March divided,fight united? Trade union cohesion and government appeal for concertation

Why does the government appeal for concertation? Starting from the principal?agent framework and delegation theory, the article argues that the government is more willing to share decision-making power with trade unions when the policy preferences endorsed by the unions are closer to those of the cabinet. Furthermore, it maintains that government propensity to negotiate with trade unions increases as the heterogeneity of union policy preferences grows because the cabinet can exploit its agenda-setting power to divide the union front. The article tests these two hypotheses through a longitudinal analysis of the Italian case (1946–2014). In detail, it takes advantage of two original datasets built through content analysis that provide unique in-depth information on the policy preferences of parties and cabinets and measures the policy positions of the main Italian trade unions, thus allowing assessment of their reciprocal heterogeneity. The results confirm the expectations.     

From Corporatism to Dualism? Thatcherism and the Climacteric of British Trade Unions in the 1980s

This article examines the impact on British trade unions of the break in relations with the government, the economic recession and labour market developments in the 1980s. The shift towards a programme of 'labour exclusion' is related to specific policies designed to weaken trade unions and liberalize labour markets. A close investigation of data on union organization and activity indicates that, despite evident reversals, a full-scale de-institutionalization of industrial relations is not occurring. However, the links between government policies and longer-term socioeconomic trends pose severe challenges for union revival. The article concludes with some considerations on the future prospects of union-government relations.     

Unions in politics: public opinion in the United Kingdom and Denmark

Abstract. The paper examines public opinion about the political involvement of trade unions in the UK and Denmark. Both are systems in which trade unions are linked to a political party and both have high rates of union density. However, whereas British unions have contested governments of both parties and opposed regulation of industrial relations, Danish unions have a tradition of cooperation with government and are entangled in a web of institutionalized industrial relations. Results, however, are amazingly similar. Both the public at large and union members accept unions in general and also their political involvement, but oppose contestation of political authority. Irrespective of union behaviour, beliefs in the supremacy of parliament seems to be firmly rooted in public opinion.     

Challenges to the trade unions: The British and west German cases

The article compares the current crises of the British and West German trade union movements. It argues that re‐organisation strategies to adapt to political and workplace‐related changes are insufficient to reverse the decline in the unions’ influence on government policies and hostile employer strategies. The unions’ position is shaped by both international economic and domestic factors, primarily the relationship to the conservative parties and the bargaining position at the firm level. Strategies to revitalise union power have to be political, not economic or organisational.     

The issue of instability in a simple policy game between the central bank and a representative union

In the recent economic literature the independence of the central bank is often considered to be one of the most effective guarantees to achieve price stability. A strong theoretical basis for this proposition is that the monetary policy delegation given to an independent central bank is an optimal instrument to avoid the time inconsistency problem of monetary policy. This paper investigates the stability properties of this solution in a simple game in which the private sector (i.e. the trade unions) and the public sector (i.e. the central bank) simultaneously interact. A representative monopoly union is considered, and – in line with the recent economic debate – two types of unions are investigated: (i) the standard micro-founded trade union; (ii) the inflation-averse trade union. In both cases, we find that the requirement for the Nash equilibrium to be stable imposes a limit to the conservativeness of the central bank. Instability of the Nash equilibrium reveals a strategic co-ordination failure between the public and the private sector.     

浅析新形势下工会工作的发展方向

从1978年改革开放的号角吹响开始,我国经济的发展就步入了一个新的阶段。如今,经历30多年的发展,我国的市场经济体制正逐步发展和走向完善,伴随着这些发展的还有我国企事业单位的改革。改革必然会产生各种各样的新问题和新矛盾。在这种情况下,作为单位思想灵魂的工会组织就起到了至关重要的作用,它是单位和职工沟通的桥梁,更是维护单位稳定的最大保障,所以,如何在新形势下确立好工会工作的发展方向值得探究。本文针对新形势下工会工作的发展方向提出了立足根本,不断完善工会基本职能;发挥好工会的监督功能,重视活动的民主性;提高工会组织能力的建设及创新是增强工会工作源泉的四点建议。     

Competition and solidarity: union members and immigration in Europe

This article addresses an understudied question in the comparative political economy of migration. How have trade unions shaped the attitudes of their members toward immigration? Unions are at the core of left-wing politics in most European countries, and support for immigration is usually a left-wing position. However, many of the core constituents of unions are those whose interests are most likely to be adversely affected by an increase in the supply of labour. The article shows that the pattern of European trade union leaders becoming supportive of open immigration policies has solidified over the past decade. It then provides evidence that this rhetoric has shaped the attitudes of union members and that the effect has become stronger over time. Finally, it shows that the effect is robust to the exclusion of countries where self-selection into unions on the basis of ideology is likely to be strongest.     

