Abstract
This article analyses the speech activities of trade unions at European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) Executive Committee meetings, 2005–2012. It is based on the minutes of 48 meetings and direct observations of some of them. The most frequent themes are economic issues, communications and labour law, followed by common activities and intra-organizational issues. Analysis by different regime types shows marked differences in the extent and focus of participation; an important factor behind these differences appears to be the unions’ role in their national industrial relations systems. The impact of the economic crisis in Southern Europe is also highly visible. Another aspect is the number of seats the organizations hold, mirroring size as well as financial and human resources. Moreover, speech patterns seem to reflect ideological and cultural differences.
Keywords
Introduction
The European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) is a key forum for trade union activity in Europe. It is the only official organization to speak on behalf of employees at European Union (EU) level. In this article, we examine on what topics and to what extent the national affiliates make their voice heard at its Executive Committee meetings, in which all are entitled to participate. Speech patterns can be expected to be linked to the size, resources and power of member unions, the issues which particularly concern them and the priority they give to cooperation within the ETUC. European trade unions operate under diverse conditions, not least because they are based in nation states which differ in terms of population size, economic strength and history. Their role in each national industrial relations system varies a great deal: some are crucial partners with employers, employers’ associations, governments and public authorities, whereas others are much less significant. Unions also diverge in their capacity to recruit individual members, which in turn affects their density and financial resources.
The various institutional circumstances under which trade unions are working have stimulated discussion on whether it is fruitful to distinguish separate industrial relations regimes (Howell and Givan, 2011; Meardi, 2012; Visser et al., 2009), and several classifications have been proposed (Crouch, 1993; Schmidt, 2006; Vandaele, 2011; Visser et al., 2009). Although such typologies involve several problems, we believe it is worthwhile to employ some such classification, however, tentatively. There are also cultural differences that need to be considered, for example, regarding styles of participation in meetings (Haug, 2013).
Our empirical focus is on the period 2005–2012. The investigation is based on the minutes of the Executive Committee meetings and furthermore, importantly, on direct observations made through participation in some of the meetings.
Background and theoretical perspectives
The overall policy-making body of the ETUC is the Congress, to which the affiliated organizations – primarily national confederations, but also the sectoral European Trade Union Federations (ETUFs) – send delegates, largely in proportion to their membership (ETUC, 2011). It elects the President, the General Secretary and the members of the Secretariat. The Congress meets once every 4 years. In the interim, the Executive Committee decides on policies required to implement the strategy of the Congress; it meets at least four times a year and is composed of representatives from the affiliates, which are given seats according to a formula related to their size. Moreover, it is mandated to decide on positions with respect to European employers’ organizations and European institutions and on actions in support of trade union demands. Another assignment is to draw up internal procedural rules. It also chooses a smaller Steering Committee which meets more frequently.
Transnational trade unionism can take many different forms and undergo several stages of development (Bieler, 2005, 2008; Gajewska, 2008; Kay, 2005; Müller et al., 2010). Thus, there are looser forms of cross-border trade union cooperation like bilateral or multilateral exchanges of information as well as tighter forms like the establishment of coordination mechanisms and staging of joint activities in networks with a limited mandate. The ETUC can be defined as a ‘meta-organization’ (Ahrne and Brunsson, 2011), as its members consist of other organizations, and has a stronger mandate to act on behalf of its members.
There are several implications of having other organizations as members. One is that meta-organizations tend to strive for consensus decisions to avoid or minimize conflict among members. They may therefore stipulate veto rights for affiliates. This emphasis on consensus reflects the need for maintaining legitimacy and authority: ‘the member organizations cannot easily be steamrollered or voted out’ (Ahrne and Brunsson, 2011: 145). As a consequence, actual votes on proposals are uncommon; the normal procedure is to seek compromise through discussion. By rule, the ETUC Executive Committee must ‘endeavour to reach the widest possible measure of agreement’ and ‘if a vote is necessary, decisions shall be taken by a majority of two-thirds of the votes’ (Article 19; see also Dølvik, 1997: 392–395). There is a quorum of at least three quarters of the full members.
