Trade union project-based revitalization strategies in Central and Eastern Europe: The Case of Slovenia and Estonia

Introduction

This comparative study explores trade union revitalization through the process of project-based organizational restructuring in Slovenia and Estonia, countries marked by different industrial relations systems, yet similar external challenges and new opportunities that came with the European Union (EU) integration and the 2008 economic crisis. The novice status in the EU and the economic crisis have produced many converging effects in these two countries, which include further market liberalization, austerity measures and the weakening of unions’ power resources (Feldmann, 2017), as well as increased trends of projectification. Projectification marks a shift towards project work and its temporary organization with predetermined project funding, timeframes, team, workers’ roles and tasks, which have implications on (trans)national governance and introduce organizational changes into public and private sector organizations, including trade unions (Greer et al., 2108; Lundin et al., 2015; Samaluk, 2017a). These trends have been further advanced in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) with the EU governing, including financial, mechanisms (Greer et al., 2108; Samaluk, 2017a), which in the form of external EU and other project funds also impact CEE trade union innovation (Bernaciak and Kahancová, 2017).

The weakening of union power resources and new opportunities arising with EU integration and its project governance thus demand engagement with concepts related to projects and its temporary organization. While these have mainly been developing within organization studies (Lundin et al., 2015), they have recently also been utilized to advance employment and industrial relations scholarship (Greer et al., 2018; Karmowska et al., 2017; Samaluk, 2017a, 2017b), although various trade union projects have been studied before within more established industrial relations frameworks (Gajewska 2009; Greer et al., 2013; Hammer, 2010). For the purpose of our study, we combine the industrial relations and organization studies literature that offers useful conceptualizations and typology for studying project-based trade union revitalization.

Projects are defined as temporary organizations that aim to fulfil a task, within an allocated time, team and resources and are embedded in an environment of more or less permanent organizations, providing project managers as well as project workers with additional resources and constraints for action (Lundin et al., 2015: 2). While projects can have various aims and forms, our focus is not on one-off projects, but on the process of project-based organizational restructuring and its revitalizing effects on trade unions. For that aim, we utilize Lundin et al.’s (2015) typology that distinguishes between project-supported organizations, project networks and project-based organizations, all of which can, as we will argue, become part of trade unions’ various revitalization strategies. Although project-based union innovation attempts have been documented in the region (Bernaciak and Kahancová, 2017), it is still unclear what power resources and actors’ capabilities are crucial for initiating and sustaining project-based revitalization. Gaining and maintaining a portfolio of externally funded projects demands specific actors’ capabilities and is also crucial for maintaining organizational resources as dependence on time-limited project funds can result in precarity of activists, as well as ambiguity and tensions over organizational goals and tasks (Karmowska et al., 2017; Samaluk, 2017b). Secondly, while projects can foster temporary trade union innovation, their broader and durable revitalizing effects on trade unions have not been analysed in detail. This article addresses this gap by focussing on the process of trade union project-based organizational restructuring and its revitalizing effects in the framework of union power resources, showing which resources and how matter for successful outcomes.

Findings show that in both countries project-based organizational restructuring was driven by proactive activists with capabilities to utilize available power resources and new opportunity structures that opened up with EU integration in order to organize, service or increase political action with regard to underrepresented workers and wider social groups. While generally more powerful Slovenian unions utilized a more diverse set of power resources and implemented a more diverse array of revitalization strategies than the Estonian ones, activists in both countries stimulated trade union project-based organizational restructuring in order to initiate and sustain context specific revitalization strategies. Findings also show that project-based organizational restructuring can be an interim phase for unions to increase their resources and use them to turn their revitalization strategies into more permanent ones.

The article is structured as follows. We first present conceptual framework, followed by case study contexts, research design and methods used. Then we present the findings in two separate country sections, and finally discuss and compare them in the concluding section.

Power resources for project-based trade union revitalization in Central and Eastern Europe

Trade union revitalization has been defined as ‘adaptations and change initiatives undertaken by unions to restore their strength and influence’ (Kumar and Schenk, 2006): 16). It can comprise of various strategies, including servicing, organizing, international links and organizational restructuring in the form of mergers or internal reorganization that could strengthen union organization (Frege and Kelly, 2003; Meardi, 2007). In both Slovenia and Estonia trade union revitalization emerged through project-based organizational restructuring, which will be in this article studied within broader trends of projectification. In organizational terms, traditional trade unions are permanent organizations, financed through their membership base. However, with the lowering of union membership across the CEE unions look for external sources of funding and might as such operate also as project-supported organizations where externally funded projects are utilized for one-off tasks or temporal revitalizing activity (Lundin et al., 2015). Moreover, we will show that project-based revitalization can also turn unions into distinct project-based organizations or project networks that aim to initiate and/or sustain other linked revitalization strategies (Lundin et al., 2015). As revitalization is resource intensive, the article will highlight what power resources and actors’ capabilities drive and sustain project-based organizational restructuring and other linked revitalization strategies.

