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Industrialization in capitalist societies ushered in the growth of trade unions and the development of union activities of industrial workers. In the late eighteenth and the early nineteenth centuries in the West when unionism began, trade unions took diverse forms. These forms varied by society and were significantly influenced by the country’s specific historical background and socioeconomic and cultural conditions. Yet such diverse union structures began to merge into “industrial unionism” in the late nineteenth century, which embraced all types of workers within the boundaries of an industry. Industrial unionism has been considered the organizational form that most effectively ensures the collective power of trade unions and their sociopolitical sway over contending forces, notably, the state and employers’ associations, and thus has remained a prototypical union system. Accordingly, nonwestern societies and latecomers to unionism in the West have modeled their unions on the basis of the industrial union structure.

The nature of work has changed in the past 30 years but we do not know what these changes have meant for worker job stress. In this chapter we compare data from three surveys of the quality of work life from 1972 to 2002. At the most general level, work today is less stressful than it was in 1972. Workers report fewer job demands, more decision latitude, less job strain, more job security and greater access to job resources and job support. However, these changes have not affected all workers equally. Women, those with less education, non self-employed workers, blue collar workers and workers in manufacturing industries showed the greatest decreases in job stress although levels of job stress remain higher than for comparison groups (men, college educated, white collar, service workers). Changes were not always linear across time suggesting that some aspects of job strain are sensitive to economic cycles.

This study explores the representation of identity groups and their interests within the labor movement using lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) individuals as my case group. The goal is to provide new knowledge about how national and international unions in the United States are responding to sexual orientation. Data on the official polices of the 13 largest national and international unions was collected through a telephone survey of union staff and officials possessing specialized knowledge about their unions’ responses to sexual diversity.

The data collected here was used to test whether structural and demographic arguments regarding union responsiveness to LGBT issues explain the divergences in union initiatives to recognize sexual diversity. The results of this study confirmed earlier research that structural and demographic variables do matter but revealed that it is necessary to go beyond these variables to more fully explain variation in union responses to sexual diversity. Future research needs to explore other factors involving collective agency, history, ideology, and so on and the differences between the social movement unionism rooted in old class politics and one more influenced by the new social movements to understand why unions such as Service Employees International Union (SEIU) are the most responsive to minorities and the most successful in changing union culture as well as practice.

Labor movements have played a central role in promoting democracy, the expansion of welfare states, and improvements in working conditions in many regions of the world during the last century (Jose, 2002). Despite the central social, political and economic role of labor movements, labor union memberships have declined in many world regions during the last quarter-century. Labor union memberships have declined with increasing global economic competition and capital mobility, the advent of neo-liberal macroeconomic policies, privatization of public services, changes in production technology, the substitution of casual, flexible and contingent employment arrangements for formal, bureaucratic internal labor markets, the restructuring of national economies from manufacturing to services, and mounting employer resistance to unionization (Clawson & Clawson, 1999; Cornfield & Fletcher, 2001; Griffin et al., 1990; Jose, 2002; Olney, 1996; Western, 1997, 1998).

Social democratic unionism has arguably been one of the most successful worker organisations in modern history. Through collective bargaining and political influence, this type of unionism has been effective in redistributing the gains from capitalist markets. This paper reviews the challenges, pathways and dilemmas social democratic unions face in the knowledge economy. Similar to industrialisation, the knowledge economy has the potential to fundamentally change the social fabric that trade unions derive their power resources from. There are three major and interrelated challenges: (1) technological change and the knowledge economy, (2) new socio-political coalitions and (3) keeping employers in. Focussing on Denmark and Sweden, it is argued that these three challenges strike the core of social democratic unionism, as they can undermine the ability to encompass the whole labour market because of polarisation or upgrading of jobs. The paper goes on to outline three possible pathways: ‘going radical’, ‘going academic’ and ‘going old-school’. ‘Going radical’ entails a sharper focus on fighting precarious work with other regulatory means other than collective bargaining. ‘Going academic’ entails a focus on education and lifting all occupational groups. ‘Going old-school’ entails adapting the principle of collective bargaining to new types of companies and occupations while sticking to the regulatory means as before. It is argued that none of the strategies is a silver bullet to the challenges, but that a key to the success of any of the strategies is that minimum wage levels are defended, as this will fuel investment in education for lower-paid work.

Purpose – The goal of this chapter is to explore whether variation in the distribution of union members across the income distribution affects the role of unions in redistributive politics.

