Steen Scheuer

A Novel Calculus? Institutional Change, Globalization and Industrial Conflict in Europe:

Collective industrial conflict in Europe has declined dramatically since the 1970s. This decline is the result of significant changes in institutional factors, influencing the calculations of employees and their organizations when considering strike action. Declining union density and changes in market protection seem major influences, while institutional and legal changes are important explanations of persistent major inter-country variance. This indicates a novel industrial conflict calculus for employees, which entails a more restricted use, but not the withering away of the strike.

Union membership variation in Europe: A ten-country comparative analysis

This article investigates covariates of union density in ten West European countries. It adds to previous research by showing that collective bargaining coverage plays a substantial role. Hence future analyses of union density should emphasize the collective bargaining coverage variable, since trade unions may influence both the extent of coverage and the content of agreements. Of course, the question of the direction of the causality remains.

Social and economic motivation at work: theories of motivation reassessed

Subordinate actors at work - rational choice and social-normative actor motives actor motives in the informal organization - the Hawthorne experiments revisited subjectivity and motivation - the actor-centred approach actor motives in the actual labour process - making out at an American engineering works. Conclusion: the actor motives of the subordinates - a contribution to industrial sociology.

Free riders: the rise of alternative unionism in Denmark

In this article we analyse some disturbing trends in the Danish labour market: while collective bargaining coverage is still relatively high, union density has been declining and - worse than that - there has been a substantial shift away from recognised and in favour of alternative unionism. The alternative unions are not parties to collective agreements, and they offer membership much cheaper than the recognised unions, in effect taking a free ride on the institutional supports that used to be effective only for the recognised unions. The article explains this conundrum by pointing to the political and institutional backgrounds to this development, which threatens to erode the very basis for the Danish collective bargaining system. On the background of general statistics and of a general employee survey, we point out the reasons behind the challenges confronting the recognised unions, pointing out that the recognised unions must become both more efficient in the member services and more cost efficient, if they wish to halt the present downhill trend.

The Impact of Collective Agreements on Working Time in Denmark

This article examines the impact of collective agreements on the working time patterns of private-sector employees in Denmark. The expected effect would be a reduction in working hours and overtime and an increase in overtime compensation. On the basis of an individual-level survey of 1720 employees, it is shown that there is a clear union impact on working time behaviour, but that it varies by subject area. While in some areas there is a near total spillover of rules from collective agreements (the collective agreement has become a social norm), in others there is a clear ‘union mark-down’, and in still others collective agreements seem to make no impact at all.

Strikes in the public sector in Denmark – assessing the economic gains and losses of collective action

This article looks at strikes by employees in the public sector, discusses the theoretical background to these conflicts and shows – based on a case study of three strikes in the Danish public sector – how different union strategies lead to very different outcomes in terms of economic gains and losses, ranging from a slightly positive result to a negative result from which it will take eight to ten years to recover. This is of great importance because the challenge facing public sector unions is different from that of their counterparts: private sector unions struggle with the owners of capital, while public sector unions trying to move up the wage hierarchy cannot expect much help from fellow public sector unions, often quite the reverse.