Public Sector Labor Relations Scholarship: Is There a “There,” There?

Public sector union membership is thriving compared to the private sector. Moreover, public employee unions play a significant role in policy making at every level of government. Yet research on public sector labor relations is sporadic and uneven, perhaps negligible. Why so? This article surveys the literature on public sector unionism and seeks to answer that question. Its conclusion points to a course of action for renewing interest in this seminal field among public administration, management, and policy scholars.     

Addressing Workers’ Freedom of Association and its Dispute Resolution in the Context of the Shari’ah

Freedom of association for trade union has been generally accepted as part of basic human rights in Islam. Freedom of association, which include the right to join and participate in trade union activities, can be susceptible to disputes between employers and employees as well as trade unions. Islam provides freedom of association in labour relations and also mechanisms to settle disputes pertaining to such freedom. Conciliation (sulh) and arbitration (tahkim) are both used methods in the inception of Islam, which have similarities with the modern sense. We shall discuss in this article the right to dispute resolution between employers and trade unions in the context of freedom of association in labour relations as based on Shari’ah law and using modern legal systems of Islamic countries such as Iran, Malaysia and Saudi Arabia as examples.     

Trade unions for EMU: Sectoral preferences and political opportunities

Surveys conducted on the political economy of Europe's Economic and Monetary Union have seldom considered the response of domestic interest groups, notably trade unions. This article contrasts and explains the positions on EMU adopted by major British, French and German trade unions, in the process reassessing the so‐called interest group approach to preference formulation. It is argued that while the impact of sectoral orientation appears significant, it is mitigated by the intervention of ideological and institutional factors. On a substantive level, unions turned out to be broadly supportive of what many had labelled a ‘monetarist’ project. If as is often argued, social and political cohesion is needed for monetary union to endure, this represents an important development.     

Industrial Relations and the Limits of the State: Can a Left Labour Government Resurrect Comprehensive Sectoral Collective Bargaining and Restore Trade Union Power?

Since 2017 the British Labour Party has proposed mandatory sectoral collective bargaining (SCB) as a comprehensive strategy to rebuild the trade union voice across the entire economy. The intellectual roots lie in the Institute of Employment Rights’ (IER) Manifesto for Labour Law (2016). First, this article explains the core IER approach, questioning its feasibility given current low levels of union membership and bargaining coverage and whether it would produce the stable and productive economy promised. Second, the article develops four social science objections to this state-driven approach centred on industrial relations history; political sociology; economics; and political philosophy. The conclusion argues that while stronger voluntary trade unions could help, it is neither practicable nor desirable for the state to impose a trade union, single-channel approach to employee voice. Instead, a ‘mixed economy of voice’ is proposed, perhaps including statutory works councils, which speaks directly to all employees—union and non-union—and wins broader political, employer and public support.     

Labor union membership and voting across nations

Despite a large literature on voter turnout around the world, our understanding of the role of labor union membership remains muddled. In this paper, we examine the relationship between union membership and voting. Using individual level International Social Science Program (ISSP) data from thirty-two countries, we find that union members are more likely to vote and that the substantive effect rivals that of other common predictors of voting. This relationship is also largely invariant across an array of demographic factors, indicating that unions tend to be “equal opportunity mobilizers.” We also find that unions have “spillover” effects: controlling for a variety of other factors, even non-union members are more likely to turn out to vote in countries with higher union densities. In sum, we find that labor unions have a consistent political influence across a wide set of countries.     

The dilemma of youth unemployment: Trade union responses in the federal republic of Germany,the UK and France

The high political salience of youth unemployent in European countries is not matched by a prompt coherent and concerted response by trade unions. In particular, measures to ease the transition from school to working life have evoked very mixed reactions. Aspects of the national trade union movements themselves are important determinants of this situation: political alignment and the legitimacy of their policy‐making role; financial, membership, and organisational resources; the structure and practice of collective bargaining, and finally, relations with other organisations representing youth. The three countries examined ‐ West Germany, Britain and France ‐ show that although the trade unions concerned are aware of the problems, they differ in their capacity to take effective action.     

