British Trade Unions and Economic and Monetary Union (original) (raw)
This article is primarily concerned with the political economy of British trade union policy towards the European Community (EC) in the 1960s and 1970s. Its aim is to reassess union engagement with the EC in this period from a viewpoint informed by the now established perspective of world-order analysis in international political economy (Cox, 1981; Lipietz, 1992; Gamble & Payne, 1996; Payne, 2005). The article is specifically concerned with the re-evaluation in this light of two notable but contrasting and substantially contradictory perspectives on British unions and Europe: Dorfman (1977) and Teague (1985, 1989, later incorporated into Teague & Grahl, 1992). In its concluding section, the article briefly considers the implications of this reassessment for British union policy in relation to the contemporary EU.
European Review of History: Revue européenne d'histoire, 2019
In their introduction to this special issue, the editors mentioned that the commodification of labour is one important feature of capitalism. Hence, the reaction of the principal organizations that represent and defend labour needed to be explored. This article focuses on Belgian and German trade unions' apprehensions of European integration during the 1970s and sheds lights on two major findings. First, trade unions' perceptions of European integration were very clearly influenced by the condition and the evolution of capitalism. National trade unions observed that the transformations of capitalism could not be adequately addressed by national polities and industrial relations structures. Hence, trade unions heavily insisted on the necessity of political and trade unionist European cooperation. The latter is considered a necessary intermediary to allow labour to counterbalance the new forms of capital and to regain the influence it lost nationally. The second finding is that there existed a huge paradox between this enduring rhetoric of the necessity of European integration and the willingness of trade unions to give up some of their national prerogatives. The evolving forms of capitalism made it imperative to cooperate more at the supranational level but trade unions remained very much reluctant national institutions.
Transfer: European Review of Labour and Research, 2008
The development of a European economic and social model poses serious challenges for European trade unions. On the one hand, demand for a strengthening of the social dimension of the European integration project is growing and it is realised that this cannot be achieved by unilateral action at the national level. On the other hand, the identities and organisational capacities of trade unions are deeply embedded in national welfare state institutions, limiting the leeway for a common European social model. This ...
EUI PhD thesis, 2004
This thesis addresses two questions: first, has there emerged in Europe a system of industrial relations which crosses national boundaries? Secondly, does organised labour contribute to the process of democratisation of the European Union? Scholars have argued that the EU cannot be democratised because there is no European society as such, no European network of intermediate social institutions, no European public sphere, no European demos and no Euro-democratic citizens’ movement. This thesis has discovered evidence to the contrary. It is generally acknowledged that the existing governance structures and mechanism of the EU “are not able to provide democratic legitimation for the EU polity as a whole” (Héritier 1999:208; European Commission 2003a: 38). Indeed, a democratic polis needs, according to Lepsius, in addition to its constitutional bodies, a tight network of intermediate social institutions and organisations such as, for example, the unions, other civil society organisations and the mass media. These offer the possibility of a larger amount of participation in the political system for the citizens and thus an increase in its legitimisation. As a result, the constitution of a European industrial relations system is linked to the constitution o f a European democracy, although political and social actors, such as the unions, almost never conceive of democratisation as a goal in its own right. Social actors usually support democratisation only if they expect that a more democratic polity will provide a better framework for the satisfaction of their interests. The EU is neither a fixed nor an autocratic polity. It follows that EU-democratisation differs significantly from previous national experiences. Unlike the corresponding national processes, it can hardly be analysed as a transition from authoritarian rule to democracy in an established state (Schmitter 2000). For that reason, nation-state based theories of democratisation can only partially serve as a reference. Moreover, most European integration theories also neglect the concept of Euro-democratisation; this is partly due to their output-oriented understanding of EU legitimacy, partly due to their focus on elitist EU-level actors. In turn, the prospects of a more democratic EU are widely discussed in political theory (Habermas 1992: 632-60; Rieger 1997; Abromeit 1998). However, while we have already argued that a “transnational democracy” (Eme et ah I995)2 would be an essential normative objective, it is much more difficult to explain why and under which conditions social actors would pursue, consciously or unconsciously, a Euro-democratisation strategy. Therefore, I do not wish to add another more or less sophisticated blueprint o f a future Euro-democracy to the theoretical debate, but aim to analyse one potential actor of Euro-democratisation, namely organised labour. The democratic political systems allowed organised labour to shift the class conflict from the market place to the political arena, where the workers’ strength lies in their sheer numbers (Esping-Andersen and Korpi 1984). But even if unions may have played an important role in national démocratisation processes (Stedman Jones 1983: 178; Rueschemeyer, Huber Stephens, and Stephens 1992), this does not necessarily promise a similar role for them at the EU-level. Whereas authoritarian regimes force unions to take part in démocratisation movements because they typically repress independent trade-union activities, the institutional setting of the EU also provides alternative options for organised labour. For this reason, this thesis assesses the various, “deliberately chosen” or “emergent” (Strâh 1990: 3), strategies that unions can adopt to influence the transformation of governance in the EU. It would be good now to identify these various options. Numerous studies emphasize that EU level trade unionism is primarily based on a union "diplomacy", exclusive to union executives and experts (Turner 1996; Dolvik 1997; Gobin 1996; Pemot 2001). These activities were partly successful, given the