Union power resources are defined ‘as fixed or path-dependent assets that an actor can normally access and mobilize’ and they can be differentiated into institutional, organizational, structural and societal ones (Levesque and Murray, 2010: 335; Dörre et al., 2009). While institutional ones, referring to labour laws and non-statutory support for unions agreed upon through social compromises in the past (Dörre et al., 2009) influence the position of unions, we argue that these are not crucial for project-based revitalization. Rather we argue that in the case of project-based revitalization, structural, organizational and societal power resources matter.

Structural resources relate to workers’ position within the economy (Silver, 2003). While CEE integration into the EU initially caused tensions and competition within the European trade union movement, it also enhanced East-West cross-border solidarity and project cooperation financially supported by Western trade unions (Bernaciak, 2011; Gajewska, 2009; Meardi, 2012). Integration into the EU also gave CEE trade unions access to EU governing mechanisms, including EU-funded projects that encourage social partners to shape (trans)national policies, boost their capacities and foster partnerships between various actors (Heyes, 2013; Verschraegen et al., 2011). Evidence shows that trade unions in various CEE countries have increasingly utilized external project funds to boost their human resource capacities, reach wider social groups, reverse the trend of membership decline, introduce innovative organizing tactics and instruments and forge (trans)national partnerships or strengthen regional cross-border networks either in partnership with other domestic or international trade unions or non-union actors (Bernaciak and Kahancová, 2017; Kall, 2017; Samaluk, 2017b). The latter partnerships with non-union actors suggest that also societal resources, referring to the support of wider public for trade union demands as well as union coalitions and alliances beyond the trade union movement (Schmalz et al., 2018), can help initiate project-based revitalization. Moreover, the above evidence indicates the possibility to utilize novel structural and societal resources in order to gain access to additional organizational resources. Organizational resources include union density (Wright, 2000), internal solidarity (cohesive collective identities and participation in the life of the union), network embeddedness (links with other local/foreign/international unions) as well as narrative resources, that is, the ‘existing stock of stories that frame understandings and union actions and inform a sense of efficacy and legitimacy’; infrastructural resources, that is, personnel and material resources and proactive and capable leadership and activist base, as discussed below (Levesque and Murray, 2010: 336).

Although the research on the impact of different union power resources on fostering revitalization is mixed, the evidence suggests its implementation depends upon activists’ agency (Turner, 2007; Bernaciak and Kahancová, 2017) and their strategic capabilities defined as ‘sets of aptitudes, competencies, abilities, social skills or know-how that can be developed, transmitted and learned’ (Levesque and Murray, 2010: 336). For instance, the utilization of project funds requires specific capabilities, such as intermediation to engage in partnership projects and know-how to reframe trade union agenda to gain, coordinate and manage externally funded projects. These capabilities and resources are especially crucial for project-based organizations, whose functioning is dependent upon a portfolio of projects.

While projects might start as one-offs and be initiated through traditional project-supported organizations, these endeavours can also evolve into project-based organizations, where a portfolio of projects enables the continuation of their activity and contributes to their distinct organizational form and identity that might supplement, but also be in tension with permanent project-supported organization (Lundin et al., 2015). In these types of organizations project leaders and proactive activists can have direct responsibility for the functioning of organization, including their own and other project workers’ employment (Lundin et al., 2015; Karmowska et al., 2017; Samaluk, 2017b). Both project-supported and project-based organizations can also be part of project networks activated for a particular task (Lundin et al., 2015). For instance, regional and wider cross-border East-West trade union networks can be strengthened through innovative projects and can address challenges related to increasing labour market interdependences on the EU level (Greer et al., 2013; Hammer, 2010; Karmowska et al., 2017; Samaluk 2017b). These project networks have the potential to strengthen unions’ organizational power by increasing network embeddedness with other unions (Levesque and Murray, 2010). This suggests that project-based revitalization and linked network embeddedness is crucial for CEE trade union movements characterized by scarce resources. But here lies also the underexplored question of sustainability of project-based revitalization strategies.