Neocorporatism and the 'happiness index', or what the trade unions get for their cooperation

Abstract. In concluding a recent analysis of the conditions for trade union wage restraint, Colin Crouch asks 'what neocorporatist unions gain for their members in exchange for restraint?'. An attempt to answer this question is made, first by examining a range of policy outcomes which may be regarded as measures of possible union gains, and, second, by analyzing the problem in terms of indexes measuring possible trade-offs between union objectives. It is suggested that an analysis in these latter terms offers a far more cogent explanation of trade union wage restraint than can be provided by looking at policy outcome measures separately.     

Continuity and Change: The New South Wales Public Sector Under Labor

This paper analyses recent developments in wage bargaining in the New South Wales public sector under the Labor government. It contrasts the approach taken by the former Coalition government with that of its successor. The discussion is focused on the Memorandum of Understanding between the Labor government and the public sector unions. With the agreement of the unions, the government has reasserted both substantive and procedural control over public sector industrial relations. This has not, however, prevented widespread industrial action in schools, hospitals and public transport and continuing tensions between the principal public service union and the government.     

A positive theory of the earnings relationship of unemployment benefits

In a wage bargaining model, a stronger earnings relationship of unemployment benefits may reduce wages. Therefore, the benefit structure significantly influences profits and trade union utility, raising the question as to how the benefit structure is determined in the political process. We consider a government that chooses the earnings relationship in order to maximize its political support. Our model predicts a strong earnings relationship under right-wing governments and a weak relationship when unions are influential. Using panel data for 19 OECD countries, we find support for these theoretical predictions. Moreover, we show that the earnings relationship varies negatively with openness.     

Small States,Large Unitary States and Federations

Employing a political-economics approach, this paper comparessmall states and unions when the former fail to internalizecross-border externalities of publicly provided goods. Itdiscusses two types of unions: federations with more than onelevel of government and unitary states. While unitary statesare unable to differentiate public spending according todiffering preferences, rents of governments in a federationare higher due to a common-pool problem. The comparison leadsto the following results. (1) Citizens prefer small states tolarge states if spillover effects are weak. (2) They benefitfrom a multi-level government only if their preferencesheavily differ from the median-voter's preferences and ifspillovers are strong. Based on this comparison the paper alsodiscusses the creation of unions. Making specific assumptionon the distribution of preferences, it analyzes strong Nashequilibria at the union formation stage.     

Informed Preferences? The Impact of Unions on Workers' Policy Views

Despite declining memberships, labor unions still represent large shares of electorates worldwide. Yet their political clout remains contested. To what extent, and in what way, do unions shape workers' political preferences? We address these questions by combining unique survey data of American workers and a set of inferential strategies that exploit two sources of variation: the legal choice that workers face in joining or opting out of unions and the over‐time reversal of a union's policy position. Focusing on the issue of trade, we offer evidence that unions influence their members' policy preferences in a significant and theoretically predictable manner. In contrast, we find that self‐selection into membership accounts at most for a quarter of the observed “union effect.” The study illuminates the impact of unions in cohering workers' voice and provides insight on the role of information provision in shaping how citizens form policy preferences.     

Collective Bargaining and The Performance of the Public Schools

Students of American politics rarely study public sector unions and their impacts on government. The literature sees bureaucratic power as rooted in expertise, but largely ignores the fact that bureaucrats often join unions to promote their own interests, and that the power of their unions may affect government and its performance. This article focuses on the public schools, which are among the most numerous government agencies in the country, and investigates whether collective bargaining by teachers—the key bureaucrats—affects the schools' capacity to educate children. Using California data, analysis shows that, in large school districts, restrictive labor contracts have a very negative impact on academic achievement, particularly for minority students. The evidence suggests, then, that public sector unions do indeed have important consequences for American public education. Whether they are consequential in other areas of government remains to be seen, but it is an avenue well worth pursuing.     

Governments,trade unions and the macroeconomy: An expository analysis of the political business cycle

We have briefly reviewed the state of the art of research on the political business cycle in the context of a simple textbook model of the macroeconomy. It has been demonstrated that the government-generated political business cycle vanishes as expectations turn rational. Even then, however, non-inflationary policies apparently are time inconsistent. Hence, democracies seem to be stuck with some sort of inflationary bias.Countries with fairly centralized wage bargaining and strong labor unions have to deal with a second political source of instability in the macroeconomy: if the labor union's program contains political items such as equal educational opportunities for working class children, extended co-determination, a more equal distribution of wealth, and the like, they will prefer to see those parties in power who show the best prospects of implementing those items. So the trade union's wage bargaining strategies take into account how bargaining results influence the state of the economy and, hence, the reelection prospects of the ruling government — and they will do so in different ways, depending on whether the union prefers the government to the opposition party or vice versa.