The Trade Unions: From Partnership to Crisis

2010 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 22-37 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kieran Allen
Keyword(s):  
Trade Unions ◽  
Anglo Saxon ◽  
Success Story ◽  
Current Crisis ◽  
Free Markets ◽  
Trade Union Movement ◽  
Social Partnership ◽  
New Era ◽  
Union Movement ◽  
Welfare Model

The Irish model of social partnership was once hailed as a success story for other countries to emulate. According to its supporters, the unions avoided marginalisation and devised a strategy to balance competitiveness and equity. Through partnership, Ireland was able to combine the benefits of an Anglo-Saxon notion of free markets with a ‘solidaristic’ ethos and so forge a ‘developmental welfare model’ (NESC 2005). Social partnership replaced class conflict with a new era of understanding between employers and unions. Paul Sweeney of the ICTU claimed that, ‘for unions and employers the biggest accomplishment has been getting into the heads of each other, to understand unambiguously what the deep concerns of the other side are’ (Sweeney 2008: 125). This paper examines the journey of the Irish trade union movement from main players in social partnership through to the current crisis.

Abolition of Exchange Controls

2021 ◽  
pp. 89-110
Author(s):  
Jack Copley
Keyword(s):  
Capital Flows ◽  
Trade Unions ◽  
Political Legitimacy ◽  
Trade Union Movement ◽  
New Era ◽  
British Economy ◽  
Export Sector ◽  
Union Movement ◽  
Mobile Capital ◽  
The Uk

This chapter explores the abolition of exchange controls, which transformed the British economy by ushering in a new era of mobile capital flows. Following the IMF’s 1976 bailout of the UK and the advent of North Sea oil, sterling began to appreciate precipitously. While this helped to discipline the British economy and reduce inflation, it also pushed British exporters to the brink of collapse. Governments during this period thus faced a choice between embracing the strong pound to tackle inflation and combating the pound’s rise in order to maintain political legitimacy. The governments of both Callaghan and Thatcher sought to navigate carefully between these two options. By getting rid of exchange controls, these governments hoped that investment would flow out of Britain, causing a moderate fall in the price of sterling. This would make Britain’s exports more competitive without generating a spike in inflation that would likely result from an overt sterling devaluation. The Callaghan administration was held back from totally abolishing controls by a resistant trade union movement. Thatcher, however, was able to fully scrap these controls due to the historic defeat of the trade unions in the 1979 Winter of Discontent. In addition, Thatcher sought to reassure global financial markets that this policy was not an attempt to lower sterling’s value, but was rather driven by a genuine faith in laissez-faire principles. The abolition of exchange controls should thus be understood as a palliative strategy to protect governing legitimacy by providing temporary relief to Britain’s export sector.

scholarly journals Trade Unions in the Comfort Zone: Liberal Authority in Yeltsin’s Russia.

2009 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Norma Jo Baker
Keyword(s):  
Social Relations ◽  
Trade Union ◽  
Trade Unions ◽  
Social Institutions ◽  
Political Elite ◽  
Russian Society ◽  
Liberal Democracies ◽  
Social Partnership ◽  
New Era ◽  
Economic Relations

While much has been written on the failure of the Yeltsin presidency and the transformation of Russian society since 1991, little work has been done that illustrates the participation of established liberal democracies in supporting Yeltsin’s authoritarian, politically unresponsive ‘superpresidentialism,’ or linking this support to the authoritarian nature of the modern liberal democratic project itself. By examining Russian trade union culture and history, as well as international trade union representative involvement, this paper argues that the persistent neglect of unions in the 1990s to challenge social relations of production can be understood as paradigmatic of an authoritarian dynamic focused on the political elite rather than on their membership. With international support, the regime’s concern was with the dismantling of Soviet economic relations and social institutions. Working from the culture and history of Russian trade unions, the unions’ efforts to retain a place in the new era through a strategy of ‘social partnership,’ combined with the collapse of the social welfare system, reinforced a top-down inertia characteristic of the unions. The result, predictably, was an era marked by a politics of irresponsibility, a political ethic is not indicative of an inherent Russian authoritarianism, but that of the authoritarian nature of the liberal modernity itself.

scholarly journals Manufacturing Consensus? New Zealand Press Attitudes Toward the Labour Movement in 1890

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
James Keating
Keyword(s):  
New Zealand ◽  
Trade Unions ◽  
Land Reform ◽  
Trade Union Movement ◽  
Labour Movement ◽  
Union Movement ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Press ◽  
National Significance ◽  
Transformative Impact