We expect union activity at Executive Committee meetings to be associated with the size of the affiliates. This ranges from not much more than a thousand members (USDA in Andorra, LANV in Liechtenstein) to some 6 million (DGB in Germany, TUC in the United Kingdom). It reflects not only variations in the size of each national workforce but also the huge differences in union density. Unionization rates are highest in the Nordic region and fairly high in Belgium, Cyprus and Malta, but are very low in France and in many East European countries. Union density in Europe has declined almost everywhere in recent decades, but in practice the disparities have widened (Bechter and Brandl, 2013: 26–27; Bryson et al., 2011; Gumbrell-McCormick and Hyman, 2013; Kjellberg, 2011: 47–48).
Higher union density makes it easier for union organizations to speak and act on behalf of workers, but other factors are important as well, not least their interactions with employers and governments. As these interactions evolve overtime, they must be seen in light of both current and historical conditions.
In the report Industrial Relations in Europe 2008, Visser et al. (2009: 48–52) specify five clusters of industrial relations regimes in Europe: organized corporatism (Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden), social partnership (Belgium, Germany, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Austria and Slovenia), liberal (Ireland, Malta, Cyprus and the UK), state-centred (Greece, Spain, France, Italy and Portugal) and mixed/transitional (Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Hungary, Poland, Romania and Slovakia). The first four categories have long been familiar in analyses of industrial relations in Western Europe, and mapped closely with a geographical division: northern, central, western and southern, respectively. EU enlargement in 2004 and 2007 complicated this pattern: though Visser et al. assigned most new member states to a centre-east group, Cyprus and Malta were classified as ‘liberal’ and Slovenia as ‘social partnership’ regimes.
Although there are thus now inconsistencies in applying the geographical labels, for simplicity we sometimes use them here, or synonyms such as the Nordic unions and the Southern European countries. All classifications of industrial relation regimes are simplifications; it is difficult, if not impossible, to do justice to all existing variation, and there will always be countries that do not clearly fit given classifications. Typologies also tend to have difficulties in incorporating change and may hence convey a too static view of the world. Nevertheless, we think that comparative research can benefit from their use, at least if applied cautiously. There are also empirically grounded arguments for using geographical groupings. For example, unions belonging to the same regional regime gather to discuss the annotated agenda prior to the ETUC Executive Committee meetings. The Council of Nordic Trade Unions (NFS) is probably the most formalized forum for such meetings. In addition to institutional similarities, geographic and cultural proximity is certainly important for regional commonality of positions.
The five systems have been described by several authors (Larsson et al., 2012; Visser et al., 2009) and these descriptions do not have to be repeated here. However, what is particularly interesting is that there are regime-related differences in attitudes towards trade union cooperation in Europe. Thus, unions in the North tend to be rather sceptical (to safeguard their own industrial relations regime), whereas those in the Centre-West and the South are clearly positive (Bieler, 2005, 2008; Furåker and Bengtsson, 2013a, 2013b; Furåker and Lovén Seldén, 2013; Glassner and Vandaele, 2012; Larsson, 2014; Lovén Seldén, 2014; Schulten, 2008: 434–435). In the West and the Centre-East, we also find more reluctant attitudes, but not entirely negative.
A related theoretical approach is the classification into three types of trade unionism: business, radical and integrative (Gumbrell-McCormick and Hyman, 2013: 50–55). Business unionism is focused on what can be achieved in the market and appears in liberal countries such as the United Kingdom. The radical type of union, as is found in countries like France and Italy, is more of a social movement with strong political, ideological or religious identities which are often competing and associated with fragmentation. Integrative unionism involves unions with a key role as social partners in economic development, as in the social-democratic Nordic countries but also, despite significant differences, in Germany.
In a study based on survey data from 250 European trade unions, Larsson (2014) examined unions’ attitudes to and participation in contentious action such as demonstrations, boycotts, overtime bans and strikes. The Nordic unions had participated to a lesser degree than others in demonstrations and boycotts, whereas unions from the Centre-West and the South had been most active. Responses to the question whether unions should engage more in these types of contentious action at European level results were similar, but no clear differences between the Nordic unions and those from the Centre-East could be detected.
