Bengt Furåker

Is job insecurity compensated for by employment and income security

The so-called flexicurity approach suggests that security for employees can be successfully combined with flexibility for organizations and companies. This article studies if affective job insecurity (worry about losing one’s job) is compensated for by perceptions of employment security (possibilities of finding an equal or better job) and income security. Data derive from a survey carried out in 2010 among employees in Sweden. The main findings are that cognitive job insecurity (the perceived risk of job loss) increases affective job insecurity, whereas both employment and income security have the opposite effect. Moreover, cognitive job insecurity and employment security interact, implying that the effect of cognitive job insecurity on affective job insecurity is reduced in the presence of employment security but is reinforced in the absence of it. These results are discussed in relation to the flexicurity approach, concluding that flexicurity may be a risky venture for employees.

Are the Unions Still Needed? Employees' Views of their Relations to Unions and Employers

Collectivist attitudes among workers are often said to have become replaced by individualistic leanings. Some argue that individualism is also spreading within the traditional manual working class and in particular among the young. On the basis of a survey carried out in Sweden in 1997, aspects of the collectivism-individualism issue are studied empirically: whether employees think that trade unions are necessary for successful negotiation with their employers, and whether they prefer to take care of negotiations individually. Data are cross-sectional and thus cannot tell us much about change among respondents, but the connections between attitudinal patterns and age and social class are analysed. The main conclusions are that the perceived need for the union is clearly more widespread among manual workers than among white-collar employees, especially higher-level white-collar workers Accordingly, it matters which union people belong to, but the non-unionized are the most negative. There are no significant age differences. Second, the view that negotiations are best taken care of by the individual him-/herself is mainly endorsed by white-collar workers, in particular those in higher positions, and by non-unionized employees. Moreover, the young tend to be more individualistically oriented than older employees, but this difference is statistically significant only insofar as union membership is not taken into account. It should be noted that youth have a lower rate of unionization. This may be due to negative attitudes towards collectivism, or that they have found little reason to join the union because they have unstable job situations - which would then in turn explain their individualistic orientation.

Reclaiming the Concept of Flexibility

There is something rotten about the concept of ‘flexibility’. It has for a long time been a key concept in the political working-life debate, as well as in research in this area. It has, for example, been stressed by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) as an essential part of a regenerated economic development, and it has underlain changes in EU labour law. And research on flexibility is immense. In March 2006, a search on Google Scholar gave 1,080,000 hits for ‘flexibility’ and 1,400,000 for ‘flexible’. But all is not well. The literature is not only abundant — it is also incongruous and confusing. The many meanings of the term make flexibility an excellent basis for forming ideological and value-laden discourses on the new working life. It is not uncommon to play on these paradoxes by formulating oxymorons, such as the title of Dore’s (1986) book Flexible Rigidities,or the chapter ‘Inflexible Flexibility’ (Elger and Fairbrother 1992).

On the road to transnational cooperation? Results from a survey of European trade unions

Economic globalization and political developments within the EU have put pressure upon trade unions to engage in cross-border cooperation. The most realistic step in the foreseeable future is transnational coordination of collective bargaining, but the process is still very much in its infancy. We use a web and postal survey of a large number of European trade unions to illuminate their current practices and their preferences for the future. The most common activity is exchange of information on collective agreements, followed by collaboration in training programmes for union representatives, and such cross-border cooperation primarily involves unions in manufacturing. Support for European collective bargaining is far from overwhelming, and unions are clearly divided on the idea of statutory minimum wages: this has rather strong support in Spain and Germany, but very little in Scandinavia.

Trade union cooperation on statutory minimum wages? A study of European trade union positions1

Legislation on minimum wages exists in most EU Member States, but European trade unions have very different views on it. Nordic unions are especially negative, whereas many other union organizations are strongly positive. The present article examines these differences, explores how they can be understood and discusses their possible consequences for transnational union cooperation on issues related to statutory minimum wages. It is primarily based on survey and interview data.

The Swedish wage-earner funds and economic democracy: is there anything to be learned from them?:

In 1983, the Social Democratic government in Sweden proposed that wage-earner funds should be implemented in the country and this proposal was adopted by parliament. The reform was initiated by LO, the large blue-collar trade union, and had been debated for more than a decade. Its purpose was to develop economic democracy, counteract the concentration of capital ownership but also to increase collective savings and supply capital for investments. When a coalition government, led by the conservatives, took office in 1991, the wage-earner funds were abolished. It is unlikely that this type of reform will reappear on the Swedish political agenda in the foreseeable future. Nonetheless, collective funds of some kind might be a way to start dealing with the lack of economic democracy and the unequal distribution of capital. In light of the Swedish experience with wage-earner funds, this article discusses some issues related to such a strategy.