implementation of some achievements, such as the Maastricht social protocol. These successes may be explained by a compatibility of this type of union action with the EU institutions’ technocratic mode of governance (Joerges and Vos 1999). Indeed, the EU institutions may favour “procedural” trade-union participation in EU policymaking, because they require the unions’ compliance, expertise and legitimacy to act in some policy fields, such as social and employment policy (Smismans 2001; Keller 2001). For this reason, Euro-technocratisation could also be a promising strategy of organised labour. However, given the persuasive impact of neo-liberal ideology on the EU’s economic policy, the unions could also reject the EU integration process as a “capitalist project” and try to pursue a national democratic welfare state strategy. Despite its internationalist ideology, organised labour’s history is profoundly linked to the nation state. Diverging national arrangements in the field of industrial relations and welfare (Crouch 1993; Esping-Andersen 1990) integrated the working classes and their organisations into their nation states and provided them with an important set of rights and benefits (Visser 1996). Therefore, Pasture and Verberckmoes conclude that the trade union movement “cannot afford to reject the appeal of national identity” (1998: 23). Yet, the national democratic “re-nationalisation” 3 strategy seems to be losing its viability, because national social democratic policies face firm restrictions within the increasingly integrated European and global economy (Sassoon 1997: 558; Gray 2000). In turn, a technocratic re-nationalisation strategy may emerge (Streeck 1999) characterised by social pacts that aim to enhance national competitiveness (Rhodes 1997). Accordingly, a national “competition state” (Cemy 1990), would replace the national welfare state and the unions would pursue a technocratic re-nationalisation strategy. The rising constraints on social democratic policies at the national level could also motivate the unions to Europeanise their activities. In fact, to some extent a growing Europeanisation of rank-and-file union activities can be observed, as demonstrated by the recent increase in European demonstrations (Lefébure 2002). As political mobilisation frequently went from “contestation to democracy” at the national level (Giugni, McAdam, and Tilly 1998), a similar process is plausible at the EU level, too. Democratization requires a feeling of communality among its citizens. It follows that organised labour could contribute to Euro-democratisation, if it encouraged European collective action and the rise of a European public sphere (Habermas 1992: 650). People start recognising that they belong to the same political system as soon as they begin to act together, even if they might contest its policies. European collective action would also contribute to the rise of a European public sphere and to a politicisation of the EU-integration process (Imig and Tarrow 2001). Likewise, Richard Hyman argued that supporting the emergence and consolidation of a European civil society and citizenship should be an important task for unions (Hyman 2001:175). This thesis aims to identify first, the various strategic options of organised labour facing the tensions between “national competition" and “European coordination" on one hand, and “democratic” and “technocratic” decision-making, on the other. This leads to a typology of four possible EU-polity strategies of any social and political actor, i.e. Euro-democratisation, Euro-technocracy, democratic and technocratic re-nationalisation. Then this schema will be set to work in several comparative studies of the contradictory performance of various unions in central fields of their every-day activities. Hence, this thesis does not study union statements with regard to the ongoing EU reform process, as every union rhetorically supports a more “social and democratic” EU. In the event that a union is, deliberately or intuitively, adopting a Euro-democratisation strategy, it must be evident in its most important activities. Therefore, this thesis will focus on two subject areas that belong to the core of union politics, namely collective bargaining and job protection during company restructurings: The first paired comparison assesses the tension between the “competitive bargaining” policies of national unions, seeking a competitive advantage for their respective economies, and the conflicting attempts by the European Metalworkers’ Federation (EMF) and the European Federation of Building and Woodworkers’ (EFBWW) to foster a European-wide coordination of national bargaining policies. The second paired comparison analyses the tension between the unions’ technocratic and a democratic EU policy-making in two recent transnational company merger cases. Whereas the European workers’ representatives of ABB and Alstom tried to politicise the ABB-Alstom-Power merger case and insisted on a democratisation of the EU Commission’s merger-control policy, the European workers’ representatives of Alcan, Pechiney and Al group adopted in their company merger case a strategy that was totally compatible with the technocratic approach of the Commission’s competition policy. First, however, the thesis starts with an overview of the central ideas in the Euro-democratisation debate and the potential interests of the labour movement in it; as the trade unions - it must be reiterated - almost certainly do not view Euro-democratisation as a goal in its own right. Therefore, I will also assess the power resources of the unions at the EU-level and compare them with the various strategies that organised labour could adopt with regard to the European integration process.
National Labour Organizations and European Integration: British Trade Unions and '1992'
Political Studies, 1993
The conversion of British trade unions to positive attitudes towards the European Community was a significant feature of British politics in the late 1980s. This article explains the origins of this policy shift and questions the received wisdom that short term opportunism was the primary motivating factor. The British trade union response to '1992' was far from uniform and distinct factions can be identified within a policy coalition. The reasons for the durability and cohesiveness of this coalition are discussed along with the general shifts in thinking on the British Left and the developments in European integration which explain the general change of attitudes. * This article is a revised version of a paper presented to the Government Studies research seminar at Oxford Polytechnic in February 1992. I am grateful for the helpful comments of Jack Hayward and two anonymous referees on an earlier version of this article. In addition I would like to thank Andrew Gamble for his enthusiastic and thorough supervision of the doctoral research which informs this piece.