Keywords

In this book we have presented results from two research projects. The main object of study in both projects was cross-border trade union cooperation in Europe and the conditions for its development. We have concentrated on its actual activities, on the forms and focuses it has had, and on attitudes among labour organizations to it. Another aspect is which factors unions regard as most important in preventing or promoting collaboration. In separate chapters, our book also deals with two examples of specific issues which have been of vital interest for the trade unions during the last decades: statutory minimum wages and the Posting of Workers Directive (PWD).

The analyses are based on data from different sources: interviews, surveys, documents and direct observations at meetings. The collection of data is described in more detail in Chapter 1. We have conducted two surveys with key representatives of trade unions: one in 2011–2012 and the other in 2015–2016. In addition, we have interviewed a large number of top-level trade union officials. Documents have been utilized continuously throughout the projects. For some time, one of our colleagues in the research team got the opportunity to participate in the ETUC Executive Committee meetings.

A general result from our quantitative analyses is that the theories of (national) industrial relations regimes /regions, sectoral regimes and organizational power resources have supplementary explanatory power. In that sense, they are relevant in a study of transnational trade union cooperation in Europe. However, as illustrated by the two in-depth case studies of national trade union positions on statutory minimum wages and on the revision of the PWD, such classifications are of limited help in explaining what is going on when we encounter both solidarity and conflicting interests in transnational trade union cooperation. In the examples mentioned, the approach has to take more specific issue-related conditions into consideration.

A common classification of industrial relations discussed in Chapter 1 includes five regime types: a social partnership model in Central/Western Europe, organized corporatism in the Nordic countries, liberal pluralism above all in the British Isles, a polarized/state-centred type in Southern Europe, and a transitional or fragmented variety in Central/Eastern Europe. It is a fruitful classification for many purposes, but as always when we reduce a large amount of information to a smaller number of categories there is a risk that intra-category differences are hidden. Sometimes diverging characteristics within regimes need to be highlighted and we have to be careful not to suppress them behind an overall concept.

Unions are more or less powerful in the different regime types. They are strongest in the Nordic region with its organized corporatism and as a rule weakest in Central/East European countries. Union strength can be derived from various sources and four of them are: high membership and a well-functioning organization (organizational power ), position in the economy and relationship with employers (structural power ), legal rights (institutional power ) and alliances with political or civil society organizations (societal power ). Strong trade unions frequently obtain their capacity from different sources, perhaps all the four mentioned.

When using union size as a proxy for resources in our analyses, a consistent result was that the larger the union, the more transnational cooperation it could take part in. However, it takes ‘two to tango’ not only in bargaining with employer organizations, but also in collaboration between unions. Our results indicate that the more resourceful unions are also hampered by the lack of resources among others. The reason can be that the latter have to forgo from participating in meetings and that cooperation may merely take the form of unilateral support rather than mutual exchange. In addition, we should not neglect the effects of insufficient power resources on joint decision-making and influencing the agenda of the ETUC and the ETUFs. One example is how the many but less resourceful trade unions have had problems to raise wage issues on the European agenda, even though there appears to be an interest to do so. As discussed in the analysis of statutory minimum wages in Chapter 3, the Nordic organizations join forces to keep such questions from the agenda.

The differences between regimes stand out rather significantly on their preferences for contentious action and their choice of cooperation through own versus cooperative channels in trying to influence EU policies. The Nordic unions differ significantly from the Central/Western and Southern European organizations by being relatively more restrictive in the former respect. On the choice of channels in trying to influence EU policies, there is a similarly tangible difference between the Nordics, on the one hand, and the Southern and Central/Eastern European regimes, on the other. The former emphasized the importance of working through their national political parties and their Brussels offices and the latter put much more weight on working through the ETUC and the ETUFs. The labour organizations in Southern and Central/Eastern Europe were also much more ready to transfer authority to these organizations than the Nordic counterparts were.

Sector or industry is another relevant category, above all because some sectors (e.g., manufacturing) are subject to fierce international market competition, while others (e.g., many public and private services) have a more sheltered position with respect to international and sometimes also domestic competition. It is therefore relevant to make comparisons between sectors; it may even generate more exciting and relevant knowledge than comparisons between regimes. A recurrent feature in our analyses was that the cooperation networks in the metal industry were more developed and intense than in the services industry, with construction and transport being somewhere in between these ends. Evidently, there were also important sectoral differences regarding topics of cooperation. For example, unions in construction were inclined to focus on occupational health and safety and migration issues and unions in the metal sector were more concerned with issues of unemployment and employment.

In the beginning of Chapter 2, we presented a classification into four structures of institutionalized cooperation between trade unions: (1) communication, (2) coordination and (3) cooperation networks and (4) meta-organizations, representing different degrees of institutionalization. Actually, all these types exist in Europe and they are in practice intertwined. The most advanced collaborative form takes place in organizations such as the ETUC and the ETUFs, which are meta-organizations, characterized by having other organizations as members. The analysis indicates that bi- and multilateral networking among trade unions is very much related to what these European meta-organizations do. The different overlapping cooperation structures are mutually reinforcing each other.