While external project funds can increase structural, organizational and even societal power resources of unions, they are temporary in nature and can as such have negative implications for project-based revitalizations’ sustainability and outcomes. For instance, the dependence on a portfolio of different project funds can result in ‘precarious organizational temporariness’ associated with precarious employment of activists, ambiguity and tensions over the goals and tasks that are shaped by contextual contingencies, such as dispersed leadership; detachment from permanent trade union organization; uncertain resourcing and setting goals upon resources available rather than needs (Karmowska et al., 2017; Samaluk, 2017b), possibly diminishing organizational power, especially internal solidarity within a union. Thus, it seems crucial that for the long-term sustainability, the project-based strategies should utilize available resources to increase internal solidarity and union membership figures. Although revitalization can happen via project-based organizations or project-based networks, the question remains, how can unions turn their project-based revitalization strategies and their emerging organizational types into more permanent ones.

Exploring the process of long-lasting and resilient trade union project-based revitalization strategies can thus provide important insights on power resources and capabilities used to sustain them and the durable impact this has on wider trade union movement. We have identified such project-based revitalization initiatives in both Slovenia and Estonia and we will explore the process of their development by addressing the following questions: (1) What power resources and actors’ capabilities drive project-based organizational restructuring in Estonian and Slovenian unions? (2) What power resources and actors’ capabilities contribute to sustaining the emergent project-based revitalization strategies? (3) What durable revitalizing effects do these project-based strategies have on traditional project-supported trade union organizations and/or the countries’ trade union movement more generally?

Presentation of case studies and methods

In this comparative study, we applied the most-different-cases research design in order to highlight the crucial aspects of project-based trade union revitalization. Although both countries are relatively small – Estonia having around 694.000 persons in the labour force and Slovenia 1.018.000 (EUROSTAT, 2022) – they can be considered opposites regarding industrial relations contexts and union power resources. However, pressures and opportunities that emerged with the EU integration and post-2008 crisis developments created some convergence leading to similar developments. In particular, we will focus on revitalization strategies that emerged through the utilization of external project funds and fostered common project-based organizational restructuring in both countries. The contextual divergence and convergence charted below will make it possible to compare and contrast the process of common project-based organizational restructuring and its revitalizing effects.

The divergence between the two countries is most visible in unions’ institutional power resources. For instance, despite external pressures, collective bargaining coverage remained relatively high in Slovenia (around 70% in 2010 and 68% in 2015) compared to Estonia (33% in 2009 and 19% in 2015) and also the rest of the CEE region (Visser, 2019). Slovenian unions also played an important role in easing the effects of the economic crisis and austerity through tripartite social dialogue (Stanojević and Klarič, 2013), while in Estonia employers have been generally reluctant to negotiate with unions and tripartism has never become fully institutionalized. Especially during the economic crisis of 2008, when the government unilaterally implemented austerity measures and flexibilized labour law (Woolfson and Kallaste, 2011), it became clear that unions are rather powerless and largely incapable of pushing forward their agendas and mobilizing their constituencies and a wider public (Kall, 2017).

However, external challenges that came with EU and Eurozone membership and the 2008 economic crisis intensified pressures on the labour force and weekend several trade union resources in both countries. Slovenian trade union movement faced rapid de-unionization affecting structural and organizational power resources through gradual drop in trade union density, changing membership structure, increasing levels of interest fragmentation between and within union confederations and growing number of non-unionized precarious workers and wider social groups (Samaluk, 2017b; Stanojević and Broder, 2013). In Estonia, power resources of unions have been relatively low already before the economic crisis, which weakened them even further. Estonia stands out with the lowest union density rate in Europe that further decreased after the crisis and was in 2015 only at five per cent (Visser, 2019). Nevertheless, in contrast to Slovenia, non-standard employment contracts are still not very widespread in Estonia (ILO, 2015) and ‘non-traditional’ groups of workers have also not been high on the agenda for unions. Rather, unions have mainly targeted workers on standard contracts, which can also be explained by the generally low levels of unionization and lack of resources to even address the concerns of ‘traditional’ target groups of unions (Kall, 2017).

While in both countries external pressures weakened union power resources, they also opened up new opportunities for revitalization through EU integration that enhanced cross-border union partnerships and gave CEE trade unions access to EU governing mechanisms, including EU-funded projects. In Slovenian unions, external project funding has mainly been utilized from 2010 onwards. The three biggest trade union confederations have 36 projects listed on their websites, most of them financed through various European funds, but a few also through trade unions and other funding schemes from Western countries or internal funds. By focussing on increasing social dialogue, forging (trans)national links and labour market equality and inclusion, these projects fostered various revitalization strategies such as coalition-building, partnership with employers, international links, servicing and organizing. The combined value of the 23 projects, whose funding information is available, was close to €5 million. Most projects, 24 overall and 19 with funding information, worth almost €3.5 million, were carried out by the biggest confederation, the Association of Free Trade Unions in Slovenia, where also the studied project-based organizations started evolving with the usage of these external funds.