Specification of research questions
What does a high level of speech activity at the ETUC Executive Committee meetings represent? Does it reflect differences in the resources unions have for preparing and participating in meetings? We anticipate that differences in speech frequencies are linked to the number of seats on the Executive Committee: organizations with more seats are more likely to make statements. This factor is a rough indicator of size as well as of resources. Unions must be able to set aside personnel for these events, but some have few employees available and domestic tasks may be more urgent. Financial resources are essential, as the affiliates must pay their own costs for participation in the meetings, which causes problems for some.
Does higher speech frequency increase influence on ETUC decisions and policies? This cannot be tested with the available data, but some union representatives may speak a lot without much impact on decisions, strategies, programmes and actions. Nevertheless, it is likely that high speech activity to some extent mirrors an interest in affecting ETUC policy. At the same time, we must bear in mind that many issues dealt with in the Executive Committee have been settled beforehand. There are thus perhaps other and more effective channels for unions to influence ETUC policies than making their voice heard at Executive Committee meetings.
Speech frequency may also reflect how much unions value cross-border union cooperation in general. As demonstrated above, there are regime-related differences in this regard. Unions from the South and the Centre-West appear to be most eager to promote transnational trade union cooperation in Europe, and those from the North seem to be most sceptical. High speech activity may perhaps also be a manifestation of the weight ascribed to a certain theme. The economic crisis in Europe has mainly hit countries in the South, and we therefore expect unions from that region to be particularly inclined to convey their concerns at the economic situation.
A positive attitude to European trade union cooperation is likely to lead to interventions on intra-organizational issues and common activities, but it is a more open question what Nordic-style scepticism might imply. On the one hand, a sceptical view may indicate dissociation from European trade union cooperation and thus lower speech activity. On the other hand, the Nordic unions perhaps find it necessary to prevent what they perceive as too far-reaching decisions and actions, and this could encourage active participation at meetings. The West and the Centre-East can probably be expected to show a lower engagement at the meetings under scrutiny. Above all, this holds for the Centre-East unions that generally have lesser resources and are also newcomers on the European scene.
Yet another aspect is that differences in frequency of speaking may be associated with speech and meeting cultures (Fantasia, 1988; Haug, 2013). Moreover, to be able to report back to members at home that one has been active during the Executive Committee meetings may encourage representatives to speak. It would certainly be interesting to examine the actual length of statements, but this is not possible with the data to hand.
Data
The principal empirical basis of this article is the minutes from ETUC Executive Committee meetings over 8 years: 2005–2012. All in all, 48 meetings were held during this period, each lasting a day and a half. Additionally, the Swedish SACO delegation invited one of us to attend five meetings during this period. Through this participant observation, our quantitative data have been supplemented with qualitative information, significantly improving our possibilities of providing a fuller picture.
Unfortunately, we have not been able to obtain information on attendance at the meetings, but from the minutes we can see whether or not organizations have contributed to the discussion. Eight broad themes were identified: ‘economic issues’, ‘labour law’, ‘communications’, ‘intra-organizational issues’, ‘common activities’, ‘labour market policy’, ‘social dialogue’ and ‘other’. The first category contains statements on the economic crisis, EMU, EU 2020, the EU financial framework, economic growth, the Single Market and the banking union. Labour law includes European company law, the Laval quartet of judgments, transnational company agreements and the various directives on matters such as posting of workers, working time, services in the internal market, health and safety, maternity protection and works councils. The communications category covers a standing item on the agenda, communications from the General Secretary, covering political and economic events since the last meeting. The member organizations then comment on this report and describe current developments in their own countries. The intra-organizational theme is exemplified by matters like accession of new members, membership fees, preparation of congresses and conferences and ETUC finances and priorities. Common activities encompass various ETUC actions and campaigns, including coordination of collective bargaining. Labour market policy involves statements on, for example, the EU employment package, lifelong learning, vocational training, active ageing, gender imbalances in the labour market and work–family balance. Social dialogue relates to the institutionalized European social dialogue, comprising issues such as violence at work and active inclusion. The remaining discussions, for example, about energy and environmental issues, have been grouped into a residual category.
