Defending the organisation, not the members
Unions and the reform of job security legislation inWesternEurope
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 6258530 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Johan Bo Davidsson (0000-0002-6000-2177, Lund University, corresponding author), Patrick Emmenegger (0000-0002-5231-6272, University of St.Gallen) |
| Year | 2013 |
| Volume | 52 |
| Issue | 3 |
| Pages | 339-363 |
| Publication date | 2013-05-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | European Journal of Political Research (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0304-4130 • E-ISSN: 1475-6765 |
| Publisher | Wiley (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1111/j.1475-6765.2012.02073.x |
| OpenAlex | W1707527721 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 38 |
| References cited | 24 |
European labour markets are often described as rigid with comparatively high levels of job protection that do not allow for the flexible adjustment of employment to economic fluctuations. This interpretation overlooks important sources of flexibility, however. Research has shown that recent labour market policy reforms have allowed for the creation of two‐tier labour markets consisting of insiders in standard employment relationships and outsiders in non‐standard employment. This outcome has typically been explained by pointing to the representational interests of unions or social‐democratic parties. It has been argued that rather than protecting all labour market participants, unions and social‐democratic parties focus on the interests of their members and their core constituency, respectively, most of whom are in standard employment relationships. In contrast, it is argued here that unions' institutional power resources are the crucial variable explaining this outcome. In difficult economic times, when unions are asked to make concessions, they will assent to labour market reforms, but only to those that do not fundamentally threaten to undermine their organisational interests. In the context of job security legislation, this means that unions defend the protection of permanent contracts while they compromise on the regulation of temporary employment. This ‘second best solution’ allows them to protect their organisational interests, both by retaining their institutional role in the administration of dismissals and by living up to their institutional role as one of the organisations responsible for the direction of labour market policy reform. UsingfsQCAthis article shows that unions' institutional power resources are more apt to explain the observed two‐tier reform pattern than the unions' or the social‐democratic parties' representational interests
Business · Compromise · Context (archaeology · Democracy · Economic growth · Economics · Employment protection legislation · Flexibility (engineering · Job security · Labour economics · Labour law · Legislation · Market economy · Political science · Politics · Power (physics · Social security · Unemployment · European Union Policy and Governance · Labor Movements and Unions · Law · Social Policy and Reform Studies
When weak governments confront inclusive trade unions
The Politics of the Basic Income Guarantee
Employment stability and decent work
The importance of legal strength for trade unions
Who Wants to Work More? Multilevel Study on Underemployment of Working Mothers in 22 European Countries
Three dimensions of institutional contention
The political economy of individual-level support for the basic income in Europe
Learning under pressure
Political actors, public opinion and the extension of welfare coverage
The political economy of labor market deregulation during IMF interventions
Governing policy expansion in a collective skill formation system
Dualization and the access to occupational family‐friendly working‐time arrangements across Europe
Inclusive Unions in a Dualized Labour Market? The Challenge of Organizing Labour Market Policy and Social Protection for Labour Market Outsiders
Labour market liberalization and the rise of dualism in Europe as the interplay between governments, trade unions and the economy
Labor union, between group inequality, and individual attitudes toward redistribution
The Politics of Job Security Regulations in Western Europe
Errors have been made, others will be blamed
Like worker, like union? Labor market risk exposure, white-collar predominance and trade unions' policy advocacy
Labor market institutions, the insider/outsider divide and social inequalities in employment in affluent countries
Social inclusion in the knowledge economy
Problems and Solutions in the Knowledge Economy
A Strike against the Left
Redistributing under fiscal constraint
The limits of decentralized cooperation
The impact of Populist Radical Right Parties on socio-economic policies
The partisan politics of employment protection legislation
Setting the terms of state intervention
Still Lost in Translation! A Correction of Three Misunderstandings Between Configurational Comparativists and Regressional Analysts
Trade Unions in Segmented Labor Markets
Welfare Benefits and Unemployment in Affluent Democracies
Labour market reforms, institutional complementarity and the insider-outsider wage gap
The space for challenge in transnational education governance
Trade unions and labour market dualisation
Fuzzy Multiple Attribute Conditions in fsQCA
Dualized Labor Market and Polarized Health
Temporary Employment, Employee Representation, and Employer-Paid Training
Expanding Welfare State Borders
New Forms of Dualization? Labour Market Segmentation Patterns in the UK from the Late 90s Until the Post-crisis in the Late 2000s
Dualism and discontinuity in industrial societies
Redesigning Social Inquiry
National Labour Relations in Internationalized Markets
Party Policy in Modern Democracies
Institutions and Social Conflict
The Regulation of Labor
The Political Economy of Two-tier Reforms of Employment Protection in Europe
Development and Crisis of the Welfare State
The New Politics of the Welfare State
Social Democracy Inside Out
The Logic of Collective Action
The Political Economy of Employment Protection
Power and Political Institutions
Beyond corporatism
The Politics of Retrenchment in a Social Democratic Welfare State
Power in International Politics
Heroic Defeats
Coming to Grips with a Changing Class Structure
Assessing the Robustness of Crisp-set and Fuzzy-set QCA Results
Institutionalizing Dualism
Standards of Good Practice in Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA) and Fuzzy-Sets
| Unique citing works | 38 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 3,45 |
| Citation span | 2015 - 2026 (12) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 38 |