Estonian unions have been involved in some EU-funded projects as well, yet much less extensively, as their resources to compete for and manage these projects have been more limited and they also had access to more easily reachable sources of project funding from Nordic trade unions (Kall, 2017). While such cooperation projects between Nordic and Estonian unions have existed since the 1990s, these have been mostly small-scale, bilateral and have had sector-specific focus, which in turn scattered the resources and failed to increase union power (Häkkinen, 2013). As we will show, increasing international labour market dependencies and new opportunity structures in the form of growing and better targeted project funding from Nordic unions, improved unions’ structural and organizational resources and enabled the evolvement of resilient project-based organization that will be studied in this article.

This article focuses on the only identified cases of durable trade union project-based revitalization initatives that emerged out of economic crisis and after nearly a decade still advance workers interests and widen the trade union agenda. These are the Counselling Office for Migrants (COM) and the Trade Union Young Plus (TUYP) that emerged in Slovenia within the largest trade union confederation in 2010 and 2011 to organize precarious workers and wider social groups, and the Baltic Organising Academy (BOA) operating since 2011 in Estonia initially as a project network involving several project-supported trade union organizations, which evolved into project-based organization that targets workers on standard contracts. These cases are critical because they all emerged due to common external pressures and opportunities and managed to sustain their project-based revitalization strategies.

We base our study on eight in-depth interviews with seven activists and one official from Slovenia and on 16 interviews with nine organizers/activists and seven officials from Estonia within the selected project-based organizations. Initial interviews in Slovenia were carried out in 2015 and during 2014–2016 in Estonia, followed by several follow-up conversations until 2022. Interviews were transcribed, coded and comparatively analysed. Interviews were carried out in Slovenian and Estonian languages and each set was initially analysed through the process of coding by each author with suitable language competences. Both authors have then identified common themes and engaged in thematic analysis of interviews that was complemented with thematic analysis of organizations’ documents, reports and other information available on organizations’ websites and social media groups. This enabled us to track the evolution of these organizations, their project portfolios, activities and revitalization strategies. Used excerpts were translated into English language and the overall findings are presented below.

Project-based revitalization strategies in Slovenia

Both project-based initiatives in Slovenia emerged within the biggest union confederation, the Association of Free Trade Unions of Slovenia (AFTUS). The Counselling Office for Migrants (COM) emerged in 2010 as a project and Trade Union Youth Plus (TUYP) as an independent union in 2011. Both were initiated with the insider support of a new generation trade unionist, who had not yet been tamed by established union approaches and has, together with other activists, used innovative proactive tactics to reach and organize non-represented groups most affected by the economic crisis, such as migrant workers and youth in precarious education-to-work transitions:

‘Trade unions have their genetic record that is based upon their work from many years ago…As a newcomer…you have no idea that you are breaking the rules and I was completely free, when I was visiting single homes [where migrant workers lived] […] When we started a trade union with a young team of Youth plus, things changed radically in the way we positioned ourselves in the public, attracted new members, setting the agenda, communicating with institutions. We used to be exotic…now both sides, on the inside and the outside, take us seriously’ (COM leader, who assisted in establishing TUYP, 2015)

Apart from this primary strategy of both initiatives, the TUYP’s choice to establish a trade union was also linked to political action to participate in social dialogue institutions: ‘If you want to participate in social dialogue, trade unions are your only option.’ (TUYP Activist 1, 2015). As a trade union TUYP has a unique status, as it is also recognized as a youth organization, which extends trade union institutional power into youth politics as well as provides access to alternative external sources of funding that represent novel union structural power resources. Owing to low and transient membership TUYP operates as a project-based organization and utilizes its eligibility for small-scale youth-targeted projects tendered by the Municipality and the National Bureau for Youth. Gradually they have also increasingly been successful in securing larger EU-funded projects. Initially this implied participation of internal partners, which evoked internal competition and compromised TUYP’s autonomy (TUYP activist, 2015), but with new funding streams and TUYP’s gradual development of knowledge and experience they increased their portfolio of independent projects implemented in partnership with NGOs and public bodies, indicating also novel utilization of wider societal resources. While information on individual projects is not separately displayed on their website, there were at least three big EU-funded (including Youth Guarantee) projects between 2016 and 2021, the last, supported by the ESF is worth €236,389. All projects aimed at raising awareness about decent work amongst youth and empowering them and include also engagement with employers and providers of active labour market services. Project-based revitalization strategies of TUYP thus encompassed political action and coalitions with NGOs, public bodies and self-organized groups (Samaluk and Greer, 2021) with the aim to organize and service youth and wider social groups in (education-to-) work transitions. These projects also increased the involvement of social partners in the (supra)national politics of youth employment, education-to-work transitions and accompanied active labour market policies (ALMPs) thus increasing unions’ structural, institutional and societal resources.

