In order to understand the effects of neoliberal globalization on trade unions in India, this paper investigates what have been the changes in trade union participation in modern Indian industrial...Show moreIn order to understand the effects of neoliberal globalization on trade unions in India, this paper investigates what have been the changes in trade union participation in modern Indian industrial relations. This paper uses data from the time period between 1993 and 2013 and utilizes three main variables; trade union membership, trade union density, and union wage changes in order to measure trade unions’ ability to engage and conduct their prime directive in industrial relations. This thesis finds that trade union participation has increased due to higher trade union membership, union density, and union wages while having mobilized in response to neoliberalism. Although the increase in union wages relative to non-union ones is subject to debate, a potential reason for explaining both sides is the abandonment or persistence of political incorporation and patronage of unions.Show less
Since the end of the Cold War industrial relations (IR) in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), on top of inherited ideological-institutional legacies from the Soviet era, have undergone significant...Show moreSince the end of the Cold War industrial relations (IR) in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), on top of inherited ideological-institutional legacies from the Soviet era, have undergone significant structural changes that are widely believed to have diminished organized labor’s power and significance. According to leading political economy and IR approaches, the pattern is the most pronounced in what are referred as neoliberal Baltic states, featuring among the weakest labor movements across CEE that are resembled in lagging behind IR regimes institutionalization, trade union density and collective bargaining coverage. However, when we turn our focus to the public sector explicitly, the manner and degree in which IR regimes have changed across CEE varies in ways that stand in tension with broad widely accepted labels, leading to mistaken ideas. To prove the inconsistency of the exaggerated regional patterns and typologization, this research will assess a strange case of relatively substantive, but varied public healthcare and education organized labor performance in the past few years in Lithuania, discussing both external and internal factors that make up the capacity of trade unions.Show less
Since the mid-1980s German collective bargaining coverage of employees has continuously declined. Current explanations attribute this decline to structural changes in the German economy, but...Show moreSince the mid-1980s German collective bargaining coverage of employees has continuously declined. Current explanations attribute this decline to structural changes in the German economy, but structural factors by themselves fail to explain why coverage has increased in other European Coordinated Market Economies during the same period. The resulting divergence in coverage can instead be attributed to differences in employer support for the use of statutory mechanisms to shore up collective bargaining. As shown here, German employers have, in contrast to employers elsewhere, continuously opposed such measures. Based on a set of semi-structured elite interviews and case studies, I analyse what explains this opposition. This thesis shows that German employer associations oppose a frequent use of statutory extension by default based on 1) a strong normative aversion to state intervention, 2) a normative appreciation of wage competition, and 3) the believe that statutory extension can itself undermine coverage. Furthermore, I demonstrate that when there are highly salient problems in a sector which employers believe can be remedied by statutory extension sectoral employers can overcome the German default position and use extensions however only to an extent that is perceived as strictly necessary.Show less
From the 1970s onwards, Britain’s weakened trade unions have attempted a rejuvenation of their orientations and strategies: chiefly in order to appeal to and represent precarity-prone workers in a...Show moreFrom the 1970s onwards, Britain’s weakened trade unions have attempted a rejuvenation of their orientations and strategies: chiefly in order to appeal to and represent precarity-prone workers in a more satisfactory manner than they had before. However, this rejuvenation process has occurred in a piecemeal and uncoordinated manner: orientations have only shifted partially, and certain rejuvenatory strategies have been far from effective. An interwoven process has occurred alongside, and helped necessitate, this attempted rejuvenation: Britain’s urban labour markets have become increasingly ‘ruralised’. That is to say, the British economy has been fundamentally restructured, and urban industrial relations in the ‘New Economy’ have come to increasingly resemble those long found in British agriculture. Britain’s Farmworkers’ Union has had to contend with ‘new economic’ institutional conditions – namely the norms of small-employee firms and interpersonal and/or triangular relations between employers and workers – for an extended period of time. It is therefore reasonable to assume that, from 1970 onwards, the Farmworker’s Union would have utilised those orientations and strategies adopted by Britain’s urban unions during their rejuvenation processes, but in a more systematic, coherent and effective manner, and from an earlier date. To interrogate this assumption I pose the following research question: in terms of form and effectiveness, how differentiated have the orientations and strategies of the Farmworkers’ Union been, with regards to precarity-prone workers, when compared to the wider Trade Union Movement, and why?Show less
