Kurt Vandaele

Youth representatives’ opinions on recruiting and representing young workers: A twofold unsatisfied demand?

Unionization levels are far lower among young workers than for the workforce in general. How can trade unions become more responsive to their particular interests and needs? Union confederations, even in countries with decentralized union structures, have the potential to take effective initiatives to facilitate and support new organizing strategies targeted at young workers, for example by spreading knowledge, practical skills and vision of relevance for improving the representation and recruitment of young workers. Yet the survey findings reported here show that youth representatives across Europe find their confederations’ responsiveness and commitment to organizing to be inadequate. Their dissatisfaction confirms previous research findings concerning young workers and their unfulfilled desire for unionization.

Following the ‘Organising Model’ of British Unions? Organising Non-Standard Workers in Germany and the Netherlands

Over the last three decades trade unions in almost all European countries have been losing members. In particular non-standard workers (part-time employed, temporary employed and own- account self-employed) are currently less likely than those on standard contracts to be organised in unions. The paper, which is based on a literature review, has a two-fold purpose. A first objective is to provide a survey of the initiatives developed by trade unions in Germany, the Netherlands and the UK for organising non-standard workers. A second objective is to assess whether, and to what extent, the Dutch and German unions are influenced by British union practices for recruiting new members and among them non-standard workers.

Sustaining or Abandoning ‘Social Peace’? Strike Development and Trends in Europe Since the 1990s

Providing a simple quantitative overview and a short macro-comparative analysis of strike activity in Europe since the 1990s, this working paper assesses whether three strike trends observed in the 1990s continued in the next decade. First of all, there was a continued drop in strike activity measured by days not worked due to strikes. Relative ‘labour quiescence’ was thus also the underlying feature of the 2000s in Europe. Secondly, the rank order in the European ‘strike league table’ shows remarkable stability over a 20-year period. Albeit with a tendency towards convergence, possible future dynamics of workers’ collective action and its meaning will thus almost certainly continue to vary across Europe. Finally, politically motivated mass strikes and demonstrations, especially in the public sector, directed against (planned) government action and legislation to alter employment law were on the increase in the 2000s, with noteworthy effects due to the current socioeconomic crisis. However, it remains to be seen whether an increase in public sector strikes, commonly defensive in nature and seeking to maintain existing employment regulations, will change the continued proliferation of neoliberal policies or stimulate trade union revitalisation.

Undermining mobilization? The effect of job flexibility and job instability on the willingness to strike

This article addresses the question of whether, and to what extent job flexibility is detrimental to mobilization with regard to the willingness to take part in industrial action. The authors examine the influence of job flexibility (‘standard’ versus ‘non-standard’ work) and job instability (changes from one job to another) on employees’ willingness to strike. Based on Dutch survey data it is shown that only minor differences exist between ‘standard’ and ‘non-standard’ employees in their willingness to participate in a strike. While this study did not establish a major direct effect of job flexibility on strike participation, tests of interaction effects reveal that job flexibility moderates other mobilizing factors, such as union membership and job dissatisfaction. Job instability, on average, has no effect on strike participation.

Comparing official strike data in Europe – dealing with varieties of strike recording