New opportunity structures that opened up with the 2007–2014 EU financial perspective, in which the European Social Fund (ESF) covered social inclusion of all categories of migrants, allowed also COM to turn initial informal coalition-building strategy with a non-governmental organization into formal project-based partnership: ‘In September 2010 a tender for social inclusion came out and we networked with [an NGO] and applied for it…Through this project we employed two persons’ (COM activist, 2015). These novel ways of using structural and societal resources in the form of externally funded EU partnership projects enabled professional organizing and servicing of (dismissed) migrant workers facing complex employment situation and wider social problems. COM was financed through ESF until 2015, since 2013 indirectly through the Employment Office’s Information Point for Foreigners to provide services related to migrants’ empowerment and advocacy. In 2013, Migration Office also launched transnational cooperation with the German trade union confederation (DGB) through the Fair Mobility Network project that was co-funded by the European Commission, Hans Böckler Foundation and the DGB. Apart from their advocacy work, COM utilized established institutional power in the form of traditional social dialogue institutions and extended it by becoming also part of other national consultative institutions to influence legislative changes of the Aliens Act and Act of Employment, Self-employment and the Work of Aliens, which ultimately led to the better legal protection of migrants (COM, 2015).

External sources of funding also increased both initiatives’ organizational power resources in the form of membership, network embeddedness, infrastructural and narrative resources. For instance, COM had to broaden union narrative resources and reframe their activities within a wider social inclusion framework to secure ESF funds. Also, TUYP’s increasing know-how on how to reframe traditional trade union activities to suit external tenders’ requirements increased their projects portfolio: ‘You quickly learn this project language and frame activities to fit in’ (TUYP activist, 2017). While tailoring trade union activities according to project funds could affect union’s ability to maintain its core mission, both initiatives increasing capabilities to generate novel narrative resources improved the public image of trade unions and boosted confederations’ organizational resources in the form of employment of activists and new membership. Nevertheless, membership was still too low and transient to allow for self-financing of their activities and activists’ employment.

While smaller grants used initially by the TUYP could not be used to finance human resources, an increasing portfolio of larger EU-funded projects also provided more options to retain precarious and fluctuating activists and thus increased organizational infrastructural resources. As of 2021, TUYP website listed nine people in various organizational bodies and 22 activists. Some activists have also been employed by the confederation, including to stimulate internal confederation’s restructuring towards its more committed project-supported role. In 2017, one of the founding activists of TUYP joined confederation’s new leadership team responsible for its education, communication and project activities. A project office was set up also ‘with the aim to employ…from the pool of [TUYP]’ (Official of a branch union, 2019); the confederation’s website now features special section on projects and the list has been expanding, indicating increased internal solidarity and confederations’ commitment to ensure the sustainability of its embedded project-based organization, which ‘is not an end station for youth, but a transit zone for youth to enter branch unions’ (COM leader, 2015). TUYP’s main mission is thus not increasing its’ own membership, but establishing a novel entry route into trade unionism that can boost organizational, structural, societal and institutional resources of the wider trade union movement.

The growing portfolio of larger ESF and other projects, run also independently of confederation, increased also COM’s organizational resources and turned it into a project-based organization with a distinct identity, permanent leadership and growing number of employed activists. In 2015 COM employed four activists (COM, 2015) with migration background, who brought unique skills and know-how to effectively reach, organize and service migrants. Growing project-based organizational resources also shaped a distinct organizational identity that helped maintained its core mission despite a serious funding crisis. COM’s core reliance on the ESF compromised its work in 2015, when the previous European financial cycle ended and when it became apparent that they cannot secure new external funds.

While COM’s leader was employed by the confederation, his strong identification with COM’s core mission led him and some other project workers to ‘start anew upon “enthusiastic” drive’ (COM leader, 2016). Consequently, COM transformed into a civil society organization, which increased its structural resources to access alternative sources of project funding and allowed them to maintain their focus on advocacy: ‘One [reason] was…more options to apply for project funds. Secondly, from our previous experience, we wanted to do direct advocacy of migrant workers, who face specific issues’ (WCO leader, 2022). Renamed into the Workers’ Counselling Office (WCO), they broadened their focus to all vulnerable workers and wider social groups, while the majority of their members are still migrant workers. This resilience at the time of funding crisis can mainly be attributed to the agency of its leader and some activists, confederation’s offer to keep their old premises and a kick-starting donation from one of Slovenian’s biggest public trade unions. While due to initial inability to employ previous project workers, its organizational resources initially shrunk to two volunteers, in their first year they already re-employed these two persons.