When examining whether collaboration in national and international meta-organizations, according to the unions themselves, had become more or less important during the last ten years, we found that respondents tended to reply that it had gained greater importance, which was most clear in relation to the sectoral ETUFs. This was confirmed by many trade unions that preferred to strengthen transnational cooperation within their sector rather than within their country for the future. Still, fairly large proportions answered ‘same as previously’, whereas only few said that the significance of cooperation with any of the meta-organizations listed had decreased.

Another topic dealt with was how trade unions looked upon the European sectoral social dialogue . Large majorities recognized its importance for strengthening transnational trade union cooperation, for influencing EU policies, for negotiations with employers’ associations and for meeting workers’ interests. Nevertheless, a clear majority of the respondents had doubts whether participation was worthwhile, given the time and resources it takes to be involved in the dialogues. This indicates that many unions have a tight financial situation and are understaffed.

Moreover, a network analysis showed some interesting patterns of trade union cooperation. A most striking outcome was that unions were very much oriented towards other unions in the same region. It was most obvious for the Nordic organizations. Given the discussion of mutual reinforcement between formal meta-organizations and informal network structures, this is not surprising since it is only among the Nordic trade unions that we see joint meta-organizations at cross-national regional level. For Southern Europe a similar but somewhat weaker intra-regional focus appeared. Unions in Central/Western and Central/Eastern Europe presented proportionately more ties with organizations outside their own region, but they still had almost half of their partners internally. Resources and general influence may play a role in these results, but another factor to consider is geographic location. Central/Western Europe has borders with all the other regions in Europe, a circumstance that can be expected to facilitate cross-border contacts.

When scrutinizing the trade unions’ concrete cooperative activities, we observed that the most frequent activities were to write statements, petitions or open letters. More contentious forms of action such as overtime bans, strikes and blockades were less regular and it was then common that the organizations collaborated within their own country rather than transnationally in Europe. As regards information on collective agreements, writing joint statements, petitions or open letters and training of union officials, we ran into some substantial transnational cooperation between unions in the same sector as well as between unions in the home country.

The most common topics for trade union cooperation in the home country were employment protection legislation and occupational health and safety. A little bit behind, we found issues concerning wages, unemployment/employment, professional matters and working time. The top topics for collaboration with foreign trade unions within the same sector—all with lower incidence—were occupational health and safety, professional issues, employment protection legislation and migration.

An important question is which factors trade unions view as obstacles to cross-border cooperation. Differences in financial resources among unions emerged as the most important obstacle. Resources are related to union density rates; with larger proportions of employees paying membership fees, the better equipped are the organizations. However, differences in union membership rates were not judged to be a very significant obstacle. We should not because of that underestimate their role. There are enormous differences in union density across Europe, from the high levels in the Nordic region to the very low levels in most Central/East European countries and France. The organizations’ financial and personnel resources are negatively affected if only small proportions of employees are members. Such assets are crucial for participating in cross-border cooperation. It is difficult to send representatives to the ETUC meetings, when there are many commitments at home and tight budgets and staffing do not allow the organizations to be fully involved in all matters.

Moreover, an obvious problem is that union density tends to decline almost everywhere in Europe. This development has a negative impact on resources for all the unions hit. It is of course especially problematic when membership is low from the beginning. We should also keep in mind that declining density rates are not only a question of resources; such development may also affect the legitimacy of unions. Organizations claiming to speak for the collective of employees need to have a significant proportion of possible followers as members. On the other hand, the example of France seems to suggest something else; union density in France is very low, but the labour organizations are influential. They are more or less successful in calling for demonstrations and strikes, but collective agreements are frequently extended by law and the law also requires companies with 50 employees or more to consult union delegates about many managerial decisions. France may be exceptional and we must admit that it is impossible to identify a critical point where unions completely lose legitimacy.

The second most important obstacle to transnational trade union cooperation was considered to be the diversity of labour market policies and regulations . This is another way of saying that industrial relations regimes are of great consequence. The fact that we can distinguish industrial relations types is in itself an indicator of the difficulties that cross-border trade union cooperation has to confront. It is likely that collaboration is easier within a regime than between regimes. The results mentioned previously on intra-regional collaboration imply that this argument has some relevance.

It is also noteworthy that cultural factors were not deemed to be very important barriers to cross-border trade union cooperation. This is not to say that they are negligible; they were merely judged as less important than certain other factors. In our interviews with union representatives, we got many vivid examples of how cultural differences can have a negative impact on collaboration, although—on the other hand—some interviewees wanted to downplay their role.

Mirroring these obstacles, we also found that similarities instead of differences facilitated transnational trade union cooperation. The results were largely reversed in comparison with the outcomes on perceived barriers, although in this case there were fewer items for respondents to answer. Similarities in labour market policies and regulations came first in the ranking of facilitators, followed by similarities in occupational interests among unions and union leaders’ personal networks and relations. Consistent with the previous outcomes, cultural resemblances were assessed as relatively less important.

