In the wake of the financial and economic crisis, the trade unions face unprecedented challenges. While the European powers that be are blatantly coordinating the advent of national and European austerity policies, entailing drastic consequences for workers and the weaker members of society, the trade unions are set to mobilize their forces. The authors describe and illustrate various facets of this new situation. What role is played by economic governance? Does co-determination still have a chance? Is belief in market forces already firmly entrenched or can ways still be found of strengthening social rights? Do the European umbrella organisations pay obeisance to the official European bodies or are they mobilizing to bring about a serious change of course, to find the road to an alternative Europe?

From the perspective of trade unions, European integration makes it more necessary than ever before to establish common political positions. At the same time, increasing heterogeneity between the member states makes the crafting of such positions more and more difficult. Can, under these circumstances, a joint political line among European trade unions emerge? To answer this question, the book sheds light on transnational trade union cooperation in the three most important policy fields: the debate around the Freedom of services, the discussion over a European minimum wage, and the efforts of international wage coordination. Drawing on the results of extensive field research based on a qualitative study among trade unions from Hungary, Poland, Sweden, and Germany, as well as representatives from the European level, this book points to a significant gap in European trade union politics between pretensions and reality. The findings provide a solid theoretical framework, suitable not only to explain current dynamics in the field of European trade unionism, but also promising for further research on the topic. With its focus on a contested political field, Trade Unions in the Course of European Integration contributes to practical and theoretical debates within European trade unionism. As an adequate understanding of European trade unionism in general and collective bargaining requires a twofold perspective on European integration and the role of trade unions in European labor relations, two fields of scholarly interest are being addressed. Moreover, with its focus on European trade unionism as an internationalist project of labor politics, the book will also appeal to those interested in the field of Global Labor Studies.

Trade 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.

« The book presents the findings of a four-year study of the challenges facing trade unions and their responses in ten west European countries. The project involved a substantial number of interviews with key union representatives and academic experts in each country, together with the collection of a large amount of union documentation and background material. The book gives an account of trade unionism in each country, the main recent challenges that unions have faced, and responses in terms of recruitment and mobilisation; organizational restructuring; new approaches to collective bargaining; changing political strategies; and international activities. The analytical starting point is that trade unions are conservative institutions containing significant veto points to organizational change, but at the same time can display dynamism and innovation, and that external challenges can therefore stimulate important internal adaptation. The book engages with the debates of the past two decades on union modernization and revitalization, and more generally with theories of institutional change and with the literature on varieties of capitalism. The central theme is that while trade unions do not easily change identities and core practices, they are not locked into inertia. Trade unions are not unitary actors but are internally contested organizations, and internal conflict is itself a potential source of dynamism. The literature on "revitalization" has tended to divide between the over-optimistic and the over-pessimistic; this study presents a more nuanced and differentiated account. In particular, it attempts to identify some of the key internal and external conditions for effective strategic innovation. »--

This open access book discusses transnational trade union cooperation in Europe – its forms, focuses, conditions, and obstacles. It provides an overview of existing trade union cooperation and includes detailed analyses of two specific questions: the debates on statutory minimum wages and the Posting of Workers Directive. Drawing on empirical research, the authors take a comparative approach, considering national industrial relations regimes as well as individual sectors. With the ongoing processes of integration in Europe, it has become increasingly important for unions to cooperate with regard to employers and EU institutions. The authors illustrate the interconnections between national and European industrial relations, and explore the process of European integration in labour markets. Illustrating the potential for and difficulties involved in deepening trade union cooperation across Europe, this work is a vital read for trade unionists, researchers and students interested in European trade unionism and labour markets.

Social Europe is a key topic in the construction of the EU and its institutions. This volume examines the current state of, and perspectives for, Social Europe, as well as key issues in European social policy, including the posting of workers, the impact of the free market and regulations on social convergence, work automation, digitalisation, taxation and democracy in the workplace. The aim of this volume is to identify a course to be followed in integrating the EU’s social policies and point to areas in which co-operation between member states is likely to produce best results. While a Social Europe was previously seen to be a natural consequence of political and economic integration, it is now viewed as a separate area that requires active policies to preserve the European project. The EU’s big question today concerns the level at which this policy should be pursued: the volume’s contributors outline difficulties with harmonising social policies across the Union, but they nevertheless argue that, owing to the common challenges faced by Europe, the idea of a Social Europe must not be abandoned and requires specific action. The volume consists of 11 chapters written by a variety of expert authors, analysing the idea of a Social Europe and proposing ways in which it could be put into practice. Social policy can no longer be seen as derived from economic policy but rather as a separate driver of development that could be of interest to the northern, southern and eastern states of the EU. Jacek Kubera, PhD, Assistant Professor, Faculty of Sociology, Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań. Tomasz Morozowski, PhD candidate, Faculty of Political Science and Journalism, Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, and analyst at the Poznań Institute for Western Affairs.

This book examines the integration of major trade unions from the six biggest countries of EU's Eastern enlargement into EU governance structures. Based on extensive empirical research, including more than 150 in-depth interviews, statistical data collection, document research, and eight detailed case studies, the contributions describe the activities and perceptions of the trade unions under investigation and the different levels of engagement, including European umbrella organizations, interregional cooperation, and European Works Councils. The book thus contributes to political science research on interest representation and Europeanization as well as sociological research on labor relations.

To date, critical analysis of the EMU project has largely been advanced from the centre-right spectrum of British politics. Comparable questions from the centre-left have failed to find a coherent voice. Although, the European fault-line cannot be characterized as a neat Left-Right issue there are noticeable divisions in opinion across British business, the trade union movement and within the Labour Party. Offering a unique insight into this key debate from the ‘centre-left’, eurosceptic view point, this book provides a rigorous analysis of all the salient economic and political issues of concern, such as: * the economics of a single currency * employment and social implications * sovereignty * political determination. The arguments presented in this volume highlight the emergence of a coherent alternative to deepening economic integration as a platform to build a just and equitable society. Contributions are drawn from leading academics, trade union leaders and prominent politicians, both from the Labour Party and the wider progressive Left in British politics. This informative and thought provoking book will be indispensable reading for students and practitioners in economics, politics and international relations, as well as those interested in this highly contentious topic.

The European Productivity Agency (EPA) was initially designed as a means to "Americanize" Western Europe through the transfer of American techniques, know-how and ideas to the Old Continent. It increasingly became a framework within which the member countries sought "European" solutions to their problems. This study of the EPA sheds new light on the nature of European cooperation and transatlantic relations in the 1950s as well as on the changes these relations underwent during the early postwar period.

The volumes in this set report and analyse European trade union responses to the 1970s economic crisis across a range of nations including, Germany, Italy, France, Britain and Sweden. The set will be of interest to those studying trade unions, industrial relations and European political economy.