Abstract
This special issue, the third in a series of Transfer issues on ‘the state of trade unionism in Europe’, examines the international activity of European trade unions. Trade unions in Europe today operate in a complex and multi-layered institutional environment, ranging from the workplace, where the central concern is the representation of members’ interests, through national structures, intent on establishing and maintaining viable industrial relations systems, to regional organisations and international structures, in the form of the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) and the European Trade Union Federations (ETUFs). The range of national trade union developments ensures that the affiliates to European-level institutions differ in structure, practice and politics. This special issue is about whether, and how, these differences may be incorporated in a European trade union strategy.
In recent decades, European and global economies have become more closely integrated: in commerce and production chains, as well as by international agreements and institutions. From one point of view, this has increased the need for transnational union cooperation, as unions face similar problems and the potential to increase union strength by international mobilisation has increased. Moreover, within the European Union (EU) the institutional infrastructure for developing transnational union cooperation is relatively strong in the form of organisations, an emerging legislative framework and the unified constitutional arrangements of the ETUC. Within this framework there are several instances of fruitful trade union cooperation.
It is also apparent that the potential for cooperative mobilisation has yet to be realised on a wide-ranging basis. The challenges of transnational union cooperation are both vertical and horizontal. The vertical dimension refers to relationships between international organisations and those at other levels: for example, relations between the ETUC and national affiliates and between national confederations, their affiliates and workplace organisations. The horizontal dimension refers to unions acting at the same level, but across sectors and national boundaries. Both of these dimensions are ‘complicated’ by variations in structural, institutional and associational power resources. This issue of Transfer explores some of the factors that impinge on these relationships and suggests strategies whereby existing limitations may be overcome.
Richard Hyman and Rebecca Gumbrell-McCormick discuss the complexity faced by trade unions operating in today’s international landscape from the perspective of internal union democracy. According to the authors, the discussion on member influence and voice usually focuses on the tension between efficacy and legitimacy. Some scholars dispute the need for democratic unions and instead emphasise the efficient pursuit of their members’ interests. The majority of scholars, however, argue that internal union democracy is necessary also from the standpoint of efficacy: influence is a precondition of members’ active commitment, as well as of general public support. The discussion about union democracy, however, has focused almost exclusively on the national level, to the relative exclusion of international organisations. Several of these organisations, including the ETUC, have been described as ‘meta-organisations’, in the sense that they do not have individual members, only organisations. The ETUC, for example, can be described as a ‘meta-meta-organisation’, as many of its affiliated organisations are themselves confederations.
Meta-organisations are often strongly dependent on a few strong and resourceful member organisations. Democracy in this situation is usually limited to safeguarding the interests of the more influential member organisations, as their exit could be devastating for the meta-organisation. In an era characterised by increasing tendencies among grass-roots organisations to mobilise on the issues of our time – to combat austerity, safeguard workers’ rights or, presumably after the COVID-19 crisis, fight unemployment and increase social security – union meta-organisations’ legitimacy and preparedness for action may be a more pressing issue. Here, Hyman and Gumbrell-McCormick suggest that more attention should be paid to theories of deliberative democracy. In such conceptions of democracy, arguments rather than individuals/actors should constitute the foundation of decision-making. Consequently, Hyman and Gumbrell-McCormick argue that it is a matter of urgency to protect and develop arenas of deliberative democracy at every level of the trade union movement, and to combat tendencies to downgrade international trade union congresses to the status of ‘platforms for media-oriented public relations’.
The article by Salvo Leonardi and Mimmo Carrieri discusses one of the great contemporary challenges of (trade union) internationalism, namely the rise of right-wing populism. Taking Italy as a telling case, Leonardi and Carrieri show that in national elections during 2018, as well as in the 2019 elections to the European Parliament, union members still largely voted for the left. New populist parties, however – in particular, the M5S and the Lega – infiltrated the constituencies of left-wing parties, including union members. The challenges of right-wing populism are multifaceted for Italian unions. These unions are renowned for having a strong commitment to guest workers in Italy. They also argue for a stronger EU and a deepening of international collaboration to meet the challenges workers face in globalised economies. Both these positions are under attack from right-wing populism. The refugee crisis of the past decade makes it hard to maintain union positions and the harsh austerity measures after the Euro-crisis, implemented by the so-called Troika, put a strain on European solidarity and cooperation. Leonardi and Carrieri argue that Italian unions need to balance narrow national self-interest and devotion to internationalism, while still pursuing a firm critique of technocratic austerity measures. In particular, trade unions need to revive their educational functions and create a narrative of class-consciousness without reverting to populist simplifications.
