Description
Book SynopsisTrade unions in Europe face a range of cross-cutting challenges. This includes the near-universal contraction in union membership; the related decline of traditionally highly unionised blue-collar industries; and the rise of automation, microprocessing, and digitalisation, which can make it cheaper for employers to invest in machines than to pay humans to work. The breakdown of the standard contract of employment and increasing rates of precarious work have further transformed the world of work. Taken together, this makes any collectivist vision of society, and the notion of solidarity upon which trade unionism is built, difficult to sustain.
All this raises tough questions for trade unionists, policy-makers, and researchers alike regarding the future of trade unions, the oldest and largest civil society movement in Europe. The contributions in this volume explore the prospects for union revival across a range of cases, including by focusing on the pursuit of legal remedies and on the opportunities associated with the network society to defend the interests of workers.
This interdisciplinary volume includes contributions that consider the Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Finland, Germany, Spain, Sweden, Poland, the United Kingdom, and the EU level by researchers coming from a range of disciplines and backgrounds. The volume should especially appeal to researchers and practitioners working in the fields of political science, sociology, law, and business studies.
Table of ContentsIntroduction
Barry Colfer, University of Oxford
Chapter 1 : The renewal of trade unionism in France
Dominique Andolfatto, Université de Bourgogne Franche-Comté ; Dominique Labbé, Université de Grenoble-Alpes
Chapter 2: Macron’s reform and trade union power in the field of health at work
Sylvie Contrepois. Centre de Recherches sociologiques et politiques de Paris (CNRS)
Chapter 3: A Primordial Attachment to the Nation? French and Irish Trade Unions in Past EU Referendum Debates
Darragh Golden, University College Dublin; Roland Erne, University College Dublin, Élodie Béthoux, École normale supérieure, Paris
Chapter 4: The European Court of Justice’s role in enhancing trade unions’ power in Europe
Lorenzo Cecchetti, University of Bologna
Chapter 5: The « Gilets Jaunes » movement - Issues of leadership and purpose in fluid organizing
Yoann Bazin, EM Normandie
Barry Colfer, University of Oxford
Chapter 6: New forms of union organising in the Czech Republic
Martin Štefko, Charles University, Prague
Chapter 7: European Trade Unions in the Age of Migration: the state of the art
Rolle Alho, University of Helsinki
Chapter 8: Trade Union Participation and New Forms of Collective Action: Pension Reform in Spain as a case study
Eusebi Colàs-Neila, Univ. Pompeu Fabra (UPF)
Chapter 9: Confronting a moral abyss: Unions and the role of law in the France Telecom case
Julia López López, Univ. Pompeu Fabra (UPF)
Chapter 10: Political participation and local, national and international assemblies
Dario Cositore, Univ. Pompeu Fabra (UPF)
Chapter 11: The right to collective bargaining of economically dependent workers in the digital age
Pieter Pecinovsky, KU Leuven
Chapter 12: Normalcy of Militancy: Trade Union Activism and Power for Collection Change 1971-1974
Jordan Brown, University of St Andrews
Conclusion: Barry Colfer & Richard Hyman (LSE)
Afterword: Esther Lynch, Deputy Secretary General of the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC)
