Introduction: European Trade Unions in the Twenty-First Century

Abstract

The introduction sets the scene for this volume by briefly reviewing the context in which European trade unions currently reside. This includes the institutional arrangements that regulate employment relationships, and the different varieties of capitalism, industrial relations regimes, welfare state traditions and employment regimes (i.e. inclusive, dualist, and market-focused types) that currently prevail across Europe. The chapter then reviews how unions exist within these contested contexts while facing a range of cross-cutting challenges including the near universal contraction in union membership, the decline of traditionally highly unionised blue-collar industries, the rise of automation, micro-processing and digitalisation and increasing rates of precarious forms of employment which, taken together, make any collectivist vision of society, and the notion of solidarity upon which trade unionism is based, difficult to sustain.

This raises tough questions for unions, policy-makers and commentators alike, regarding the terms and conditions of employment, exploitation and control at work, and the role and nature of trade unions—the oldest and largest civil society movement in Europe. How can unions change their practices and strategies to still be able to defend workers’ rights in this changing workplace and political context? To what extent must unions reinvent their fundamental functions or must they merely renew and refine traditional methods of representation and action? In what ways can unions help to ‘put the brakes’ on the destruction of the standard contract of employment, on the reduction in the terms and conditions of employment, and on the breakdown of formal and informal forms of worker voice and workplace democracy that are making many workers poorer and less happy? The volume identifies two processes which promote solidarity that are picked up in several chapters, namely: (i) recourse to the law and (ii) the maximisation of opportunities associated with the network society. The introduction concludes with an outline of the remaining chapters in this volume.