Torsten Müller and Hans-Wolfgang Platzer discuss a specific meta-organisation in the European context: the European Trade Union Federations (ETUFs). According to the authors, in recent years the social dimension has returned to the EU agenda in the context of discussions on the future of European cooperation and federalism. Wage disparities across the EU, minimum wages and wage growth are now openly discussed and policy initiatives launched. In this climate, room for manoeuvre has been created and ETUFs, in particular, may find opportunities to promote transnational activities involving unions. At sectoral level, ETUFs, with the mandate to negotiate and conclude agreements with employers that can be translated into EU legislation, potentially have wide-ranging powers. To be influential, however, ETUFs have to manage a logic of membership by coordinating policies and actions in relation to affiliated organisations, and a logic of influence in relation to the EU polity. The authors argue that opportunities emerged along with new economic governance structures after the Euro crises, with new arenas for social dialogue and EU regulation of a wider range of issues, such as industrial and social policies. Being able to take advantage of these opportunities, however, depends on the internal structure of different ETUFs, in particular, how heterogeneous they are geographically, ideologically and constitutionally, and how willing affiliates are to support the actions of the ETUFs. Müller and Platzer conclude that the capacity of ETUFs to promote transnational trade union activity depends on affiliates’ willingness to look beyond short-term national interests and prioritise a European perspective on the challenges now being faced. Moreover, ETUFs should use all the tools at their disposal: that is, mobilise when pressure needs to be applied, while deploying quiet influence through smooth ‘labour diplomacy’ when that is an option.
Trade unions in Central and Eastern Europe are weaker than their western European counterparts, in part because of their inadequate resources conditioned by limited associational, structural and institutional power. Starting from this point of departure, Jan Czarzasty, Slawomir Adamczyk and Barbara Surdykowska examine the European trade union movement’s inability to create a solidarity-based approach to cross-border relations from the perspective of trade unions from Central and Eastern Europe. The authors argue that confronting the opportunistic behaviour of multinational companies is central to the creation of such an approach within the ETUC, as the same multinationals operate throughout the area covered by the ETUC. To implement such an approach the authors advocate a focus on more sophisticated European transnational company agreements to complement sectoral bargaining. In the absence of a pan-European approach to confronting multinationals, the authors argue that trade unions in Central and Eastern Europe may focus their efforts within Member States rather than seeking solidaristic transnational solutions, which might weaken the ETUC and the ETUFs.
Kristina Lovén Seldén examines the ETUC from the perspective of Nordic – particularly Swedish – trade unions. Using the debate on the introduction of an EU minimum wage as an ‘exploratory case’, she examines a range of factors that might help to explain why Swedish trade unions are so implacably opposed to an EU minimum wage. In particular, Lovén Seldén argues that a preference for intergovernmental cooperation, based on high membership and bargaining power at the level of the Member State, underpins the opposition of Swedish and other Nordic trade unions to legislative and political interference in collective bargaining, as proposed by the EU and supported by the ETUC. Lovén Seldén is at pains to show that opposition to the EU proposals on the minimum wage does not constitute opposition to the EU and the ETUC as such. The Nordic trade unions, for example, express strong support for the European Social Pillar and ‘the idea of a Social Europe in general’. The issue at stake is the differential impact of a pan-European policy proposal on national models of collective bargaining.
In the sixth and final article in this issue of Transfer Bengt Furåker assesses some of the barriers to and possibilities for transnational trade union cooperation. Trade union representatives are shown to regard the different levels of financial resources available to trade unions, associated with variations in membership levels and in national labour market regulations, as particularly severe impediments to transnational trade union cooperation. In common with Czarzasty, Adamczyk and Surdykowska, as mentioned above, Furåker argues that generating a high degree of consensus among trade unions on a range of issues underpins transnational trade union cooperation. Furåker, however, stresses the importance of campaigns to increase union density rates as the best way of establishing a consensus. Using data from the International Social Survey Programme (ISSP), the author demonstrates the potential of this proposal insofar as potential trade union members favour the presence of strong unions to protect their interests. Some of the challenges that must be overcome, if a consensus-building strategy based on campaigns to increase union density is to be implemented, are also discussed.