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Trade unions in Europe face a range of cross-cutting challenges. This includes the near-universal contraction in union membership; the related decline of traditionally highly unionised blue-collar industries; and the rise of automation, microprocessing, and digitalisation, which can make it cheaper for employers to invest in machines than to pay humans to work. The breakdown of the standard contract of employment and increasing rates of precarious work have further transformed the world of work. Taken together, this makes any collectivist vision of society, and the notion of solidarity upon which trade unionism is built, difficult to sustain.
All this raises tough questions for trade unionists, policy-makers, and researchers alike regarding the future of trade unions, the oldest and largest civil society movement in Europe. The contributions in this volume explore the prospects for union revival across a range of cases, including by focusing on the pursuit of legal remedies and on the opportunities associated with the network society to defend the interests of workers.
This interdisciplinary volume includes contributions that consider the Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Finland, Germany, Spain, Sweden, Poland, the United Kingdom, and the EU level by researchers coming from a range of disciplines and backgrounds. The volume should especially appeal to researchers and practitioners working in the fields of political science, sociology, law, and business studies.
List of contents
Chapter 1: Introduction.- Chapter 2: The right to collective bargaining for economically dependent workers with a self-employed status.- Chapter 3: The European Court of Justice and Trade Unions' Power in Europe.- Chapter 4: Trade Unions and Migration in Europe.- Chapter 5: Confronting a moral abyss: Unions and the role of law in the France Télécom case.- Chapter 6: The renewal of trade unionism in France?.- Chapter 7: France: Macron's orders and trade union power in the field of health at work.- Chapter 8: Organised labour vs. Fluid organizations - insights from the Gilets Jaunes movement.- Chapter 9: The Decline of the Czech Trade Union Movement.- Chapter 10: Trade Union Participation and New Forms of Collective Action:Pension Reform in Spain as a Case Study.- Chapter 11: Danish Trade Unions and Young People: Using Media in the Battle for Hearts and Minds.- Chapter 12: German trade unions and the EU minimum wage debate: between national elite and transnational working class.- Chapter 13: Workplace Democracy in the UK: Reviving voice institutions in unpromising times?.- Chapter 14: Polish unions towards populism: strategies and dilemmas.- Chapter 15: Conclusion.
About the author
Barry Colfer is Research Fellow in Politics at St Edmund's College, University of Cambridge, UK and Max Weber Fellow at the European University Institute, Florence, Italy.