In time structural resources in the form of external project funds became less and less utilized, as their ultimate goal was to self-finance through membership: ‘We started from the assumption that we won’t be dependent on projects, we will work towards being dependent on membership…we started with zero members, but people started joining because of this individual work with them… if you look at the individual problem of a person in need of solving an issue, an interesting thing happens, that people will start organizing from the other side, through information’ (WCO leader, 2022). Their individual advocacy work that included information provision and solving of complex individual issues, consequently increased organizational resources in the form of new membership that grew exponentially from zero at their beginning in 2016 to around 2000 in 2022. With new members also came the employment of new activists that currently amount to five people. With a relatively small team, they gained new members through targeted local focus. For instance, for the first 2 years, they had a visiting office in the city of Koper, where they successfully pressed for the outsourcing business model adopted by the Port of Koper to be declared unlawful and for some of its agency (migrant) workers to be employed directly (WCO, 2017). Similar achievements to push management to employ its outsourced workers were achieved in other companies. Currently, they are increasing their presence in the town Kamnik to promote their advocacy work: ‘We build a base there, people start coming, from there on information spread’ (WCO leader, 2022).

Their organizational power was thus built upon direct advocacy work, rather than projects, also ultimately transforming their organizational form into fully self-sustainable and occasional project-supported organization. While there is a fluctuation of members, there is also a constant inflow of new or the return of loyal old members, enabling them stable financing of 80 percent of their activities through membership and the rest through small government or municipality funded projects that can complement their advocacy work and do not exceed €10.000. For COM/WCO project-based organizational restructuring was an interim phase to increase unions’ structural, societal and organizational resources in the form of increased membership, which ultimately secured self-sustainability.

WCO still has their organizational home at confederation’s premises, with whom they also have a partnership agreement to exchange resources and information: ‘Advocacy…does not exclude work with trade unions, it complements it…They provide us with space, and we offer them the possibility to enter certain spheres of, not only the labour market, but wider society, through which they can identify key problems on the labour market and can thus enhance their position at the social dialogue level.’ (WCO leader, 2022). Similarly, as TUYP, although in a much more self-sustainable fashion, also WCO still enhances structural, societal and institutional resources of a wider trade union movement.

Project-based revitalization strategies in Estonia

In 2011, BOA was established owing to a small group of Nordic and Baltic unionists with transnational cooperation experience dating back to 1990s. These activists played a key role in facilitating face-to-face communication with potential project-supported unions, preparing an action plan and framing it in a way to convince unions to try out (and, in case of Nordic unions, to fund) something different in terms of existing union strategies and identities. Strategically constructing new narratives (thus increasing the narrative power of unions), the novel approach was framed as a way to revitalize Estonia unions by implementing strategies more suitable for the low-density environments, that is, staging union campaigns typical for the Anglo-Saxon organizing model (Kall et al., 2019).

The activists who started BOA concluded that previous projects were inadequate, and that new approach is needed to prevent Baltic countries becoming a union-free zone. Owing to labour market interdependencies this was framed disastrous also for Nordic unions (Häkkinen, 2013). Activists managed to utilize the structural power resources at the disposal of Estonia unions: namely, the strategic position within the EU – being located next to the Nordic countries with relatively strong unions, who were motivated to support the Estonian ones not to lose their bargaining power. Furthermore, already established links with Nordic unions (well-developed cooperation practices), which form a part of organizational power, played an important role as well. These resources were used in a novel way to set up an innovative project-based union structure that would coordinate the planned campaigns aiming to organize companies where union structures were either weak/absent to both increase union membership and to empower and mobilize new and existing members.

Initially, 32 organizations joined BOA’s project network, most of them from Finland and Estonia (operating in industrial, service and transportation sectors). BOA operated under the leadership of a steering group consisting of Baltic and Nordic unionists from project-supported organizations, so that no single union has dominated the project and all parties involved have shared the responsibility for setting and implementing project goals, indicating to a high level of internal solidarity within BOA. Unionists from participating organizations were devoting part of their time for BOA activities, but project funds also enabled participating project-supported organizations to hire previously non-existent organizers on temporary contracts and increase organizational resources of participating Estonian unions. These project workers were generally young people, bringing to some extent a generation change in the union movement.

Baltic Organising Academy activities were based upon annual fundraising. Each year, the programme was evaluated by participating organizations and the Nordic ones then decided how many resources they are willing to provide for the next year. Although participating Estonian unions enjoyed rather high levels of autonomy in organizing project work, they also needed to show clear results (or justify the lack of them) to secure further funding. Estonian project-supported organizations were required to invest 35% of the organizing campaigns generated membership fees back into further organizing (Häkkinen, 2013). New Estonian organizations were able to join the Academy if they found a Nordic counterpart who is willing to support them, making the participation of unions with prior cross-border connections and project portfolios easier. Initial project network thus gradually evolved into a project-based organization with a portfolio of successive project funding decisions, project workers dependent on them and a share of permanent funding from project-supported organizations.