Certain problems with the dataset must be mentioned. First, the minutes are written in different ways during the 8 years we cover. Sometimes, we only know that a union representative spoke at least once in connection with a given agenda item, whereas other minutes provide more detailed information regarding each statement. Our solution in the former case is to count one statement per union mentioned. Second, we lack much knowledge about the opinions expressed; it is rarely indicated whether a speaker favoured or opposed a certain suggestion. The lack of a consistent terminology in the minutes often makes it difficult to comprehend what has been decided. Delegates may ‘take note of’, ‘approve’, ‘support’ or ‘endorse’ the documents, reports, resolutions and proposals under discussion. A third problem is that not all unions were members throughout the whole 8 years. Some joined during the period, while some have merged, sometimes under the name of the dominant organization, sometimes under a new name; we have then chosen to use the most recent name throughout. Finally, we must be aware that the number of national affiliates differs across countries: only one in some cases, up to six in others and inter-union rivalry may encourage the expression of views during meetings. As noted above, member unions differ greatly in terms of individual membership, and figures are not always available and are often unreliable. For size, we use number of seats as indicator, including both members and substitutes.
At the time of data collection, from late 2012 to early 2013, there were 84 national confederations affiliated to the ETUC, compared to 90 today. We excluded the Turkish affiliates from our study, because they do not fit in with our typology of regimes. For the same reason, the ETUFs and standing committees such as the Women’s Committee have been omitted. This left 80 national confederations spread over the five regimes.
Results
We present both quantitative and qualitative aspects of our data. This includes an analysis of the minutes in quantitative terms, focusing on frequencies of speech activities on various themes. To give a fuller picture of the contents of the discussions and the meeting styles, we supply a number of concrete qualitative examples, taken both from the minutes and from our observations.
In analysing the data, we use the five regime types identified above, and Table 1 shows the number of unions and seats falling under the five regimes. The Mixed/Transitional countries have the highest number of unions, followed by the State-centred cluster. Counting the number of seats, we find a similar picture.
Number of unions, seats and statements at Executive Committee meetings 2005–2012 by regime type.
Table 1 also presents a breakdown of statements by regime type. Given our method of counting, there are all in all 2289 statements. Trade unions from the South (state-centred) made almost twice as many statements as those from the social partnership countries and more than twice as many as those from the North. The other regions are far behind. As there are considerable regime differences in the number of unions and seats, figures are also divided by these numbers. Nevertheless, the highest figure per union emerges for the South, with the Social partnership countries second and the North third. Calculated by number of seats, the South still gets the highest rank, but the North ranks second.
Next, we turn to the picture on statements divided by themes. In Table 2, data are shown by the eight categories we have distinguished. They are ordered by frequency (the column furthest to the right), except that the category ‘other’ is placed at the bottom (although it has a higher total score than both social dialogue and labour market policy). The most common theme is economic issues, followed by communications, labour law, common activities and intra-organizational issues. Much lower numbers appear for the remaining three categories.
Number of statements at ETUC Executive Committee meetings 2005–2012 on various themes, per union and per seat by regime.
The Southern unions clearly dominate the discussions of economic issues and communications, with the Social partnership and Nordic countries in second and third places (figures for the group of countries heading the ranking for each category are presented in bold). Southern unions also dominate discussions of labour law, though less decisively, and there are similar patterns concerning common activities and intra-organizational issues. On social dialogue, however, the Social partnership countries rank highest on the per-union score and the Nordic countries rank highest per seat. Labour market policy seems to be more of a Nordic union specialty, reflecting their national engagement in labour market policies.
We examined further the data for the five most frequent themes (economic issues, communications, labour law, common activities and intra-organizational issues) by means of linear regressions, controlling for both number of seats and regime. In Table 3, we start with the first three dependent variables. It can be observed that the regime variable is run with two different reference categories, the State-centred South (Model 1) and the Organized corporatist North (Model 2), for the purpose of taking the analysis of cross-regime differences somewhat further.