<p>This thesis investigates the attitudes of New Zealand newspapers to the social and economic tensions exacerbated by the emergence of a newly assertive labour movement in 1890, culminating in the August-November Maritime Strike, and the 5 December General Election. Through detailed analysis of labour reporting in six newspapers (Evening Post, Grey River Argus, Lyttelton Times, New Zealand Herald, Otago Daily Times, Press) this thesis examines contemporary conceptions of New Zealand society and editors’ expectations of trade unions in a colony that emphasised its egalitarian mythology. Although the establishment of a national press agency in 1880 homogenised the distribution of national and international news, this study focuses on local news and editorial columns, which generally reflected proprietors’ political leanings. Through these sites of ideological contest, conflicting representations of the ascendant trade union movement became apparent. While New Zealand newspapers sympathised with the striking London dockers in 1889, the advent of domestic industrial tensions provoked a wider range of reactions in the press. Strikes assumed a national significance, and the divisions between liberal and conservative newspapers narrowed. To varying degrees both considered militant action by organised labour a threat to the colony’s peace and prosperity – sentiments that pervaded their reporting. The New Zealand Maritime Strike confirmed these prejudices and calcified the perception of organised labour’s malevolence. Despite the year’s upheavals, this thesis contends that the press struggled to comprehend labour’s political ambitions, ignoring the unprecedented mobilisation of thousands of new voters, shifting public opinion, and the transformative impact of electoral reform. Distracted by the mainstream political obsession with land reform and convinced that public prejudices, stoked by their own reporting, would obviate a labour presence in the new parliament, the victory of the Liberal-labour coalition confounded the publishing establishment.</p>

Globalisation and the dilemmas of international trade unionism

2000 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 29-42 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rebecca Gumbrell-McCormick
Keyword(s):  
International Trade ◽  
Multinational Corporations ◽  
Trade Union ◽  
Trade Unions ◽  
Global Economy ◽  
Trade Union Movement ◽  
Labour Movement ◽  
Trade Unionism ◽  
Union Movement ◽  
Economic Developments

This article presents the author's reflections on the possibilities of a restructuring of the international trade union movement, on the basis of a collective research project to mark the fiftieth anniversary of the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU) which seeks to open a debate within the movement over the lessons to be learned from its history as a guide for its future action. The most important question facing the trade union movement today is what is generally called 'globalisation', a phenomenon that goes back many years, both in terms of economic developments and labour struggles. From this perspective, the paper examines the basis for the existing divisions of the international labour movement, before going over the work of the ICFTU and of the International Trade Secretariats (ITSs) to achieve the regulation of the multinational corporations and of the international economy, and concluding on the prospects for unity of action in the unions' work around the global economy.

British Trade Unions and European Union Integration in the 1990s: Politics versus Political Economy

2002 ◽  
Vol 50 (2) ◽  
pp. 332-353 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gerard Strange
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Political Economy ◽  
Trade Union ◽  
Trade Unions ◽  
Economic And Monetary Union ◽  
Trade Union Movement ◽  
Trade Unionism ◽  
Union Movement ◽  
British Trade ◽  
Careful Assessment

This article evaluates the changing assessments within the British trade union movement of the efficacy of European Union integration from the viewpoint of labour interests. It argues that there has been a marked further ‘Europeanisation’ of British trade unionism during the 1990s, consolidating an on-going process which previous research shows began in earnest in the mid 1980s. A shift in trade union economic policy assessments has seen the decisive abandonment of the previously dominant ‘naive’ or national Keynesianism. While there remain important differences in economic perspective between unions, these are not such as would create significant divisions over the question of European integration per se, the net benefits of which are now generally, though perhaps not universally, accepted. The absence of fundamental divisions is evident from a careful assessment of the debates about economic and monetary union at TUC Congress. The Europeanisation of British trade unionism needs to be seen within the context of an emergent regionalism, in Europe and elsewhere. It can best be understood as a rational response by an important corporate actor (albeit one whose national influence has been considerably diminished in recent decades) to globalisation and a significantly changing political economy environment.

scholarly journals The International Trade-Union Movement and the Founding of the International Labour Organization

2005 ◽  
Vol 50 (3) ◽  
pp. 399-433 ◽  
Author(s):  
Reiner Tosstorff
Keyword(s):  
World War I ◽  
Trade Union ◽  
Trade Unions ◽  
International Labour Organization ◽  
High Expectations ◽  
Trade Union Movement ◽  
Labour Movement ◽  
Working Classes ◽  
Union Movement

Accounts of the founding of the International Labour Organization (ILO) usually emphasize the role of social-reformist intellectuals and politicians. Despite the indisputable role of these actors, however, the international labour movement was the actual initiator of this process. Over the course of World War I, the international labour movement proposed a comprehensive programme of protection for the working classes, which, conceived as compensation for its support of the war, was supposed to become an international agreement after the war. In 1919, politicians took up this programme in order to give social stability to the postwar order. However, the way in which the programme was instituted disappointed the high expectations of trade unions regarding the fulfilment of their demands. Instead, politicians offered them an institution that could be used, at best, to realize trade-union demands. Despite open disappointment and sharp critique, however, the revived International Federation of Trade Unions (IFTU) very quickly adapted itself to this mechanism. The IFTU now increasingly oriented its international activities around the lobby work of the ILO.