Although Estonian trade unions have had rather easy access to Nordic unions’ funds without needing to possess extensive know-how and capabilities required to compete for and manage EU-funded projects, BOA’s annual fundraising introduced precarity for activists employed on projects similar to the one observed in Slovenian cases. Since the organizers were employed a year at a time, they have been struggling with constant insecurity about their future employment and rather meagre working conditions.

In their organizing campaigns, BOA activists employed a variety of tactics Estonian unions have not traditionally used (on such scale), including joint social campaigns and industrial action of different sectoral level unions, increasing network embeddedness further. The organizing model also assumed a more confrontational approach towards employers and more aggressive tactics when necessary and required a change in union leaders’ attitudes towards their own role and their new and existing members.

This ‘organizing turn’ has changed the attitudes of some older generation union members/officials towards the role of unions and some BOA activists have been recruited into non-participating unions and have been advocating organizing principles in their new organizations. It has also created a distinct identity of activists within BOA’s project-based organization, who believed in the organizing principles and tried to find financial support for further organizing work. Estonian unions have lacked sufficient resources to employ organizers themselves, and even if they could have self-financed organizing activities, it is doubtful that they would have allocated considerable resources without external support. Thus, creating a separate project-based organization with the aim of implementing organizing campaigns has been a crucial revitalization strategy that has allowed organizing to take place in a union culture where servicing and partnership mentality has dominated and resources have been extremely low. As one of the main architects of BOA put it: ‘The entire development process [of BOA] can be seen as an organizing campaign in which a newly founded organization tries to change prevailing, adverse conditions, which hinder unions from growing’ (Häkkinen, 2013: 2).

As a result, BOA’s project-based organization consisted of a network of people sharing distinct organizational identity, closely communicating with and supporting each other across sectors and cross-border. These increased network embeddedness and narrative resources have been crucial as organizers’ project-supported unions had not had organizing competence and often organizers have found themselves in a situation where their work methods and professional identity differ considerably from that of their co-unionists in traditional, now project-supported unions. Not all union officials in the latter approve of organizing: for some it is too militant a strategy that requires too much effort and/or is not in accordance with Estonian trade union identity. As a result, some unions have stepped out of BOA and stopped having organizers. Furthermore, there has been high turnover of organizers, also because of ‘Too much pressure. They can’t handle this… internal opposition.’ (BOA organizer, 2015). This indicates that BOA was not successful enough in increasing internal solidarity within all participating unions and this might hinder the long-term sustainability of its revitalizing efforts. Nevertheless, there are unions that have stayed in the Academy from the beginning and some new ones, such as that representing finance workers, have joined at a later stage.

Baltic Organising Academy’s organizing campaigns have raised union membership, but the increase is relatively slow given that campaigns were rather small-scale and staff turnover in companies quite high. In 2016, there were nine organizers in Estonia (the number has stayed under 10 throughout the years) and during that year BOA campaigns generated 544 new union members (Mölder, 2016). Furthermore, in several organized companies, unions have managed to sign company-level collective agreements, increasing unions’ institutional power through broadening the scope of collective bargaining to companies where this has previously been absent.

While BOA project ended in 2017, a new agreement for the Baltic Organizing Alliance, the so-called BOA 2.0, was signed in December the same year, to build a more sustainable project-based organization that aims at developing strong organizing unions in the Baltic countries. For BOA 2.0 a separate association of Baltic unions was formed, initially consisting of three Estonian (two of them have participated in BOA since the beginning), one Latvian and two Lithuanian sectoral level unions and increasing to eight organizations by the end of 2018. The revenue from donations/grants for the first year was €50,255, for 2019 it amounted to €45,018 while for 2020 it had decreased to €30,800 (based on annual fiscal reports). The association operates as an independent project-based organization with its own assets, bank account, budget and it was founded with unlimited term, indicating a move towards a more permanent organizational form. It does not include any Nordic unions as members, only as supporters with whom a separate cooperation agreement should be signed; in contrast to BOA, Nordic unions do not have voting rights regarding the direction/strategy of the organization.

While BOA 2.0’s financing model is to a large extent still based on annual fundraising by Nordic unions, it has one salaried employee coordinating organizing activities in all Baltic countries and the participating Baltic unions are required to direct at least 20 per cent of their annual income into organizing activities, to build necessary infrastructure for organizing (electronic membership register, financial management system) and to centralize membership fee collection system. While this indicates a move towards a more sustainable project-based organization and enables unions to increase organizational resources, its existence is still fundamentally dependent on project-supported organizations and Nordic trade unions.