Factors affecting number of statements on various topics, OLS regression, unstandardized beta coefficients.
Levels of significance: +p < 0.10; *p < 0.05; **p < 0.01; ***p < 0.001.
Number of seats is evidently a crucial factor; the more seats the organizations have, the more often have their representatives spoken. This holds for all three themes. On economic issues, it turns out that trade unions from the South have been most active. All other clusters have clearly lower coefficients and the differences between the South and the other regimes are all statistically significant. Model 2 shows that, in spite of a lower coefficient, the Social partnership countries do not deviate significantly from the Nordic.
Regarding communications, the results are similar; the organizations in the South come across as substantially more active than unions from each of the other four constellations (Model 1). In Model 2, we discover that the Nordic group does not differ significantly from the Social partnership and the Mixed/Transitional.
As communications largely involve reports on the economic situation in Europe and at home, it is not surprising that the results are rather similar to those on economic issues. We have run regressions in which the two categories are collapsed into one (not shown) and the patterns appearing in Table 3 then become even more accentuated. From our observations, we also know that communications from the General Secretary often lead to several hours of discussion. This theme has traditionally been one of the first items on the meeting agenda, but in recent years, there have been attempts to postpone it and make it less comprehensive in order to give room for other discussions, above all on the economic crisis. From a meta-organizational perspective, it is easy to understand why communications have been allowed to take up much of the meeting time. Compared to other more sensitive issues involving actual decision-making, it does not really challenge the consensus within the organization as no decisions have to be made; delegates are merely asked to ‘take note of’ the report from the General Secretary.
On labour law, the main dividing line goes between the Liberal and the Mixed/Transitional countries on the one hand and the rest on the other; the former have spoken much less frequently, whereas there are no significant differences between the other regimes. Some Social partnership and Nordic unions have been particularly active when the posting of workers has collided with national labour law and led to rulings by the European Court of Justice.
For economic issues, we have also divided the time period studied into two halves, as shown in Table 4, so as to examine whether the impact of the financial crisis has made a difference. What cannot be observed in the table is that the number of statements on economic issues increased dramatically during the second period, from only 77 in 2005–2008 to 407 in 2009–2012. This apparently mirrors the crisis in Europe and the very harsh situation in many of the member states.
Factors affecting number of statements on various topics, OLS regression, unstandardized beta coefficients.
Levels of significance: +p < 0.10; *p < 0.05; **p < 0.01; ***p < 0.001.
Table 4 shows a higher coefficient for number of seats during the second period than during the first. Furthermore, the two models on regime provide an interesting picture: whereas in 2005–2008, the differences across regimes are relatively small and just partly statistically significant, in 2009–2012 the unions in the South emerge as much more active than those in all other parts of Europe. The main conclusion must be that the crisis is above all a concern for the unions in Southern Europe.
The Executive Committee meetings are dominated by EU policy proposals and decisions. This was particularly so in 2009–2012, with the focus on the economic crisis: EU economic governance, the euro, Eurobonds, EU2020 and how to respond from a trade union perspective. In the earlier period, communications was the dominant topic. Recurrent items on the agenda were the revised Lisbon Strategy, the EU Constitutional Treaty (later the Lisbon Treaty), the REACH regulation (chemicals) and the scope of the Services Directive.
Table 5 displays the results with respect to common activities and intra-organizational issues. Once again we present two models. As before, number of seats is an important independent variable in relation to both dependent variables, and the regional patterns are similar to those analysed above.
Factors affecting number of statements on various topics, OLS regression, unstandardized beta coefficients.
Levels of significance: +p < 0.10; *p < 0.05; **p < 0.01; ***p < 0.001.
For three of the themes (social dialogue, labour market policy and the residual category), there are rather few statements, and therefore we refrain from detailed analysis. The limited number of statements on social dialogue appears to reflect the lack of joint discussions and activities among the social partners at EU level in recent years.
