Reconstructing solidarity - Labour Unions, Precarious Work, and the Politics of Institutional Change in Europe

Work is widely thought to have become more precarious. Many people feel that unions represent the interests of protected workers in good jobs at the expense of workers with insecure employment, low pay, and less generous benefits. Reconstructing Solidarity: Labour Unions, Precarious Work, and the Politics of Institutional Change in Europe argues the opposite: that unions try to represent precarious workers using a variety of creative campaigning and organizing tactics.

Where unions can limit employers' ability to 'exit' labour market institutions and collective agreements, and build solidarity across different groups of workers, this results in a virtuous circle, establishing union control over the labour market. Where they fail to do so, it sets in motion a vicious circle of expanding precarity based on institutional evasion by employers. Reconstructing Solidarity examines how unions build, or fail to build, inclusive worker solidarity to challenge this vicious circle and to re-regulate increasingly precarious jobs. Comparative case studies from fourteen European countries describe the struggles of workers and unions in industries such as local government, retail, music, metalworking, chemicals, meat packing, and logistics. Their findings argue against the thesis that unions act primarily to protect labour market insiders at the expense of outsiders.

1: From dualization to solidarity: Halting the cycle of precarity, Virginia Doellgast, Nathan Lillie, and Valeria Pulignano
2: Negotiating better conditions for workers during austerity in Europe: Unions' local strategies towards low pay and outsourcing in local government, Damian Grimshaw, Stefania Marino, Dominique Anxo, Jerome Gautié, László Neumann and Claudia Weinkopf
3: Cutting to the bone: Workers' solidarity in the Danish-German slaughterhouse industry, Ines Wagner and Bjarke Refslund
4: Restructuring labour relations and employment in the European logistics sector: Unions' responses to a segmented workforce, Carlotta Benvegnú, Bettina Haidinger, and Devi Sacchetto
5: Labour markets, solidarity and precarious work: Comparing local unions' responses to management flexibility strategies in the German and Belgian metalworking and chemical industries, Valeria Pulignano and Nadja Doerflinger
6: The political economy of agency work in Italy and Germany: Explaining diverging trajectories in collective bargaining outcomes, Chiara Benassi and Lisa Dorigatti
7: Union campaigns against precarious work in the retail sector of Estonia, Poland, and Slovenia, Adam Mrozowicki, Branko Bembic, Kairit Kall, Malgorzata Maciejewska, and Miroslav Stanojevic
8: Better strategies for herding cats? Forms of solidarity among freelance musicians in London, Paris and Ljubljana, Ian Greer, Barbara Samaluk, and Charles Umney
9: Fighting precariousness: Union strategies towards migrant workers in the UK, France, and Germany, Maite Tapia and Jane Holgate
10: Unions and Migrant Workers: The Perspective of Estonians in Finland and Albanians in Italy and Greece, Sonila Danaj, Erka Caro, Laura Mankki, Markku Sippola, and Nathan Lillie
11: Conclusions. The Puzzle of Precarity: Structure, Strategies, and Worker Solidarity, Steven Vallas