Civil Strife and the Growth of Trade Union Unity: The Case of Ireland

1973 ◽  
Vol 8 (4) ◽  
pp. 407-431
Author(s):  
Charles McCarthy
Keyword(s):  
Trade Union ◽  
Trade Unions ◽  
Political Activity ◽  
Shop Floor ◽  
Annual Conference ◽  
Trade Union Movement ◽  
The Troubles ◽  
Political Role ◽  
Union Movement ◽  
Difficult Time

A MAJOR CLAIM OF THE TRADE UNION MOVEMENT IN THIS DIFFICULT time in Northern Ireland is that they have ‘prevented the spread of riot and disturbance into the workplace’. The claim has been consistently made and with growing emphasis since the troubles began, and Norman Kennedy at last year's annual conference of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions called it the one beacon of hope, this ‘maintaining unity of the workers, Catholic and Protestant, on the shop floor’ in what he described as largely a conflict of worker against worker, of a working-class community divided along sectarian lines. This is associated with a related claim that trade union recommendations on social and political change have a special legitimacy because the leadership is close to the people who are involved in the conflict. This political role, essentially non-party, is seen to be more significant and extensive than the traditional political activity of the trade union movement.

Palestinian Trade Unions

2000 ◽  
Vol 29 (4) ◽  
pp. 66-79 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nina Sovich
Keyword(s):  
Trade Union ◽  
Labor Movement ◽  
Trade Unions ◽  
Palestinian Authority ◽  
National Politics ◽  
Trade Union Movement ◽  
Union Movement

In 1994, the Palestinian labor movement, crippled by years of factionalism and Israeli oppression, expected that the arrival of the Palestinian Authority would enable it to reorient its priorities from national politics to workers' rights. This article examines the trajectory of the trade union movement since Oslo and particularly the reasons for its ongoing factionalism and failure to meet its objectives.

scholarly journals Flexland in wording.

2021 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 109-146
Author(s):  
Rosa Kösters ◽  
Loran Van Diepen ◽  
Moira Van Dijk ◽  
Matthias Van Rossum
Keyword(s):  
Economic Policy ◽  
Trade Union ◽  
Trade Unions ◽  
Historical Perspective ◽  
Institutional Perspective ◽  
Social Movement Organization ◽  
Internal Dynamics ◽  
Trade Union Movement ◽  
Union Movement ◽  
Movement Organization

Internationally, the 1980s marked a shift in economic policy. In the Netherlands, it was the decade of the supposedly moderate neoliberal turn and of the first round of flexibilization. Nowadays, the degree of flexibility of the Dutch labour market is exceptionally high compared to neighbouring countries. This article examines how the trade union movement in the 1980s responded to increasing flexibilization, which strategy was used, and how this contributed to early Dutch flexibilization. In contrast to the literature with an institutional perspective, this article analyzes the trade union movement from a social-historical perspective and as a social movement organization. As a result, it argues that the effects of rising flexibilization were signalled very early on within the trade unions. Be that as it may, both the priorities that followed from the agreements with employer organizations and the internal dynamics, were decisive for the trade union movement’s relatively late and unassertive responses towards the flexibilization of labour in the 1980s.

scholarly journals The depletion of narrative resources in the Kenyan trade union movement.

2015 ◽  
Vol 4 (4) ◽  
pp. 704-713
Author(s):  
Collins Ogutu Miruka
Keyword(s):  
Trade Unions ◽  
Qualitative Assessment ◽  
Trade Union Movement ◽  
Labour Movement ◽  
Trade Unionism ◽  
Union Movement ◽  
Union Leadership ◽  
Union Leaders ◽  
Labour Legislation ◽  
Depth Interviews

We discuss in this study the problems of mobilization and effectiveness faced by Kenyan trade unions. In a country with high levels of unemployment and weak labour legislation, it is imperative that the labour movement devise ways of remaining relevant and effective. We combine in-depth interviews with a qualitative assessment of secondary documents on trade unions in Kenya. We do this by looking at topics addressed, characterizations of unions as well as major actors such as union leaders, workers, and political leaders. We argue that labour leaders need to enrich their vocabularies of persuasion in order to neutralize the current discourses around trade unionism in Kenya. Such an approach would enable the union leadership to acquire new repertoires of action to enhance their capacity to mobilize.

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