Discussion and conclusions

This article explored trade union revitalization through the process of project-based organizational restructuring in Slovenia and Estonia in order to identify its drivers, power resources and capabilities employed, its outcomes and impact on wider trade union movement.

Although Estonia and Slovenia represent opposites in terms of industrial relations systems, our findings show that in both countries the main drivers of project-based organizational restructuring were activists, who innovatively utilized the existing organizational, structural and/or societal power resources and new opportunity structures that came with EU integration. In Estonia increased cross-border labour market interdependencies and long-established transnational networks with Nordic unions, providing structural and organizational resources, were utilized in novel ways by proactive activists. The activists initially mobilized their narrative framing capabilities to convince Nordic unions to support and Estonian unions to join the initial project network in order to implement the Anglo-Saxon organizing model in Estonian workplaces. Similar to the Estonian case, Slovenian activist, leaning on comparatively stronger institutional and organizational power resources, could seize new opportunities provided by European and other funding streams and used their narrative resources to reframe trade union agenda to initiate (trans)national partnerships with various actors in order to organize, service, increase political action and boost social partnership with regard to underrepresented precarious workers and wider social groups. Our paper thus supports the view that also project-based revitalization depends on activists’ agency (Turner, 2007; Bernaciak and Kahancová, 2017), especially their capabilities to utilize structural power and generate narrative resources (Levesque and Murray, 2010).

While in both countries existent trade union power resources mattered for revitalization, findings show that project-based organizational restructuring was not initiated as a top-down strategy of union leaders within project-supported organizations, but as bottom-up endeavours of activists, who aimed at initiating and sustaining their primary revitalization strategies, in our cases: organizing, servicing and political action. Overall, our cases show that common project-based organizational restructuring launched in both countries, developed into context specific revitalization strategies, illustrating that revitalization is context specific and dependent on activists’ agency and their capabilities to innovatively utilize available power resources and opportunity structures (Levesque and Murray, 2010; Meardi 2007; Turner, 2007).

However, in both countries activists’ efforts to maintain established project-based revitalization strategies came with high risks and personal costs linked to uncertain project funding and consequent precarity. These findings are in line with existent research that points to problems related to projects’ temporary nature and consequent precarity experienced by trade union activists working on them (Karmowska et al., 2017; Samaluk, 2017b). Nevertheless, the focus on the process of project-based organizational restructuring also shows that activists’ capabilities and their increasing identification with emerging project-based organizations and their core missions considerably expanded organizational power resources needed to sustain emergent project-based revitalization strategies. This in turn also stimulated the transformation of traditional unions into more committed project-supported organizations. In Estonia activists remained key players in BOA’s gradual evolution from initial project network into a more sustainable project-based organization, characterized by a portfolio of successive annual funding decisions and a share of permanent funding from participating project-supported organizations, project workers dependent on them and a distinct organizational identity. Likewise, in Slovenia, the activists’ agency, know-how and ability to reframe traditional trade union activities to increase the portfolio of projects, boost organizational resources, especially membership levels and internal solidarity, ensured greater sustainability of TUYP’s project-based organization and enabled COM’s transformation into WCO, which, through its advocacy work, quickly became fully self-sustainable membership-based and occasional project-supported organization. In contrast to the Estonian case, Slovenian project-based organizational restructuring also provided access to alternative sources of funding and other consultative institutions, thus expanding unions’ structural, societal and institutional power resources.

While these projects might have started as unions’ side activities, they gradually became a crucial complementary activity that brings durable revitalizing effects and resources to the wider trade union movement. Our paper thus extends the understanding of Frege and Kelly’s (2003) organizational restructuring revitalizing strategy, by showing its various and changing project-based organizational forms and their impact on the wider trade union movement. Moreover, findings show that project-based organizational restructuring can be, depending on particular missions and successful utilization of available resources, an interim phase for unions to increase their resources and use them to turn their revitalization strategies into more permanent ones. For the durable revitalizing effects of project-based strategies, it seems crucial to utilize available resources to increase internal solidarity and union membership figures. This paper thus extends Levesque and Murray’s (2010) notion of power resources and activists’ capabilities, by highlighting specific resources and capabilities needed for sustaining project-based revitalization strategies. Overall, this article contributes to the union revitalization and power resources literature by showing that, especially in adverse conditions, project-based organizational restructuring can become a viable revitalization strategy that enables the implementation and retention of other context specific strategies designed to increase the position and power resources of unions.