Although meta-organizations are inclined to strive for consensus, we certainly find differences of opinion. In 2006, the ETUC launched a petition for ‘high quality public services accessible to all’, despite disapproval above all from Nordic and British unions. They were negative to a petition campaign to collect signatures (1 million was the goal) as this was not part of their tradition, and were also concerned about what this effort could achieve. Instead, they proposed a strategy document on how to protect the specific nature of social services of general interest. This debate reflects the various and sometimes incompatible traditions among unions on how to mobilize across Europe.
Another example is the extensive debate in late 2012 on a draft position regarding the van Rompuy report Towards a genuine economic and monetary union. The Danish unions reacted against references to European coordination of collective bargaining, arguing that it was ‘a very tricky exercise’, although admitting that something had to be done ‘to counter the divide and rule tactics’. They were joined by Swedish unions and one Italian union, which stressed that ‘there was not only one good practice for all’ and that the variety of systems must be taken into account in the discussion of coordination. French unions, too, were sceptical towards bargaining coordination but for another reason: 10 years’ experience had shown that this did not end wage competition. The remarks from the participants were taken into account by the General Secretary, who promised to review the draft position, so that the document did not propose one scenario but several possible strategies.
A similar pattern can be seen in the opinions on how the ETUC should act in relation to the crisis and what responses or campaign tools are most appropriate. For example, in 2009, when a joint ETUC ‘battle plan’ for fighting the crisis was addressed, some Southern delegates asked for Europe-wide strikes, whereas others from the North argued for the use of country-specific methods. We find comparable differences in discussions on a joint slogan for a European day of Action. Some Nordic delegates stressed that it would not be optimal to include strikes as a possible mobilization action: they objected to the phrase that the day ‘will include protest stoppages’, preferring the wording ‘this can include protest stoppages’. Despite Italian objections to such a change on the grounds that no affiliate would be obliged to strike, the Executive Committee accepted the Nordic amendment, thereby softening the message as a whole. Still, when evaluating completed common activities such as the European Day of Action, the affiliates themselves played down the North–South divide, instead highlighting pan-European strategies.
Diverging views are often associated with the fact that unions are more or less radical or moderate. On the revision of the EU Working Time Directive in 2010, it was a French position that longer working lives would not be mentioned in the ETUC position paper, whereas Swedish delegates had no problems with that, stating that it would be ‘illusionary’ to concentrate on the reduction of working hours. This example fits in with the distinction between radical and integrative unionism (Hyman and Gumbrell-McCormick, 2013: 52–53). The Swedish unions are stronger and more integrated in society, whereas the French unions are organizationally weaker, making protests a way of legitimizing their existence.
One of our main results is that trade unions from the South generally speak more often than those from the other clusters. This is also confirmed through our observations: Southern representatives spoke often and at length, whereas delegates from the Nordic countries deliberately kept their comments very short. At times, several unions from the same Southern country would make almost identical statements on a given topic; it even seemed that the main point was to say something at all, whatever this actually was. In contrast, the Nordic delegates, who discussed and coordinated their views on various issues in advance, commonly let one of them speak on behalf of all, reducing the number of statements. The diversity among Southern trade unions (in terms of religious, political and ideological divisions) must of course be considered, as it may contribute to their generally high speech activity; inter-union rivalry can be expected to make it difficult for them to synchronize their statements.
A very different issue is the provision of interpretation services at the Executive Committee meetings; according to our observations, these are more common for Southern European languages than for others. Southern delegates can thus more or less exclusively speak their mother tongue, which certainly facilitates their speech activity. Others, particularly East European representatives, who also often need interpretation, get less help.
It is common that the Secretariat asks for concrete suggestions and more coordinated actions, but the national organizations tend to emphasize that different methods must apply in the member states. One of our observations is that discussions initiated by the Secretariat on developments at EU level frequently shift to reports on the specific problems in the affiliates’ home countries when it is time for comments. Overall, it is possible to distinguish a recurring pattern in the minutes in the unions’ statements. On the one hand, more specific measures are called for; it is then claimed that the ETUC must do more, but also be more concrete, more practical and more creative. On the other hand, when substantive suggestions are put forward, it appears very difficult to agree on them, because the affiliates represent different approaches. Many proposals have thus not been followed up.
