union structures and internal functioning. Finally some main perspectives of change will be pointed out concentrating on the role of trade unions in society and membership participation.

UK Unions: searching for a new agenda

Throughout Western Europe since 1979 policies directed towards flexibility and deregulation have characterised labour market developments. In the UK these policies have been accompanied by the direct restriction of trade union influence. Between 1980 and 1993 Conservative governments in the UK introduced no fewer than eight Acts to regulate union activity. In addition, most tripartite institutions were abandoned, thereby excluding the trade unions from any role in macro-economic policy-making. Within this political environment, employers decentralised bargaining and narrowed the scope of collective job controls. The combined effect of these developments was to place trade unions on the defensive and to encourage the search for a new policy agenda appropriate for the circumstances of the 1990s. This paper reviews four key elements of this new policy agenda: recruitment strategies, modernising trade union structure, a social partnership with employers, and embracing the law. Although many modernising initiatives have been introduced by unions in the UK, it is far from certain that they are sufficient to reverse the decline that has taken place. In each of the policy areas discussed here, it is the tension between workplace and national union structures that is central to reform. The paper shows that workplace organisation in many areas is now isolated and national unions have been unable to support activities in the workplace.

Neocorporatist arrangements and defense of physicians' interests

In Brazil, the trade union structure created by authoritarian corporatism in the 1930's began to change when the cycle of the military regime installed in 1964 came to an end. With redemocratization, the trade union movement began to coexist with the organization of pluralistic interests, a process which has influenced the physicians' movement since 1977. The new National Constitution adopted in 1988 provided for multipartite control over health policy. We present a conceptual discussion of neocorporatist arrangements (which are common in European social experience) and their significance for an understanding of health policy in the context of the so called Health Reform process in Brazil.

Change from Within: Reforming Trade Union Coverage and Structure

The federal government has demonstrated that it supports moves to rationalize trade union structure by enacting legislation which allocates the parties in the industrial relations process different roles in transforming union coverage of workers and workplaces. The power to rewrite union eligibility rules under section 118A of the Industrial Relations Act 1988 provides the Australian Industrial Relations Commission with a direct role in the restructuring process, while the more permissive path towards trade union amalgamations now endorsed by the legislation allows the union movement itself an opportunity to hasten the reform process. The authors contend that the government has chosen to adopt a compromise model of reform by seeking to achieve change from within the existing centralized system. The paper analyzes the different legislative mechanisms, both to identify the capacity for change that currently exists within the Industrial Relations Act, and to assess whether they provide a suitable response to the challenges presently confronting the Australian industrial relations system.

The Italian communist party and the CGIL: A survey

Reconstructed after the war under the aegis of the political parties, the Italian trade unions acquired a greater autonomy and an upsurge in strength after the ‘hot autumn’ of 1969. The PCI's close relationship with the CGIL, which is based on a Communist majority in that confederation, was thereupon made more complex as the three major trade union structures in Italy — CGIL, CISL and UIL — came closer together. Economic crisis in the 1970s, the PCI's turn away from its ‘historic compromise’ at the end of the decade, and the trade unions' setback in the struggle with Fiat led to a new situation, marked by the confrontation with the Craxi government, in which the PCI and the CGIL were in the forefront of the fight to preserve the policy of wage indexation. Despite a continuing close link between the two organizations, the ‘transmission belt’ relationship has passed into history. Each organization is currently in a state of crisis which goes deeper than any it has hitherto had to face.

Trade Union Structure and Workplace Efficiency: An Agenda for Reform

Trade Union Structure and Workplace Efficiency: An Agenda for Reform

NETWORKING

ILO: Women's Participation in Trade Unions. This is the theme of a special issue of Women At Work namely that of the role of trade unions and the ILO in promoting the equal participation of women in economic, political and social life. It presents complementary information to that provided in the previous issue in which trade union and ILO responses, in terms of policies and programmes, to the situation of women workers were identified both nationally and internationally. This issue reflects on the actions being taken to organise women workers and to improve their participation at all levels of trade union activities and structures. A selection has been made of various initiatives by trade unions, nationally and internationally, and ILO technical projects in different regions are described and analysed. In this regard extracts from the ILO 1988 Survey on the Implementation of Convention No. 111 on Discrimination in Employment and Documentation are included. Requirements for trade union action to promote equality are reflected in the various ILO Conventions as well as in a number of ILO resolutions covering specific industrial sectors and geographical regions.

Argentina 1976–1982: Labour Leadership and Military Government

Argentina's labour leaders make up one of the most powerful social groups in the nation's society. Their power is based on the unions' economic resources as well as on their capacity to mobilise rank-and-file workers. However, the group has developed a tendency towards bureaucratisation. On the one hand they are representative of their fellow-workers which is why they are continuously re-elected. At the same time, they have acquired technical and bureaucratic skills which ease their handling of the trade union structure. ‘As long as permanence at the head of the union becomes prolonged, the labour leader draws further away from the cultural and economic criteria of the workers who form the rank-and-file.’1This tendency towards self-perpetuation in office maintains the acquired social status. In addition, the separation from the rank-and-file increases in order to have a relative autonomy and play the role of intermediary between the worker and the employer. In this sense, the corporativism and verticalism inherent in the Peronist doctrine, as a form of selecting leaders, increases the tendency towards bureaucratisation in the trade union leaders, marking a breach with the historical tendency of the Argentine labour movement previous to 1946–7.

Les rapports internes entre le syndicat et ses membres en droit grec (La légalisation de la démocratie syndicale)

No one can doubt that trade unions are instruments of democracy in so far as they are genuinely representative of the wishes of the workforce. Thus we may suggest that democracy within trade unions legitimâtes the trade unions in a democracy. We are interested primarily in the following question : whose responsability is it to ensure democracy in the internal structures of trade unions ? Is it up to trade unions organisations themselves ? Or is it up to the law to establish and supervise trade unions democracy ? When the legislature does decide to intervene to impose democracy on the internal life of trade unions there arises a conflict between trade unions democracy and trade unions autonomy. The present article examines the role of the law in defining and protecting trade union democracy in Greece. The current legislation has as its central purpose the organisation of trade unions elections, the protection of the right to membership, the guarantee of equality between members. Although such legislation guarantees the democratic process in the internal affairs of the trade unions, it tends to restrain their freedom in adopting internal structures adequate to their specific purposes.