Design/methodology/approach – The conceptual part of the study provides a theoretical motivation for disaggregating organized labor by income. The empirical part uses European Social Survey data for 15 West European countries 2006–2008 to describe the composition of union membership by income across countries and to explore, in a preliminary fashion, the implications of where union members are located in the income distribution for social protection and redistribution.

Findings – In most countries, workers with incomes above the median are better organized than workers below the median and the income of the median union member exceeds the income of the median voter. The political implications of the overrepresentation of relatively well-off workers depend on the mechanism of preference aggregation within unions and the influence of unions in the policymaking process. While leaving a thorough examination of these issues for future research, we present descriptive regression results suggesting that the membership composition of unions by income is related to income inequality and redistribution but not social insurance.

Originality/value of paper – This is the first comparative study to map the distribution of union members across the income distribution and to examine the implications of compositional variation by income for redistributive politics.

In recent years, the long-declining U.S. labor movement has refocused in new and promising ways on rank-and-file mobilization, in organizing drives, collective bargaining conflicts and political campaigns. Such efforts are widely viewed as the best hope for revitalizing the labor movement: breathing new life into tired old unions, winning organizing drives and raising membership levels, increasing political influence, pushing toward the power necessary to reform labor law and ineffective labor institutions. The stakes are high and the goals ambitious: to close the “representation gap” at the workplace, reverse growing economic and social inequality, and build new coalitions for expanded democratic participation in local, national and global politics.

The new economic-policy regime in Sweden in the 1990s included deregulation, central-bank independence, inflation targets and fiscal rules but also active labour market policy and voluntary incomes policy. This chapter describes the content, determinants and performance of the new economic policy in Sweden in a comparative, mainly Nordic, perspective. The new economic-policy regime is explained by the deep recession and budget crisis in the early 1990s, new economic ideas and the power of economic experts. In the 1998–2007 period, Sweden displayed relatively low inflation and high productivity growth, but unemployment was high, especially by national standards. The restrictive monetary policy was responsible for the low inflation, and the dynamic (ICT) sector was decisive for the productivity miracle. Furthermore, productivity increases in the ICT sector largely explains why the Central Bank undershot its inflation target in the late 1990s and early 2000s. The new economic-policy regime in Sweden performed well during the global financial crisis. However, as in other OECD countries, the moderate increase in unemployment was largely attributed to labour hoarding. And the rapid recovery of the Baltic countries made it possible for Sweden to avoid a bank crisis.

Purpose – Ascertaining the extent to which the generalized decline in union density, as well as the erosion in centralized bargaining structures and developments in other labor institutions, have contributed to rising within-country inequality.

Methodology – Econometric analysis of a newly developed dataset combining information on industrial relations and labor law, various dimensions of globalization, and controls for demand and supply of skilled labor for 51 Advanced, Central and Eastern European, Latin American, and Asian countries from the late 1980s to the early 2000s, followed by an analysis of 16 advanced countries over a longer time frame (from the late 1970s to the early 2000s).

Findings – In contrast to previous research, which finds labor institutions to be important determinants of more egalitarian wage or income distributions, the chapter finds that trade unionism and collective bargaining are no longer significantly associated with within-country inequality, except in the Central and Eastern European countries. These findings are interpreted as the result of trade unionism operating under more stringent structural constraints than in the past, partly as a result of globalization trends. In addition, despite much talk about welfare state crisis, welfare states, historically the result of labor's power and mobilization capacity, still play an important redistributive role, at least in advanced countries.

Practical implications – Union attempts at equalizing incomes by compressing market earnings seem ineffective and impractical in the current day and age. Unions should seek to increase the workers’ skill levels and promote an egalitarian transformation of the workplace. This type of “supply-side” egalitarianism is not a new strategy for unions, but is very much embedded in the unions’ DNA.

Network approaches to understanding the recruitment of social movement adherents and their involvement in collective action have proven highly useful, especially when established personal and organizational networks are considered important. Yet how networks evolve — which greatly affects whether they significantly influence social movements — has been understudied. This article uses comparative, empirical research to analyze organizational network formation (here, networks connecting unions, not interpersonal networks) by the attempts of Korean white-collar unions to intensify interunion solidarity. Networks are created by organizers' tactical efforts — based on participants' endorsement — to elevate the collective power of their movements. My analysis reveals that successful networks feature moderate organizational leadership centralization and intervention in the activities of discrete unions. Such leadership best promotes a democratic network structure and directs coalition efforts — two, mutually conflicting, requirements for effective networks. Excessive leadership centralization and decentralization equally attenuate network cohesion and effectiveness. The former impedes internal organizational democracy, whereas the latter hinders interorganizational coalition.