As said above, we also examined how European trade unions have dealt with a couple of specific issues. Chapter 3 addresses the question of statutory minimum wages. Most countries in Europe have such arrangements, but the Nordic cluster of nations is an exception, together with a few others. On this topic, there is an unmistakeably deep cleavage in the European trade union movement; some are for legislation, while others are against. In the Nordic region where trade unions are strong and reliant on their own systems of collective bargaining, resistance to minimum wage legislation is especially firm. In most other countries, the labour organizations’ views are the opposite. A crucial part of the explanation is that when unions are too weak to secure reasonable wage levels for all workers, legislation can be the way out; it is no wonder if it is then assessed to be an indispensable solution.

Our second survey included six statements, formulated to reflect possible advantages and disadvantages with legislation on minimum wages. Respondents were requested to tell how much they agreed on each of these. Unions in countries with legislation were mostly affirmative of claims that legislation is the best method for unorganized workers to obtain decent wages, that it can impede wage dumping and that it is a necessary arrangement to prevent poverty. Above all the Nordic unions—but to some extent also others in countries without legislation—did not agree very much on these statements. Instead, they were more aware of the potential drawbacks of minimum wage legislation. They tended to think that it undermines the role of trade unions and that it may lead to lower collectively agreed wages. The result was a bit different on an item whether statutory minimum wages would have a negative impact on unions’ possibilities of recruiting members. Some of the generally negative Nordic unions agreed with this, but a higher proportion answered ‘to a low degree’ or ‘not at all’. Among the other unions, there was little sympathy for the argument that legislated minimum wages would create recruitment problems for unions.

It is obvious that the European trade union movement is unable to form a united front on this issue. In terms of cooperation, unions that advocate statutory minimum wages can work jointly to reach their goals, but also unions that do not want to have legislation can go together to prevent it. The ETUC has established a compromise formula, according to which national traditions and specialities should be respected. Collective bargaining is treated as the best method to secure decent wages, but in countries where this is not achievable there is a need for legislation. It is thus unlikely that we—on this matter—see a joint effort from the whole European trade union movement. In that respect, cross-border cooperation has apparently encountered a limit. On the other hand, there are repeatedly new initiatives on the question of statutory minimum wages and it remains to be seen what will happen with these.

The other issue paid special attention to in this book is the revision of the PWD . It started with a proposal from the European Commission in March 2016. The main goal was to achieve equal pay for equal work in the same place and to get a level playing field for businesses. The Commission wanted to change the PWD with regard to three main aspects: remuneration of posted workers; rules on temporary agency workers; and long-term posting. It was proposed that remuneration should be introduced as a key concept instead of the PWD’s concept of minimum rates of pay. Remuneration would include other elements such as bonuses and pay increases due to seniority. The proposal aimed at the same rules of remuneration for posted and local workers, given that these rules were defined by law or by ‘universally applicable collective agreements’. The Commission also suggested that the latter principle would be extended to posted workers in all economic sectors and not only to those in the construction industry. In addition, Member States should have the possibility of applying the same regulations in case of subcontracting. Another part of the proposal was that posted temporary agency workers would be treated the same way as the local equivalents. As domestic agency workers are supposed to have the same conditions as their colleagues in the user company, the Commission wanted to extend this principle also to those posted by temporary work agencies from other Member States. Yet another suggestion was that postings lasting longer than 24 months should make workers subject to the labour laws of the host Member State. This was already the case according to the social security legislation, but the principle would hence be extended to labour law.

The revision of the PWD has now been adopted by both the European Parliament and the European Council—with some modifications of the Commission’s proposal. In this book we examine the discussion that followed when the Commission had made its plan public. The opinions really went in very different directions in Europe. Important organizations like the ETUC and the EFBWW welcomed the proposal but expressed that it did not go far enough to achieve the goals identified. They warned of the risk that the result would merely be equal pay for some workers.

Most interesting was how the Central/Eastern European trade unions would react. The reason why the answer could not be taken for granted was the strong negative responses from politicians in the region. Ministers in nine countries in Central/Eastern Europe and ten parliaments in the same region opposed the revision. In contrast to this, some other parliaments supported it. Thus the trade unions in the East could join either their national politicians or the wider European trade union movement. They actually selected the second alternative or remained silent. We have not discovered any organization that raised its voice against the proposal. Differences in industrial relations regime or in union strength did not create barriers to a common position; the European trade union movement was able to hold together.

The main idea behind trade unionism is that employees should organize themselves collectively to improve or at least defend their employment and working conditions. In this process, they can then prove to be in solidarity with each other and against employers, although there are usually many difficulties and obstacles to overcome. Declining union density rates is one of the problems. The situation becomes even more complicated when organizations in multiple countries—with different economic, institutional and cultural settings—are involved. The trade union movement often speaks in favour of internationalism, but it is far from always clear what this should mean in practice. We must not take for granted that unions in different countries can regularly agree on what they want to achieve. Cross-border trade union cooperation has obtained notable results in Europe, but the question of what is in the best interests of employees frequently remains open. Consequently, trade unions face severe present-day problems and many difficult challenges for the future.