The issue of statutory minimum wages: Views among Nordic trade unions

Nordic trade unions are known to be sceptical of statutory minimum wages. The peak level organizations are generally against legislation, as they believe that their model of bargaining is preferable. In contrast, trade unions in many other parts of Europe find it necessary with statutory minimum wages to protect all workers and not just the unionized. Legislation can also be considered a way of preventing wage dumping and avoiding poverty. This article explores the attitudes among Nordic trade unions below the central/confederate level. The empirical basis is a survey of a large number of organizations in the five countries. The data show a great deal of scepticism towards statutory minimum wages, but some responding organizations recognize certain benefits. It is concluded that Swedish unions are most sceptical of the possible advantages of legislation, whereas in regard to attributed disadvantages Norwegian but also Danish unions are most inclined to agree. Type of industry and size of the organization are other factors with some impact on attitudes towards statutory minimum wages.

Employment Protection Regulation, Trade Unions and Tenure of Employment: An Analysis in 23 European Countries

This article focuses on the relationship between employment protection regulation (EPL), trade unions and tenure of employment. A main hypothesis is that EPL strictness tends to prolong tenure, because rigorous rules imply that remaining with the same employer gives more job security. The role of unions can be expected to be similar. These assumptions are related to issues regarding dualisation in the labour market. Data used are the European Working Conditions Survey 2010 — including 23 countries and more than 18,500 employees — combined with national‐level data on EPL, unemployment, union density and collective bargaining coverage. The analyses reveal that EPL strictness and bargaining coverage are associated with longer tenure. The same goes for having an employee representative in the workplace. The institutional variables work through interactions with individual‐level variables. For example, the impact of age, which is strongly linked to tenure, increases with stricter EPL and higher bargaining coverage.

Patterns of speech activity at ETUC Executive Committee meetings, 2005–2012

This article analyses the speech activities of trade unions at European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) Executive Committee meetings, 2005–2012. It is based on the minutes of 48 meetings and direct observations of some of them. The most frequent themes are economic issues, communications and labour law, followed by common activities and intra-organizational issues. Analysis by different regime types shows marked differences in the extent and focus of participation; an important factor behind these differences appears to be the unions’ role in their national industrial relations systems. The impact of the economic crisis in Southern Europe is also highly visible. Another aspect is the number of seats the organizations hold, mirroring size as well as financial and human resources. Moreover, speech patterns seem to reflect ideological and cultural differences.

Book Review: The Struggle Over Work: The ‘End of Work’ and Employment Options for Post-Industrial Societies

M social scientists argue that post-industrialism is associated with a decline in the number of jobs, in the significance of work in people’s lives and in the role of labour movements. Their pessimism about the future of work is controversial, however, as the empirical evidence at least partly points in other directions. In his recently published The Struggle Over Work, Shaun Wilson starts out with the ironic observation that in 1995 when the American author Jeremy Rifkin in a new book proclaimed the ‘end of work’, more Americans than ever before were gainfully employed. We thus need to issue a warning for rushed and ill-founded prophecies and Wilson deserves credit for having taken on the task of scrutinizing some of the literature that we must entertain suspicions about. In addition to discussing various end-of-work scenarios, his book investigates the viability of different societal models for avoiding high unemployment. Wilson begins by tracing some of the theoretical roots of the pessimistic views on work. This is done in two chapters that – even if they are a little on the short side – present us with the perspectives of a number of important analysts. One of the chapters concentrates mainly on the classic writings of Karl Marx, Max Weber and Émile Durkheim, while the other focuses on the contributions by the contemporary authors Jürgen Habermas, Alain Touraine and Claus Offe. Weber expected work to be increasingly rationalized through technical and organizational developments, which may lead us to assume that its role in society will decrease. As pointed out in the book, he was sceptical to demands on legislation and workers’ control brought forward by trade unions. With respect to Durkheim’s sociology, the focus is on how the division of labour is related to solidarity in society. Durkheim regarded modern industrial society as the road to organic solidarity, but in this connection he played down the role of collective action at the workplace. Marx is the one of the three classic thinkers who has left the most relevant contribution for Wilson’s topics, and from him one can derive both an optimistic and a pessimistic perspective. While, on the one hand, Marx envisaged the humanization of work through the democratization of production, on the other he suggested that liberation could take place only through the abolishment of work, i.e. when we leave the ‘realm of necessity’ and enter the ‘realm of freedom’. As the development of capitalism is accompanied by increasing productivity, mankind would be able to reduce the amount of necessary work to make emancipation possible. Among the contemporary social theorists treated by Wilson, we first come across Habermas and his attempt to surpass Marx’s view of work as having a decisive role in society. For that purpose Habermas developed the concept of communicative action, but – to put the matter in a nutshell – this led him to underestimate how work affects social structures and social