International strike data have always been incomplete, with no data from such major countries as China and only little data from many other countries. The International Labour Office (ILO) remains the primary source for global data on strikes and lock-outs. Following the reorganization of its Department of Statistics in 2009, it introduced a new database on labour statistics called the ‘ILOSTAT Database’. Nevertheless, at the time of writing (March 2016), strike data still show considerable gaps, with up-to-date time series on strikes and lock-outs only available for a minority of countries. There are two main reasons for this. First, a number of countries simply do not collect these data at all or at least not on a regular basis. Secondly, it appears that some national statistical offices only return the ILO questionnaires with a considerable delay. Consulting the European Commission’s statistical office Eurostat is no help, as it stopped its time series in 2009, allegedly for budgetary reasons. The European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions occasionally collects quantitative information on strike activity via its national correspondents (Boehmer et al., 2015). Given this lack of strike data or the delayed reporting in comparative databases, in most cases it is therefore necessary to collect these data directly from national statistical offices. Providing an overview of currently available strike data, the European Trade Union Institute (ETUI) offers an interactive map and a ‘Strikes in Europe’ database on its website (www.etui.org), based on available national sources. Historical data sets for a number of countries are provided by the IISH Dataserve on Labour Conflicts. Appendix Table1 provides a comprehensive overview of the availability of data on strikes and lock-outs in 30 European countries. It is clear from this table that strike recording discrepancies constitute a fundamental difficulty in any comparative strike research. Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic and Slovenia do not provide and probably do not even collect official strike data. Greece stopped official recording in 1999 (Chernyshev, 2003: 7) and Italy in 2009. In Romania data for 2009 are very incomplete and from 2010 onwards non-existent. In Portugal no data exist for 2008 and 2009, the two years at the outset of the Great Recession. Of the 22 countries for which fairly consistent time series are available, 18 report the number of strikes or lock-outs, 19 the number of workers involved and 21 the ‘days not worked’ (DNW) due to strikes or lock-outs. The new French time series introduced in 2005 for the private sector gives none of the above, but only the DNW per 1000 workers and the proportion of establishments affected by a conflict.

Youth structures in six European trade union federations: a short overview

This short contribution focuses on the structures for organizing and representing young workers in six European trade union federations (ETUFs); the Youth Committee of the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) is not included here. The reason for this is that recently – in other words, since the Great Recession – trade union youth structures have stepped up their efforts, internally and externally, to promote the interests and needs of young workers. Although some of the predecessors of those ETUFs, like the European Metal Federation, had youth structures in place (Platzer and Müller, 2011), at least two motives in particular underlie the reinforcement of existing structures or the establishment of new ones. First of all, the increased prominence of those youth structures should be seen in light of the widespread growth in youth unemployment in Europe and European Commission initiatives, such as the Youth Guarantee, to tackle this problem. Secondly, there seems to be a rising awareness within the ETUFs about the need to increase union membership, particularly among young workers, who are frequently employed on non-standard, often precarious employment contracts. Based on union documents this short article analyses and discusses in detail these underlying reasons for reinforcing and establishing youth structures within the ETUFs by focusing on their different organizational outcomes and statutory positions; their membership composition and size; and their goals and current activities. Regarding their financial resources, it is sufficient to mention here that youth structures are dependent mainly on external (project-)based funding by the European Union, particularly with regard to membership-related activities.

Explaining leaving union membership by the degree of labour market attachment: Exploring the case of Germany

By particularly stressing the weaker labour market attachment of workers with non-standard contracts, this article contributes to the rather unexplored issue of mainly non-union-related reasons for leaving trade unions. Germany has been selected as a case study because German unions experienced a steady decline in membership, while at the same time non-standard employment arrangements increased considerably and more so than the European average. Using the German Socio-Economic Panel data, the authors construct a labour market attachment variable capturing different degrees of attachment. Their analysis shows the impact of labour market attachment and firm-level characteristics on union leaving and points especially to important differences across gender.

Seguire l'organising model dei sindacati britannici? L'organizzazione dei lavoratori atipici in Germania e Olanda

Si stima che, fra il 1970 e il 1992, circa il 40% del declino della sindacalizzazione nei paesi europei sia attribuibile al mutamento strutturale dalla manifattura ai servizi nel settore privato e dalle privatizzazioni di molti servizi pubblici.Tuttavia, questi cambiamenti composizionali della forza lavoro possono spiegare solo in parte il declino numerico sindacale e la logica aritmetica del cambiamento fra rami d’industria non chiarisce perche i sindacati non possano incrementare gli iscritti in altre aree occupazionali. Per questo bisogna anche tener conto dei mutamenti interni a ogni ramo produttivo. Sebbene esistano altre forme di lavoro atipico questo articolo si concentra soprattutto sul part-time, il lavoro temporaneo e quello autonomo.