Alternative Futures for West European Trade Unionism

Abstract

We explore developments in trade unions in four countries—Sweden, Germany, Britain, and France—to test emerging strategic initiatives in adapting to or confronting the new neo-liberal political economy. While aware of the importance of supportive state institutions for union health, we would suggest that political strategy might indeed be a necessary weapon in unions’ arsenal if they are to restore their power and influence. Strategic choice for unions will include both industrial and political considerations, and social movement theory can provide insights for our understanding these choices. We display the alternatives open to trade unions on two dimensions. On the first dimension, an industrial one, West European trade unions can opt between an integrative approach, by exploring productivity coalitions with employers and social pacts with governments, and an oppositional approach, by developing combative and militant mechanisms of protest and dissent. A second dimension, the political, varies from the continuance of a national orientation to problem solving to an international one. The national approach continues to rely on the maintenance or (re)creation of sympathetic government support for the aims and objectives of organized labour, while the international approach supplements national solutions by the addition of multinational or supranational support structures. Our first three alternative futures represent reformulated scenarios for social democracy, while a fourth scenario is framed within a rejection of the social democratic form and the development of radicalised political unionism.We explore developments in trade unions in four countries—Sweden, Germany, Britain, and France—to test emerging strategic initiatives in adapting to or confronting the new neo-liberal political economy. While aware of the importance of supportive state institutions for union health, we would suggest that political strategy might indeed be a necessary weapon in unions’ arsenal if they are to restore their power and influence. Strategic choice for unions will include both industrial and political considerations, and social movement theory can provide insights for our understanding these choices. We display the alternatives open to trade unions on two dimensions. On the first dimension, an industrial one, West European trade unions can opt between an integrative approach, by exploring productivity coalitions with employers and social pacts with governments, and an oppositional approach, by developing combative and militant mechanisms of protest and dissent. A second dimension, the political, varies from the continuance of a national orientation to problem solving to an international one. The national approach continues to rely on the maintenance or (re)creation of sympathetic government support for the aims and objectives of organized labour, while the international approach supplements national solutions by the addition of multinational or supranational support structures. Our first three alternative futures represent reformulated scenarios for social democracy, while a fourth scenario is framed within a rejection of the social democratic form and the development of radicalised political unionism.