Key note speech by Gregor Murray (University of Montreal, CRIMT Director)

Union Structure and Organizing Strategies: What the Research Tells Us

Discussion session 1: How is trade union membership understood in different European countries?

1st contribution:

The Determinants of Trade Union Density in Cross-Country Comparisons: Theoretical Opulence and Empirical Destitution

Bernd Brandl, Vienna University (Austria)

2nd contribution:

How is trade union membership understood in Greece.

Savas Robolis, Institute of Labour of GSEE (Greece)

3rd contribution:

How is trade union membership understood in France.

Christian Dufour & Adelheid Hege, IRES (France)

Discussion session 2: How could unions recruit, retain and organise workers with atypical employment contracts, especially among the young or other vulnerable groups on the labour market?

1st contribution:

Organising temporary agency workers – recent experiences from Germany.

Heiner Dribbusch, WSI (Germany)

2nd contribution:

Strong Trade Unions Meet EEC Workers - Locating, Monitoring and Organising EEC Workers in the Danish Construction Sector

Jens A. Hansen,FAOS (Denmark)

Discussion session 3: How are trade unions coping with changing realities?

1st contribution:

Towards a renewed understanding of the erosion of solidarity. Individualisation process, mutation of collective involvement, transformations of social bond at work.

Patricia Vendramin, Fondation Travail-Université (Belgium)

2nd contribution:

Labour cooperation or labour conflict in the enlarged EU? Trade union responses to the rise of the automotive industry in Central-Eastern Europe

Magdalena Bernaciak, PhD Candidate Central European University

Background information about the conference:

Trade unions across Europe are currently facing common challenges in terms of European integration, globalization, mobility of production factors, transnational restructuring and thereby playing a more important role than ever in the defence of workers' interests both in Europe and abroad. Meanwhile, almost all unions in Europe have been steadily losing members since the 1980s and have especially been less capable of attracting a significant number of young workers and less successful in entering the emerging sectors, with the consequent loss of influence at the workplace.

At the same time, unions are acknowledged to be key actors in building a social Europe and developing transnational actions. In the light of growing income inequalities and recent legal cases (Laval, Viking, Rüffert) undermining fundamental workers’ rights, collective bargaining and industrial action, strategic action at European level becomes more than before an absolute necessity.

But the important role of trade unions cannot be maintained if they are getting weaker internally, do not have the necessary support among the working people and lack legitimacy and offensive power in general. To put it in other words, the high expectations cannot be met if there is only a façade with nothing behind.

Given the idiosyncratic nature of trade unionism, there is a growing literature, with emphasis on an actor-centre approach, acknowledging that strategies for union revitalization mean different things among time and place. Strategies could occur along different dimensions (organizing, social partnership, political action, reform of union structures, coalition-building, transnational solidarity, ...), and the use of different models (organizing, service or social movement unionism) will depend on particular national settings.

The key questions that this conference should aim at addressing are:

1. How is trade union membership understood in different European countries?

2. How could unions recruit, retain and organise workers with atypical employment contracts, especially among the young workers or other vulnerable groups at the labour market?

3. What are the results of the different dimensions and models of union renewal? How should a pro-active, offensive trade union strategy be understood at different levels of analysis (local, regional, national, European and transnational)?

The aim is to stimulate debate between the different national trade union related research institutions and trade union leaders, to exchange research results on different trade union structures and strategies and to deepen analysis that points towards policy implications for trade unions.