Concluding discussion
Several distinct results emerge from our analysis of speech activity among member unions at the ETUC Executive Committee meetings. The most frequent theme is economic issues, followed by communications, labour law, common activities and intra-organizational issues. Labour market policy, social dialogue and other topics are less often discussed.
In a series of linear regressions, we have examined the impact of regime and number of seats assigned to the member unions. A first conclusion is then that the number of seats is a crucial factor behind the frequency with which the organizations have spoken. It goes for all the themes identified in the dataset. This result is likely to mirror not only the affiliates’ size but also their financial and human resources.
A principal question of the analysis has been how speech activities at the Executive Committee meetings vary across Europe. On the most frequent theme, economic issues, unions from the State-centred South have been considerably more active than the others. A key explanation lies in the severity of the financial crisis in Southern Europe. Separate analyses of the data for 2005–2008 and 2009–2012 respectively strengthen this interpretation. In the later period, we find both many more statements on economic issues and larger differences between the South and the other clusters. The theme communications partly (but not only) covers economic issues as well and the results are therefore quite similar.
Moreover, the Southern cluster is particularly active on intra-organizational issues and (together with the Social partnership and the Nordic unions) on common activities. This may express a concern for transnational trade union cooperation (Furåker and Bengtsson, 2013a; Furåker and Lovén Seldén, 2013; Glassner and Vandaele, 2012; Larsson, 2014). Strong commitment to such cooperation probably triggers active participation at meetings. The high speech activity of Southern trade unions also seems to reflect a more radical and ideologically more militant trade union movement, eager to participate in public demonstrations in opposition to governments and business. It is symptomatic for radical unionism that there are ‘tensions between ideology and practice’ (Hyman and Gumbrell-McCormick, 2013: 52).
Many of the unions in the Social partnership group are located in the initial EU member states and belong to the first members of the ETUC. It may go without saying that they have a leading role at Executive Committee meetings and not least with respect to common activities such as demonstrations and European days of action. We should perhaps consider it more noteworthy that the Nordic unions have been quite active on some of the themes, in spite of their sceptical attitudes towards transnational union cooperation in Europe (Bieler, 2005, 2008; Furåker and Lovén Seldén, 2013; Schulten, 2008: 434). This supports the assumption that a sceptical attitude requires a certain commitment to block undesirable initiatives. It is also evident that labour law is a crucial theme for both the Nordic and the Social partnership unions. We see this, for example, in the 2007 and 2008 discussions on the Laval quartet.
In order to grasp what is happening in the ETUC, we must also consider the influence of culture. Our observations at meetings clearly strengthen the postulate of its impact: differences in speech culture and meeting styles reinforced Southern unions’ high levels of activity. There are apparently separate traditions regarding how organizations (and individuals) express their opinions at international meetings. We must also take into account the internal rivalries between different national confederations.
Throughout the analyses, two of the regimes show fairly low levels of speech activity at the meetings studied: the Liberal and the Mixed/Transitional groups. With respect to the former, it is difficult to provide a persuasive explanation: previous research is somewhat inconsistent in assessing their interest and involvement in transnational cooperation in Europe. Although some unions from Poland and the Czech Republic stand out as fairly active, the Centre-East generally has low figures. This is probably related to organizational weakness and poor resources, in terms of membership, finances and personnel. We should also keep in mind that these unions have not participated very long in cooperation at European level. Besides, they appear to receive less help with interpretation.
The speech patterns at the ETUC Executive Committee meetings are to a large extent quite distinct, revealing important differences between unions across Europe. These differences are likely to reflect ‘the structural conditions under which unionism was constructed in the past and operates in the present’ (Hyman and Gumbrell-McCormick, 2013: 53). The construction-of-unionism idea surely also includes cultural factors. Despite the differing approaches to union action, it seems that the transnational cooperation within the ETUC Executive Committee can live on, although partly at the expense of the organization’s power to resist what it considers to be undesirable external developments.
Footnotes
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This article is based on research projects funded by the Swedish Forskningsrådet för arbetsliv och socialvetenskap (FAS 2008-0246) and Riksbankens jubileumsfond (P13-0776:1).