1 / 12

EUROPEAN TRADE UNIONS AND ‘PRECARIOUS’ WORKERS Rebecca Gumbrell-McCormick and Richard Hyman

EUROPEAN TRADE UNIONS AND ‘PRECARIOUS’ WORKERS Rebecca Gumbrell-McCormick and Richard Hyman. OVERVIEW. background: 10-country project varieties of ‘atypical’ and ‘precarious’ employment trade unions: challenges and responses concluding remarks.

matty
Download Presentation

EUROPEAN TRADE UNIONS AND ‘PRECARIOUS’ WORKERS Rebecca Gumbrell-McCormick and Richard Hyman

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript

  1. EUROPEAN TRADE UNIONS AND ‘PRECARIOUS’ WORKERSRebecca Gumbrell-McCormickand Richard Hyman

  2. OVERVIEW • background: 10-country project • varieties of ‘atypical’ and ‘precarious’ employment • trade unions: challenges and responses • concluding remarks

  3. 3-year grant from Danish Social Science Research Council 10 west European countries, 4 varieties of capitalism focus on trade union strategic responses to globalisation and other challenges major theme emerging from interviews: decline of ‘normal worker’ with ‘permanent’ full-time employment contract BACKGROUND: 10-COUNTRY PROJECT

  4. VARIETIES OF ‘ATYPICAL’ AND ‘PRECARIOUS’ EMPLOYMENT • part-time • precarious ?? • temporary • but what is ‘permanent’ ? • agency (TAW) • subcontracting / outsourcing • dependent self-employment • EU enlargement: avoids transitional restrictions • posted workers • enlargement and ECJ rulings • cross-national variation in regulation and deregulation • employer strategic choice

  5. TRADE UNIONS: CHALLENGES AND RESPONSES • threat and/or opportunity ? • social dumping and divide-and-rule • almost universally: low unionisation rate • UK: permanent 28%, temporary 17%; • women F-T 33%, P-T 24% (men 27% / 13%) • why ? workers, unions, or both ? • key strategic choice: resist or include ? • recruitment, representation, mobilisation • but will ‘industrial model’ work ? • campaigns and alliances • political pressure for regulation • EU and global dimension

  6. CONCLUDING REMARKS • complex picture: variations across contract types and countries • parallels / interaction with age, gender, ethnicity • union responses: resist, control, include • insider / outsider conflicts ? • organising: will, capacity and resource allocation • tensions and constraints in ‘organising model’ • but some success stories !

More Related