Abstract
The first article in this issue of Economic and Industrial Democracy, ‘Understanding variation in the relationship between financial participation and labour productivity across Europe: The role of country-level factors’, is written by Mark Williams, University of Surrey, UK. By comparing profit-sharing, employee share-ownership and productivity, the author suggests that profit-sharing and labour productivity are associated. The evidence regarding employee share-ownership was mixed. Also, the collective bargaining in the countries studied explains the large variation between the countries. Overall, little evidence of negative effects was found.
The article ‘ “Still out on the street waging this fight”: Women irregular workers and industrial action in Korea’, by Kim Young, Pusan National University, Korea, and Kaye Broadbent, Griffith University, Australia, studies a 510-day strike by women workers in the retail industry in Korea. The women strikers were all irregularly employed and marginal. The authors argue that three factors were important in explaining the long strike. First, the inhuman conditions and employment discrimination; second, the purpose of the strike was important; third was the support from other workers and the union. Finally, supportive actions from the media also played an important role.
Tijs Besieux, University of Leuven, Belgium, Elfi Baillien, KU Leuven’s Faculty of Economics and Business, campus Brussels, Alain Laurent, Verbeke University of Leuven, Belgium, and Martin C Euwema, the University of Leuven, Belgium, have authored the article ‘What goes around, comes around: The mediation of corporate social responsibility in the relationship between transformational leadership and employee engagement’. The authors study the role of corporate social responsibility as a mediator between the engagement of employees and a transformational relationship. Based on bank employees in a European bank, they conclude that CSR as a role of the mediator was indeed important, as were transformational leaders.
The article ‘Organizational trust: How to include the division of labour?’, by Sven Svensson, Mid Sweden University, and University College Gävle, Sweden, explores the organisational trust among external and internal employees. By focusing on access to resources, the author concludes that it is less likely for external workers to have high trust in co-workers, compared to internal employees.
In the article ‘Ethnicity, popular democratic movements and labour in Malaysia’, Richard Croucher, Middlesex University Business School London, and Lilian Miles, Middlesex University, UK, the Malaysian trade union framing of the political agenda is investigated. Especially the cross-ethnic attempts in terms of inclusive democratic movements are illuminated. The authors suggest that the inclusive movement has been somewhat strengthened during the last years, and that the democratic movement has also been important for the unions. Finally, the implications for framing theory are discussed.
Jane Holgate, Leeds University Business School, UK, explores trade union involvement in the article ‘The Sydney Alliance: A broad-based community organising potential for trade union transformation?’ The author investigates community-based organising in relation to the unions in the Sydney Alliance. Important opportunities for the unions were found, also a revitalisation of union activities as well as member participation were positive in this respect. However, it was difficult to sustain the union contribution in a longer perspective. The critical issue of needed resources is discussed in the concluding part of the article.
The article ‘Variation in worker responses to subcontracted employment: A qualitative case study’, by Taylan Acar, University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA, discusses the professional skill level and its relation to employee responses to various forms of subcontracted employment contracts. The balance between core workers and temporary workers is discussed as well. Further, the author also examines the responses from the employer towards various forms of collective action from workers at the bottom of the workplace hierarchy. The process of contracting-out of a university hospital is however still an open question, the author concludes, since the study was focusing on an early stage of subcontracting.
Andreas Kornelakis, King’s College London, and Horen Voskeritsian, Bristol Business School, University of the West of England, UK, discuss trade union strategies in Southern Europe in the final article of this issue, ‘Getting together or breaking apart? Trade union strategies, restructuring and contingent workers in Southern Europe’. The strategies of the unions in Southern Europe are explored in relation to call-centre workers. The union responses to the workers employed in this industry in Greece and Italy show that while the Italian unions chose a strategy of inclusion, the Greek unions excluded the call-centre workers. The authors conclude that among the factors studied, various power resources and differences in union identity can explain the different union responses.